To today’s school-age parent: How much “hard” do I let into my child’s life?

Entire series: {PART 1} {PART 2} {PART 3} {PART 4} {PART 5} {PART 6} {PART 7}

For some parents in overwhelming life circumstances, the headline is not their question at all. They don’t ask a question assuming control or ‘management’ but cry out for the Lord’s in-breaking care and rescue, “Save my child even if you don’t save me!” To you, I just speak God’s grace into what you’re living, and I assure you as you cry out to Him – He cares and you are a good, loving parent pursuing your child’s best good!

Others might ask why I ask such a thing as this headline does. Of course, a good parent would spare his child pain or “hard” that he could. I would say, of course a good parent would want to because love is kind, but love is also long-suffering and wise. In that, love can sometimes see a greater good or life beyond the pain and the moment.

I’d like to ask if we can pursue that thought for a moment. It extends what we’ve been considering about wisdom beyond today’s feeling, as well as joy and good for my child which can go beyond happiness in the moment with today’s desires and today’s perspective.

First step, consider – How much “hard” do I really have control of for my child, and for that matter, in my own life? If I think I have that control for me, I might well be tempted to pursue it for my child as well. For me, life sorts out a bit more like this: “hard” and hurt come whether I like it or choose it or not. What I get to try to pick is how I respond. I say “try” because that’s a course of its own about how I grow in character and strength to actually make choices of response, rather than just going with the reactive feeling that comes on me.

Sticking with the question at hand, I’ll focus on what I choose to do in my child’s life relative to their real pain and, more often, their thwarted desires which they think is pain, and maybe I do, too. What they wanted and didn’t get is not a definition for pain or hurt or hard. That’s the point where I can quickly get off track, and stay wrong from then on.

A desire doesn’t have to be wrong for its failed realization to still be good for me. I can want something that is perfectly ok to want. If, though, I get everything I want, I will most assuredly end up spoiled and soured and good for little but my next want. That’s true for me and true for my child.

Let’s turn to a few scriptures on this. Listen with context to Paul in Romans 5:3-5: “ More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. “

It is, very honestly, quite difficult to parent by the deepest truths of salvation and life in the Lord, or at least I have often found it so. That’s not where my heart and mind sometimes are when I’m stretched and stressed by my child’s pain and also by my child’s self-focused persistence for desires, wishes and wants. It is a little easier to deflect selfishness from my child, knowing that to serve it is bound to hurt him or her. But, what about in times of fairly real pain for my child? Even then, is there an element of deep gospel truth which speaks to the situation and my response, rather than just a spirit of rescue?

I do think it’s relatively rare when wise and loving parenting would have us bring pain into our children’s lives for their good. We’re not appointed their tormentors. Rare, but it does happen that we bring them pain for their good. I’m not for now, though, mostly considering those times where we really are in control of the pain coming in. Instead, I’m talking about when we see the pain and the “hard” enter, and we must decide what to do about it.

I think there are times, like Paul’s “thorn…in the flesh” of 2 Corinthians 12, that we are fully released to ask God’s healing or deliverance or intervention in circumstances where we can’t make the pain go away. You know with that example what the rest of the story is, though. God is even freer to have His choice for our good and His greater will not to remove that “thorn”. His gracious, loving message to me may well be “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  And my even harder growth in faith may be that the same is true for my child and his pain.

Now, what about when I am able to do something about it? That’s the key discernment circumstance, the time when I walk in wisdom or not. What do I want to do, choose to do, about “hard” in my kids’ lives?

I’ll not play any games with what my answer is, but then I’ll spend some time on the thought process which goes with walking it out. What’s my position on “hard” in my kids’ lives? I’m for it, 100%. I’m also committed 100% to supporting them in and through it. And, I’m watchful for times when my call as a parent is to offer help for them to get through it and into relief and encouragement and protection.

I’m for “hard” in their lives because God intends it for their good. Romans 8:28 reads “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” I read the full counsel of His Word to say that effects of sin in general and in some particulars are not the intent, choice, will of God but they are things which He allows in His Sovereignty; otherwise, they wouldn’t be happening. In all those particulars of life, God is also by His promise, working for the good of those He has called.

That affects day to day parenting decisions for me in the lives of my kids. Many occurrences (How many? I’ll address that thought in a moment.) in my children’s lives are there according to the encouragement of Hebrews 12. “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons…he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

In my life and the lives of my children, do I know what is God’s discipline and for their good? I know He promises good to be worked from whatever is in their lives, but I would admit that I can at least imagine things happening to them that are allowed by God, but not in the heart of His will and desire for them. Sinful attacks upon them which God did not work could call me to intervene in my love and for their good. Even God’s intended work in their lives, bringing “hard” to bear upon them, could include His intent for me to engage in love for their help and good.

So, do we have a theological conundrum as difficult and pointless as deciding how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? No, but we could take it there. We don’t have to, and shouldn’t, though. It’s a practical part of our children’s good, and our duty and willing choice as involved parents. I am unwilling to cede decisive action to overreaching theological paralysis. How am I to act in love and support for my kids?

I think it’s somewhat simpler than it sounds, but hard to actually act on because I have to effectively and sometimes painfully check my own heart in humble submission before my sovereign and loving Lord. God wants the good of my children and is at work in their lives to pursue it. If this is true – and it is – and I believe it – and by faith, I do – then I can rest in that even though I labor painfully at times to know how and what to do to act lovingly in my kids’ lives. To the extent that I question God’s love for them, I view myself as the last resort to spare them pain and critical damage.

As my faith in God’s effectual care in their lives wains, I am moved to rescue and enable. I am left as the one who always has to discern for my kids’ good whether a particular hard thing is best for them or needs to be deflected or deflated or defeated by me.

And the result for them is that I weaken them, painfully and pitifully. I withhold good and growth from them. I introduce victimhood and vain selfishness and creeping weakness.

For my children’s good, I want to rest confident in God’s love and care for them. This is my battle for their good. Think of that. Rather than the main battle being my involvement in each particular of their lives, protecting and providing, the greater battle for their good is to actually believe that God is caring for them.

In that godly confidence, I find much clearer discernment about how and when to intervene. As I flag in zeal for God’s care for me and my kids, all decisions get cloudier and squishier. That’s the theological high ground for loving my kids. Rest in God’s love for them, and go boldly on from there!