Have I Failed My Children?

“It’s such a shame that they failed two of their children.” 

I was in college, and my friend was referring to a Christian family with adult children, two of whom had gone off the rails into drugs and unwed pregnancy. 

My friend had young children of her own, and as someone several years ahead of me, she was a mom I greatly admired. She and I both knew that she would certainly not fail her children. I tucked away this lesson: My children’s choices would be a reflection of me. 

***

Around the same time, I attended a large children’s ministry conference where a seminar speaker declared that ADHD was not a real condition – a child who couldn’t pay attention or sit still was the sad result of bad parenting. As an elementary teacher, I suspected the speaker was wrong, but it didn’t stop me from being marinated in the idea that I was responsible for my children’s behavior. 

“First-time obedience” was the mantra of my era of Christian parenting. None of this “count to three” stuff; you were not a good parent if you had to ask twice. If they didn’t obey, it was on you. Being a responsible, perfectionist person, I took this seriously. I was up for the challenge. 

When I first became a parent, this worked. I’d been trained as a teacher. I knew how to hold children to high expectations without raising my voice or losing my cool. And my stubbornness could match the most strong-willed of children. I remember a fellow mom responding with amazement at how quickly my kids complied when summoned from the playground. Yep. I was not going to fail my children. No siree.

It worked, that is, until it didn’t work. Then it became a dumpster fire. And demanding “first-time obedience” became the gasoline that made the fire explode. With one child in particular, the more I dug in my heels and expected obedience, the more the opposite happened. As I increased the consequences, so did my child’s unhinged behavior. 

What all those parenting books and seminar speakers didn’t tell me is that this parenting expectation is successful only when the child feels secure and safe. For neurotypical kids born into a loving, healthy family, this could be a given. An assumption. The books didn’t discuss what to do if your children didn’t feel secure or safe. It was not even a sidebar topic.

And it can be dangerous to assume.

What happens when a two-year-old from an orphanage wants to assert her God-given desire for independence at the exact time when her adoptive parents are trying to bond with her? What about parenting an adopted teenager figuring out his identity and not having biological bonds to fall back on? 

What about the young abandoned mom trying to parent her children alone? What about the child who has experienced violent trauma or sexual abuse – despite her parent’s best efforts to protect her? What about the kid on the autism spectrum who interprets ordinary noises as threats to his safety? What about the one with OCD or ADHD whose extreme anxiety is triggered by the requirement to sit still and stay quiet? 

In these situations, the “first-time obedience” mantra can be disastrous. Doling out consequences can crush her spirit beyond repair. Insisting on unconditional compliance can drive a wedge into an already fragile relationship. 

***

Gil and I laugh when we say that two of our four children make us believe we are totally experts at this parenting gig. If those two were our only kids, we’d give ourselves pats on the back for what a great job we are doing. We’d probably write a parenting book. 

Our other two kids keep our faces ground to the dirt in humility, begging God for help because we don’t know what the heck we are doing. One of them told me last night that I’m the worst mother in the entire world – emphasis on entire. (So I probably won’t be writing that book.) 

Don’t get me wrong – all four of my children are amazing, and I adore each of them. But my point is this: Two of our four could have made me a firm believer in Prosperity Gospel Parenting – that if I have enough faith and do all the right things, God will reward me with perfectly behaved children. Which makes me all the more grateful that He gave me the other two to wipe that smug smile off my face. (And I’d like to add that despite my very happy childhood, my strong will did the same for my own mother. You’re welcome, Mom.) 

We cannot take the good advice of Proverbs and turn it into absolute promises. God Himself – the perfect Father – has a track record that proves otherwise. Just take a look at the Children of Israel. The 12 disciples. His Church. You’d think that if teaching “first-time obedience” guaranteed godly children, we’d see those results in those parented directly by God.

Do not hear me saying that parents are not responsible to faithfully love, disciple, teach, and discipline their children. Children must have boundaries. Gil and I fight hard to protect our kids from destructive influences while preparing them for a destructive world. (They’ll tell you we’re strict.) But also, we spend equal time working on security and belonging because these are not things our kids necessarily feel (even after all this time!). This means that we abandoned requiring first-time obedience for a lot more negotiating, discussion, and buckets of grace. Oh, and humor. Sometimes that’s our most effective tool. 

Our home doesn’t mirror the classic Christian parenting books I read 20 years ago. We have often stretched our boundaries to safeguard our relationship with our kids. Other times we have given grace instead of consequences because we are trying to build trust. I can guarantee that we haven’t always gotten it right. Most of the time, we are feeling our way around a dark room, banging into walls, stubbing our toes. 

It’s ironic that not failing my kids looks less like demanding obedience and more like offering grace. It’s even more ironic when I consider that’s what the story of the Bible looks like too. And since God never fails no matter how I behave, I think I’m finally on the right track. 

Related:

Raising Up a Child in an Age of Deconstruction

The Perfect Parent

What Have I Done to My Children?

More Resources:

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12 Comments

  1. Scott McDiffett

    Amy, I make a practice to read your blogs pretty much as soon as i get the email notifying me you posted another one. Thanks for your faithfulness and willingness to be honest and vulnerable. This one in particular is so helpful for me as my wife and I are trying to navigate loving our kids well. We definitely have 2 out of 3 that remind us that we don’t have this all figured out :). Praying that i can learn to parent my kids with “buckets of grace.” Thanks!

  2. Kim

    Beautiful piece and so true, Amy. As a mom to 6 biological kids plus 3 adopted from Liberia, my heart resonates with all you say. Our “children” are ages 16-32. We’re still feeling our way around a dark room with both a biological kid and the adopted ones in their adulthood. The only thing I’m left with to fight the guilt or shame when it rains down is, “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” All our stories are not finished yet, so we keep stumbling forward and leaning hard into His grace. He sees it all.

  3. Kim

    SUCH a needed article. “Prosperity Gospel Parenting” indeed! Thanks for writing this, Amy. Well said. I would only add that Prosperity Gospel Parenting doesn’t actually even works for all neurotypical children in a safe environment. It just works on really laid-back, compliant kids. And mostly that’s not because it works, but because they are just plain easy and don’t feel any need to buck any system in the world of any kind. They are probably not going to be the movers and shakers of our world – but they sure do make a parent feel good about themselves!

  4. Patti Knight

    Thank you Amy for your honesty God has given each of us unique children as our parenting is unique to each child even as they enter adulthood I’ve learned the hard way too even the Christian parenting well I’m learned having a lasting relationship requires lots of love patience grace and a humbling on our part and they are the Lords child first I need to remember they are on loan to us as parents enjoy each moment you have good bad hard frustrating you never know when it may be the last time you see them again I pray no parents have to go through this but my experience has taught me to trust Him more especially those circumstances we don’t understand

  5. Oh, heavens, I wish I had come to parenting with a better grasp of the gospel. We were so behaviorally oriented.
    Grateful for grace and for 4 sons who have loved us and forgiven our failures!

  6. Elizabeth

    I once was assigned to teach a Bible study in a foreign country. We had many unbelievers who came to practice their English. For a time, I believed that I needed to be a great teacher so they would keep coming, keep hearing the gospel and be saved. The thought that if I failed, they would die and go to Hell because of my mistakes was crushing. Finally, a friend pointed out to me that their response was between them and God. I could and should do my best, but I couldn’t make them come to faith, and God didn’t expect me to.
    I’m now awaiting the birth of my first child, and your article has reminded me that that insight applies to our children as well. We can and should do our best as parents, but children have free will, and we cannot force them to obey or believe (as much as we may wish we could).

  7. Kathy Keller

    Great post!

  8. Terese C

    This rings so true. The “first time obedience” thinking and “prosperity gospel parenting” really caused me to make bad choices in my parenting that were actually harmful…I’ve had to go to my now grown sons and ask for forgiveness and work through some of that with them. I did fail them. But then too, much of my identity got wrapped up in being a mom and how their behavior reflected on me; thus, if they weren’t “behaving”, I was a “bad” mom. God had to point out the idolatry of that to me to break me of it.

  9. Maggie

    I can relate to this as a parent of three pretty compliant kids and one that resists everything I say. My experience is practically identical to yours with the resistant one. We must’ve read the same parenting books in our early years. A book that I’m reading now that is a complete paradigm-shifter is Give Them Grace by Elyse Fitzpatrick. I’ve been a Christian for 40 years, and I’m like, why have I never heard it explained like this before? You would think the gospel would be central to all the other Christian parenting books, but, wow, this book is opening my eyes to what the gospel actually looks like in parenting, and we all need it.

  10. Aphra

    This was so encouraging to me as a child of wonderful parents who also weren’t anywhere near perfect. The “prosperity gospel parenting” is so dangerous, and I love the label and word picture you gave it with that. Very helpful! I often wonder how to walk that line of grace and discipline well, in contrast to what I experienced. It sure doesn’t seem easy! But compliance and behavior modification just isn’t the goal. Also, you write quite well!

  11. Abigail Follows

    Thank you so much. I feel like I’ve needed to read this for the past ten years… and have wished some others could see/understand it, too! <3

  12. Love it! Thank you! Same experience. 4 kids, totally humbling! Totally grace filled now!

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