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Bad boy?


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Coming soon to our website, Peace in the Home's listing of morally-safe movies and videos for pre-teen and younger children.  If you want it now, please send us an email, and we'll blast back the listing in .pdf format.  We think you'll find it helpful in choosing family-friendly movies to watch with your kids.


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Who We Are

Who We Are

Peace in the Home, Inc. is a non-profit organization devoted to healthy family relationships.  We exist to strengthen, equip, support, and bring healing to marriages and families.

We're a group of ordinary men and women who love God's design for marriage, parenting, and relationships, and enjoy communicating it in compelling ways.

"Am I really a bad boy?"

The paparazzi flashes, and they think that it's you,

but they don't know that who you are is not what you do.
                                                                            ~Tobymac

Part of having a family ministry these days is living with an ongoing tension between what we know marriages and families need, and witnessing what many in our society are doing to weaken the home.

I heard a troubling piece on public radio a few weeks ago.  It was troubling not only because of the misinformation it conveyed on human sexuality, but also because of the values it communicated on marriage, parenting, and gender.  Here was a wife and mother, positioned as the rational voice of a family, encouraging her young son to dress and act like a girl, even wanting to rename him, while berating her husband on national radio as "homophobic" for not going along for the ride.  While NPR feasted on the obvious discord in the marriage, the victim is the already gender-confused son who is receiving radically different messages from dad and mom.  What a mess.

So today, because it's been on my heart, I wanted to get you thinking about identity and behaviour from a parenting perspective.

Behaviour is what we do.  It's either how we choose to act, or how we've learned to act, in all of our life contexts.  Our most significant non-academic learning takes place growing up in our families of origin.  It's there we learn how to walk and talk; stumble and listen; interrupt and avoid.  Thankfully, with guidance and perseverance, behaviour is adjustable.

Our identity, however, is something quite different.  Identity is who we are, who we were created to be, and how we see ourselves.  Identity includes a few changeable components like name and nationality, but most are immutable like our gender, our physical attributes, and our basic temperament and bents.

What happens when parents confuse identity with behaviour?

I caught myself saying: "You're a bad girl!" to five-year-old Leah earlier this week.  Whenever I say it, it's an emotional response to unacceptable behaviour in my young son or one of my daughters.  It just springs off my tongue and sneaks just far enough past my lips that I can't take it back.  In addition to being a parental form of name calling, it's an example of confusing identity with behavior.

As parents, when we confuse who a child is with what she is doing, we can hurt her, and we dishonour the one whose image she bears.

Instead, we want to make sure we focus on changing unwanted or unhealthy behaviours in our children, while continually affirming who they are.  eg.  "I love you no matter what (identity), but you made a bad choice (behaviour)"

Your youngest may have wandered off the property; your daughter may have spilled grape soda on the new sofa; your son may have fed the contents of the fridge to the dog; or your teenager may have backed into a pole with the new car.  But, for the sake of these relationships, we need to respond tenderly and appropriately when being tender and appropriate is the furthest thing from our minds.

"Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged."     ~ Colossians 3:21

This verse strikes at the heart of a common relational need.  Men who tend to overpower through anger, or who seek compliance over emotional connection, need godly support and guidance in order to raise children who are open to loving God.

I know a man named Jim.  He's one in a family of eight children.  As a young boy, Jim's father made a habit of speaking harshly to him, or silently with the back of his hand.  In his father's eyes, Jim could do nothing right -- certainly nothing worthy of his affirmation and blessing.  Since those early days, Jim has never been able to rise above his father's criticisms, and has been in trouble with the law off and on since his pre-teen years.  People who are unaware of the family history wonder how one child out of eight could go so wrong.  Jim's mother knows.

Parenting is such a high, high responsibility and privilege.  Melissa reminds me of that when I slip into self-absorption or get frustrated with the kids.  I remind her of it when she gets overwhelmed with the stuff-of-life.

The value of human life comes not from culture, nor from individual choices, but from God's image that inheres in every person's immortal soul.        ~ Gene Edward Veith
                                               
Our attitude toward parenting ought to reflect God's heart.  Genesis teaches parenting was intended as an integral part of his original blessing for humanity through marriage.  Scripture affirms that children, born or yet unborn, are precious gifts of immeasurable value.  The more "arrows" or "olive shoots" one has, the greater the blessing.  Regardless of into what setting or circumstance a child is born, there is nothing else in all of creation that holds more worth to God.  We only have to lose sight of a son or daughter momentarily in a crowded store, or to lose one of them altogether, to have that worth brought into crystal clear focus.

Jim's father, now deceased, might not have intended to hurt his son, but he did.  God may still redeem Jim's situation, but at least one father has missed his opportunity to show his child a glimpse of what God looks like.

Those of us who still have kids at home have an opportunity to give our children a better glimpse of the "lover of their souls".  One way is by focusing on shaping their behaviour, while reminding each one of them that they are precious, valued and important.

Blessings on your home,
rgp

Some questions to ponder ...
1. What happens to your emotional meter when your child misbehaves?

2. Does what you do and say in emotionally-charged situations reflect the value God places on each one of your children?

3. What might you try doing differently to decrease the emotional distance between you and your son or daughter?

4. How, and how soon, do you get right with your children after you've reacted in a less than helpful way to their behaviour?