When Your Kids Make Bad Decisions

Trying to raise Christian kids sure doesn’t mean perfect kids- unless you’ve got a brand of Christianity that the rest of us don’t know about- or you’re raising inauthentic kids who will leave the faith as soon as they get out of the house.

For you new parents, stew on that for a while. Roll it around in your head. Sit with it. Then mourn that fact. Your kids are going to disappoint you.

They’re going to fumble the football, make terrible choices, possibly break your heart, have painful consequences, screw up, mess up, not love the Lord- whatever you want to call it, it’s going to happen.

Let me write again: It’s going to happen.

The question is: Will you know about it?

Will they tell you? Will you be in the loop?

My fellow fathers: That is the victory. That is what we want. Kids who talk to us and tell us the truth. No matter what it is.

It may be gut-wrenching to hear, but you want to hear the truth, don’t you? Your communication with your kids- especially into the high school years, should be like a four-lane highway of traffic, coming and going all day and all night. Good, bad, ugly, excellent, okay, heartbreaking, decent. Everything.

And…when they tell you, you cannot shame them or punish them for doing so. You can, but it will destroy the trust equity between you two. They’ll never tell you something bad again. You’re going to have to grit your teeth and bear it and say,

“Thank you for telling me. I love you and I’ll always be proud of you.”

That’s the secret sauce to excellent fathering and close relationships with your kids: You having the humility to keep your mouth shut and say “I see you. I love you and I still accept you.”

You can throw Bible verses at them, put them in a Christian school, take away screens, lock them up in church, stuff Christian Rap tapes in their Easter baskets and not let them listen to Run DMC and Motley Cru (oops that’s what happened to me). Trust me, guys. My parents were well-meaning, but it didn’t work.

You cannot force-feed devotion to Jesus to your kids. You can force-feed religion, but you know that’s an entirely different thing and not what we’re going for.

The key to helping our kids follow Jesus is to be like Jesus to them. See them. Forgive them. Accept them. Tell them you’re still proud of them. Tell them that nothing they ever do will make you stop loving them or being proud of them.

It’s okay to not like the decision they made. Just make sure they don’t think you don’t like them.

Trust God with your kids. Keep the four-lane highway wide open.

And be Jesus when their decisions disappoint you.

“I see you. love you. And I still accept you.”

Keep up the good work, Dads!

-TF