Parenting with Purpose | Dana C. Baldwin

Introduction

Diana Baumrind is not a name you should know unless you are in the field of family development. For almost three decades Diana Baumrind has spent her time looking at families. She has interviewed, observed, and written about families. Her desire has been to discover what factors are important in helping parents raise competent children. Competency is measured socially, cognitively (or thinking ability), academically, and emotionally. Her findings have been debated but rarely ignored. Baumrind’s work focuses on what she terms “parenting styles.” This is a type of parenting skills employed in the raising of children. She noted that three elements are involved in raising children.

The first is parental warmth. She uses this term to describe not only an emotional response to the child, but the parents awareness and responsiveness to the child’s needs and desires.

Second is demandingness or behavioral control. This element refers to the demands that parents make on children to obey, to be mature, and to be part of the family, that is to fit in with the family rules and expectations.

The third element is called psychological autonomy. This refers to the willingness of parents to allow their children to be independent in thought, actions, and feelings. That is that children are allowed to think differently from parents, feel differently and even to act differently although this independence is tempered by the second element of behavioral control.

What Baumrind found was that parents who are high in warmth, high in demandingness, and high in allowing independence have children who are better adjusted academically, socially, emotionally, and cognitively. What she also discovered is that most parents have no idea how to parent using these three elements. Most parents fly by the seat of their pants. She discovered that most parents follow styles passed on to them from their own parents or consciously decided to choose a different parenting style most often giving up rigidity for a more carefree atmosphere. This rebelliousness in parenting was often damaging to the children.

There is much to learn from Baumrind’s research. But the overwhelming factor which should make us sit up and take notice is the lack of intentionality in raising our children. Baumrind noticed that too many parents took their roles seriously but also failed to think through what it meant to parent with goals and intentions clearly in mind. Psychological studies are interesting. They give us insight to our culture and our own cultural values. But as Christians there is a higher standard than our own culture. God has something to say about parenting. The Bible is not written as a resource for parenting skills, but as we shall see, God did provide us with insight in Parenting with Purpose.

God’s Design

God gave children parents for a reason. Parents exist for more reasons than simply providing life’s necessities for children. In our text, God calls on parents to develop a deep convicted love for him and in that deep, passionate conviction to make sure that our children know God as well. Our job as parents is to give our children the opportunity to know God and to love him as we know and love him. We cannot demand that they love God; we can as parents provide opportunity for them to love God. But in order to do this we cannot haphazardly approach our responsibilities as parents with a carefree attitude and hope that our kids will somehow love God too.

There is not a cause and effect relationship between our love for God and our teaching our children about God as well. It would be wrong to suggest that how much we love God determines how much we teach our children. The Bible is filled with examples of men and women who loved God but who didn’t take the time to teach their children. David immediately comes to mind. A man who loved God with an intense and deep love, but most of his children demonstrate a lack of love for God. But it would be right to say that there is a connection between our love for God and our teaching our children. When we love God we want our children to know the one that we love. How does it happen that a person can love God and yet not be concerned about teaching their child about God? Lack of intentionality.

There may be all kind of reasons for lack of intentionality. We may be too busy, too distracted, too confused, too carefree. Whatever the reason, unless we as parents keep in mind what our task is, then we will not teach. That’s the idea of intentionality. As parents we cannot be passive about what our kids do or where they go or their interests. We see our time with our children as opportunities to teach. But we will only do that when we approach our responsibility as parents with intentionality. Look closely at the text. Each day presents the opportunity to teach. Each situation provides an opportunity to teach. But as parents we have to be looking for those situations. We have to be willing to express our own love for God so that our children can love him too.

Intentionality

So how do we do that? How do we teach our children about our love for God and about the ways of God? Before we answer that pertinent question let me say one thing—there are no guarantees. Certainly there are things that a parent can do which will greatly increase the likelihood of loving God and there are things which will certainly decrease the likelihood of loving God, but there are no guarantees. You can do all the right things and your children can still choose to not love God. Some of you today suffer from a chronic condition of a broken heart. You are broken over the choices your children have made. You have wept, prayed, begged, pleaded, and cajoled, but the results are the same. Your child doesn’t know God. You are proof that there are no guarantees. All I can say is to keep praying and weeping. As long as there is breath in your body and in the body of your child there is hope.

There are, however, some things we can do which will increase the likelihood that our children will love God. These are evident from Deuteronomy 6. The first is to spend time with your children. Our culture is different than that of the time of Deuteronomy 6. Our children by and large are educated by others; they do not till the soil or work in the shops with us. Our time with our children is less than at the time of Moses. All the more reason to give yourself over to time with the children. This is how a child spells love: T-I-M-E. There is no substitute.

Second, during this time you will talk about anything and everything. This is especially true with small children. No subject is off limits. Money, friends, God, sex, the subject doesn’t matter. Our children look to us to explain life to them. Our children use us to bounce off ideas. We are the sounding board. Embarrassment or reluctance means that our children will seek out others to tell them about life. While no subject is off limits make sure that every discussion includes how it relates to how you love God. You see the key is to relate life to your faith. The key is to make sure that your children know that you love God and that your answers, reasons, and thoughts come from your relationship with God. There is no substitute for time and for purpose. Our children will see what we value when we spend time with them and explain that our faith gives us purpose and meaning for life.

This isn’t easy. It takes intentionality. It means turning off the television. It means not missing a ballgame. It means making sure that you sit down to dinner together. It means that you spend time throwing a ball or having a tea party or baking or cleaning house together. It means that few things must divert your attention from the matter at hand—helping your children know the God you love.

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