My kids are going back to school today. For them the summer was a time to take a break from learning–they can relax and rejuvenate before they go back to an intense and focused time of discovery. But for me the summer was just the opposite. It has been a time for amazing learning and, I hope, some growth as a parent.

It started a few months back when John, sort of in passing, talked about the need for a parent to “parent to the new nature of their kids.” What? I thought about this statement for about a month or more and it didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t know what he meant by “new nature” and I certainly didn’t know any other way to parent then the way I was doing it. But then a few things started to dawn on me.

The first is that both my children, who have given their lives to Christ, are new creations in Him. This concept blew me away because I always thought that it was only adults with adult problems, who became new creations. But my kids are new creations too.

Then I remembered what Bill says about how we aren’t sinners who also happen to be saints, but we are saints that sin. The operative idea here being that we are saints first and sinners second. And it’s not that we are sinners, as if that is part and parcel of our being—we are entirely and completely saints, through and through. It’s just that we sin too. But our sin doesn’t change who we are in Christ. I never thought of applying these concepts to my little saints.

The final piece of the puzzle was the idea that my sin doesn’t stand between me and Christ, but Christ stands beside me, with His arm around me as we face my sin together. I love this image. It has helped me immensely as I think about my relationship with Jesus. And it got me thinking that if Jesus is willing to take that posture with me, maybe I could try to take that same posture with my kids.

OK, so three big concepts all come together and here’s what it has meant as I parent. The first is that I have to acknowledge my kids as little believers in Christ and recognize they are fully and completely redeemed no mater how they behave (which sometimes is a real challenge). The second is that they are little saints first who happen to sin too. What that means tangibly is that when I correct them for some crazy thing that they are doing, I’m not trying to correct someone who is fundamentally bad, but someone who is a new creation because of what Christ did on the cross. The final thing is that when they do blow it, I try not to let what they are doing stand between them and me, but I come alongside them and we look at what they are doing together, side by side.

Again this is new stuff for me—something that I have only been thinking about and trying to practice this summer. But I think it is making a difference in the lives of my kids, and it has certainly made a difference in me, on how I parent and in how I view them. Who said summer isn’t a time for learning?

Filed under: PARENTING by toben