From the first day on earth every child is plugged into mom and dad to meet all their needs. There is a network of invisible wires connecting us to our children. Our task as a Christian parent is to carefully unplug this network of invisible wires connecting them with us and then reconnect them to the Lord.
It’s when they move out and get their own place, when they go to college or get married. Somewhere along the line they must unplug from you and start the process of connecting to GOD.
That’s really what Christian parenting is all about. Teaching our children to become independently dependent on Jesus Christ.
Our kids can only hitchhike off our values for so long. Ultimately they must take ownership of their OWN values and beliefs.
Part of teaching our children to obey Christ is teaching them how to take their worries, their fears and their emotions to the Lord. Every parent will have those precious “teachable moments” when we can direct our children’s fears and emotions to the Lord.
It may come in the middle of a late-night thunderstorm or when your child comes into the bedroom afraid of the storm. It may come when a parent prepares to leave on a business trip and a child expresses concern over your safe return. It might even be with the kids hear mom and dad arguing and need be assured that everything is OK.
God gives parents those opportunities to teach and relieve their fears. The goal is that they will learn that even if we, as their parents, can’t relieve their fears, God will. Our goal as parents should be to have our children become LESS and LESS dependent on us and more and more dependent on Christ!