So let’s talk about some steps that we could take in the moment that will help this character come back.
The first thing is I pray for you in a tag team situation. But if you’re a single mom, or single dad, that’s okay. These steps absolutely apply to you. The first step to take as a parent in those moments is to forego emotions and quick responses.
Our natural reaction in the middle of one of those moments is panic, right? But what if instead, we practice? First, the presence of God in that moment—he is with us in that and sometimes the best thing we can do is close our mouths, and not respond quickly.
Ask for time—a lot of times while my kids were growing up, I needed time to separate myself from the moment that we were in. So the best thing that I could say was, I’m going to need you to go to your room for a few minutes and sit on your bed, and I’ll be up there in a couple of minutes.
And then I would spend time praying and asking the Lord like, what’s the heart issue that’s going on here. And this is a really biblical response—to take a moment and calculate your response. Proverbs 17:28 says, even a fool is thought wise when he holds his tongue.
I love that. So sometimes the most wise thing we can do is to hold our tongue. And proverbs 29:11 says, a fool gives full vent to his anger. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are times when we will want to blow our tops, like when our kids have done something that misrepresents who we are as a family, or feels like betrayal.
As a parent, all of those things are natural, and there will be a time to work through them. It’s usually not in that first moment. So the first is to forego emotions and quick responses. The second thing to do is what I did, which is pray, pray, pray, pray in that moment, even if you can’t move out of the situation, but ask God for wisdom. He is always with you.
We cannot clean up anything that we do not know about, or that isn’t brought to our attention. This is an opportunity for your child to make the next step forward, a Godly one. And so let’s just pray and offer this situation to the Lord and then dive in.
The third thing to do is care more about their character in those early moments than the consequences. Remember, our child’s greatest need is always Jesus, and their greatest sin is always against him.
I always remember thinking when I read the Psalms, the psalm where David’s repenting, he says against you, and you only have I sinned. And I remember reading that and thinking, no, his sin was also against Bathsheba, it was also against Uriah. It was also against all the other people, the people that were in battle with him, the people of the land, and what Gods actually bring into our mind is, yes, there’s sin against those people, too.
But we need to own that the first problem that we have is with our heavenly Father. And we need to clear that up first. So in those moments, we need to look at these character failures. And we need to say, this is more about tending my child’s character than it is about quickly issuing consequences.
And one of the ways that we get to the bottom of the character issues is by asking good questions, because we need to understand where the misunderstanding about who God is, and what he expects of us is.
That leads us right into our next point, which is to guide our children to repentance. They need to understand that their sin is against God, and what the root issue is. So if they were lying, do they understand that this was a sin because God is the God of truth, and his expectation for our child is truthfulness? Is it selfishness that at the bottom they took something that didn’t belong to them? Or maybe they put their needs ahead of their brothers and sisters.
And so we need to help them understand that God says do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider others better than yourself.
Looking for other resources on shaping your children’s character?
‘Meet them with Jesus’: Responding Biblically to Our Kids’ Problems
