Do you have kids who say things like this: “Mom, you just don’t understand. You’re always on my back. You constantly criticize and tell me what I do wrong.” I want you to know that there is a way to build a relationship with your kids while enforcing the rules of your household. The key is to teach the principle behind the rules.
Your kids may think that you’re not accepting them the way they have been created when you require them to do something like clean their rooms. So, what do you do with the kid who says he’s not wired to be neat? They don’t always understand at first that we are trying to teach them to live a life that has order, rhythm, and routine. I’m not saying that we should be striving for perfection or pushing our kids to perfection. If you could see my office/studio, you’d see my piles and stacks you’d know that’s not my point. But I know what is in those stacks and where to find what I need. There is still an order to life. There’s a principle behind the rules.
Teach the Principles
We need to teach our kids the principles behind the rules we have in place in our homes. This is so important, maybe even more so today, because many times, kids don’t have a voice. They have little control, and it’s exhausting for them. But you can use principles innovatively to reach the end goals.
I know. You’re exhausted, too. All of the teaching and training combined with current world chaos. You’re being told to be more hands-off by society. They say to just let your kids do whatever they are going to do. I know you’re working and trying to manage your home, but I implore you not to just leave them be. Don’t leave these important tasks of raising your kids to the government or the public schools. Find the balance for each of your children in how much to say, when to say it, and maybe even more importantly how you say it.
A word of caution: Your kids won’t always appreciate what you are doing for them right now. Parenting is often a thankless job. Your kids are not likely to come back, even years from now, with gushing words to express their gratitude for how you raised them. But trust me, as they grow older, they will start to recognize and appreciate what you’ve done for them.
Tips for Enforcing Rules
There are some simple things you can incorporate into enforcing the rules of your home:
Stop making things a battle.
Don’t make it about control.
Look for the principle behind the rules.
Offer to Help
When my kids were instructed to do a task like their laundry, I would often offer to help. Offering help can sometimes be misconstrued as criticism. Look for ways to ask others for help, too. Make a deal or trade with your child. I’d often offer to help with their laundry and, in exchange, see if they’d help me with dinner. Flip the criticism of their work into getting the job done while protecting the relationship. You’ll find that the cooperation level increases. (By the way, this applies to business and marriage, as well as parenting teens and adult children!)
How You Say Things
Think about how you’d like to be spoken to. Would you like to be criticized with harsh words at every turn? Focus instead on the principle behind the rule or goal you’re trying to achieve. These goals might be:
Learning how to build a team that does things together
Preparing for the day when the child leaves home
Living together in peace and harmony
Focusing on the principle lessens the blow of criticism. Look through the lens of others; seek to understand their perspective. Don’t let things turn into a battle of the wills!
There aren’t 3 easy steps to carrying this out in real life, but here are some helpful strategies to keep in mind:
Know the child you’re talking to.
How does this child receive your words?
Be clear on what it is you’re trying to help them learn.
Remember: the principle is the underlying why. Why do we keep our room clean? Because we need to be mindful of others who live in our homes. For the rest of their lives, we want our children to consider others above themselves. There should be a healthy level of guilt when you don’t treat someone else right. To be clear, this is not the same as making a child feel guilty if they do something by accident.
Be Quick to Apologize
If you’ve done something wrong, admit it. Ask your child for forgiveness. Apologizing doesn’t allow your child to walk all over you; rather, it actually makes them respect you more.
Repetition
You can’t just say something one time. You will have to repeat yourself – likely many times. Repetition is how we all learn.
Foster Family Identity
We do it like this. Always bring the rules back to the why. I’d tell my kids: We are the Albers and this is the way we do it. But there was more to it than that. It was about identity and being a part of a family.
I used to think that parenting teenagers was the hardest season, but now I can say that parenting adult children is on a whole different level. They do things you don’t like and there is little you can do about it. You have to pray and watch them walk through things. And then you have to pray again. Adhering to a set of rules isn’t really the goal. The goal is maturity, deeper relationships, and living in harmony as a family unit.
Strive for Clarity
Make sure that your kids understand you. Follow your instructions with phrases like this:
Does that make sense?
Is that clear?
Would you consider what I’m saying?
These are the things that invite your children into a deeper relationship. It strengthens the bond between you and them in a world that is trying to pull you apart. Take time to explain why. Explain that when you don’t wash the dishes in the evening, it makes more work in the morning before we can start breakfast.
Learning from Mistakes
My mom helped me see the principle behind the rules when I was a teen. I had started a business, and along the way, I learned I was too trusting and needed to be more discerning in business. I lost some money because of it. My mom didn’t belittle or shame me. She didn’t try to rescue me either. She said that she was sure that would never happen to me again. And it never did. She gave me the opportunity to lose a little money but learn a much larger lesson.
The Long Game
There is an end time coming when your children will no longer be living with you. We want them to remember the why. We want them to remember:
This is why we do ____?
We do this because ____?
Because this is our family, we ____?
This is how we treat others ____?
We want our kids to see the impact that they have on others. Your goal needs to be building relationships. When you develop and cultivate relationships with your kids, you are less likely to see pushback from them. And you might even find that your messier kids become a little neater when they are responsible for their own homes and navigating life with a roommate or spouse because they understand the why.
Keep focusing on the principles – the whys – behind the rules.
What should you do when you have a rebellious child? When your child pulls away from you? When your adult child is estranged from you? We don’t openly talk about these kinds of struggles or share these heartbreaking experiences readily on social media. The picture of life can become blurry during these kinds of painful seasons, but there are things that you can do. Let’s talk about the possibilities!
Living with Rebellious Child or an Estranged Adult Child
I say frequently that rules minus relationship equals rebellion. I wrote in Parenting Beyond the Rules about how you have to go beyond the rules. You have to be willing to pivot and adjust. There’s freedom in the pivot! Rules don’t always mean rebellion and having a great relationship doesn’t keep your child from having a mood swing!
I remember my parents’ divorce. I was just 11 years old when my dad told me that he was leaving and that it was all my mother’s fault. Processing that with all of the information that I had and could understand as a child, I became very angry with my mother. The problem is that an 11 year old doesn’t know how to process that. If you know my story, you know I love my mom dearly. Over the years, I let many career opportunities pass by so that I could take care of my mom until her passing a few years ago. Sadly, there was a lot of ugly in the in between years.
There is a raw kind of pain deep in a mom’s heart surrounding rebellious children. If you tried to articulate it, you’d choke up and become speechless. Words cannot express the pain you feel. I’ve sat with many moms in this messy middle. Maybe you’re in these in between years? You have a rebellious child. A child who is sneaky or lies. A child who is estranged. A young adult child who doesn’t respond to texts, doesn’t come around to celebrate the holidays, or doesn’t send a birthday card. You are not alone!
If you have a child and a relationship like this, you likely want to chase after this child like the prodigal son. But, don’t forget the ones who are still at home and doing life with you like your spouse and other children. Despite the hurt, you have to remember to keep showing up for the ones who still present and asking to spend time with you. Letting go seems hard to do. It’s like a death of sorts. It carries so much guilt and so many unspoken words. But you do have to find a way to carry on for the rest of the family.
I’ve written a lot about the challenges of parenting teenagers. I had no idea how hard it would be when they became adults. Everything changes. Your focus needs to be working on the parent you want your child to get to know. So many times, children create a narrative; some of it is real while other parts are not. The story they hear or tell themselves can become etched in their hearts when they put up a wall. They think it is to protect them from you, but it keeps them from seeing the real you. Your heart. Your love. Your devotion over the years.
The Gift of Time
“There is a gift of time, but you aren’t the controller of the time clock.”
Connie Albers
Time can be a great healer. I can’t tell you how much time is required. Maybe it will just be a year, but it might take 5 or 10 years or more. Here are some things that you can do along the way:
Don’t dwell on the situation. Be sure to focus on the children who do want to be near you.
Guard your heart against bitterness, anger, and resentment.
Bitterness will hurt you and the others living with you more than the wayward child.
Anger will cause you to do and say things that you regret.
Resentment keeps you from having an open heart.
Don’t withdraw or isolate yourself. Find a friend or support group or ministry you can connect with. We are made for relationships! When a relationship is broken, so is our heart.
Don’t expect your friends who aren’t walking this journey to understand. They simply can’t understand. Some things can only be understood after the fact.
Moving Forward
Here are some practical reminders and steps forward:
Stay kind.
Stay full of hope.
Believe the Lord is still at work.
Be faithful to show love when or if you are around that child.
Remember that God can restore what was lost.
Remember that God cares about your relationship with your child.
“Keep working on the parent you want your child to know.”
Connie Albers
If you’re trying to figure out how to live with a rebellious child or an estranged adult child, ask God for opportunities to rewrite the story. He can restore, redeem, and make things new.
Tom and I did a lot over the years to cultivate close sibling relationships within our family. I hear frequently that this is an issue of importance and concern for you as you raise your kids. You want to build strong sibling relationships between your kids. So, what do you want to see for your relationship with your kids when they become adults? What do you want to see in the relationships between your children when they become adults? Let’s talk about how you can build a strong foundation starting now to achieve that vision.
Throughout the day we spend a lot of time settling arguments and soothing hurt feelings between the kids, don’t we? Someone did something to someone… again.
“Mom! So and so looked at me funny.”
“Mom! So and so broke my lego set.”
“Mom! Why does he always get to stay up late?”
Sometimes it’s an endless list of offenses, isn’t it? By the end of the day mom falls into bed worn down and worn out. Maybe she’s even begging the Lord to please make the kids stop fighting and start getting along. I bet that happens in your family too. If you have several kids, the amount time spent being a peacemaker or referee can quickly add up.
The truth is that teaching your children to love and honor and accept each other for who God made them to be is necessary to the future of your family. I believe God established the family unit to not only bring Him glory but to help us live a life of togetherness.
You probably already spend countless hours investing in your child:
Reading
Playing
Teaching
Going to church
Reading God’s Word
What more can you do?
Relationships, Relationships, Relationships
You want to build a strong family. You want what’s best for your family. It’s going pretty well until maybe around middle school or high school or college and then you might find these relationship related things are becoming a little harder.
People often ask me about my kids and our relationships. How are the relationships now that they are adults? How did we get there? Well, it is important to know first that how we live life has changed over the years. This is something I write about in Parenting Beyond the Rules. The schedules and routines we clung to when the kids were little, like nap times and bedtimes, shifted when we hit new seasons like high school. I suggest not becoming perplexed when what used to work stops working. There is a natural shifting and changing that takes place over time. Let God lead you in how to change these things as you and your children grow and change.
I don’t think when I was a younger mom there were as many self-proclaimed experts telling me what to do, but I was still careful of who I let give me advice in those days. Back then, I would sometimes get down thinking about how imperfect our family was or how I wished things could be better. That’s the internal drive I have towards ideal. The problem is that’s not realistic. What is realistic is that we have to cultivate that which we want. We have to put in the effort it takes to guard and protect and nurture those sibling relationships. Then we must be willing to adjust along the way.
Richard Plass and James Cofield wrote in The Relational Soul (page 12): “We are designed for and defined by our relationships.” Think about that for a minute. You are designed for relationships. First with God, then with others. Next, you are defined by your relationships. First with God, then with others. Being designed for relationships with others starts within your home with the imperfect people God chose for you to do life with.
“We were born with a relentless longing to participate in the lives of others… We cannot not be relational.”
The Relational Soul – Plass and Cofield
How to Build Sibling Relationships
We must nurture trust with and between our children. They need to know that your family is safe. This is a safe place to be you. Here are some ways that you can do that:
Don’t allow your children to poke, make fun of, or shame their siblings for their weaknesses.
Listen to learn why a child struggles with another sibling.
Don’t allow your kids to compare between each other.
Ask leading questions
Don’t let joking cross the line to making fun of a sibling.
Remind each child they are part of something larger – the family!
Trust is the key to building the relationships that hold your family together. It takes sincerity, reliability, competence, and care every step of the way.
How can you learn to love struggles and trials? We are conditioned to ignore and suppress struggles and trials in order to not appear weak or vulnerable. But, God can use struggles and trials to grow and change you if follow His leading.
It is important that you know that God has equipped you to walk through struggles, and you should not be consumed by them!
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.
Lamentations 3:22 NKJV
Struggles and trials are common to everyone. I’ve been in difficult situations many times in my life. I’ve learned that these struggles and trials are teaching you something you wouldn’t learn without them. God can teach you things like:
Patience
Perseverance
Perspective
and more!
These struggles and trials are making you stronger! My husband and daughter recently went on a cross-country motorcycle trip. From the outside, it looked like an amazing trip. The reality is that they faced all kinds of storms and winds along the way. In pursuit of their dream, they endured incredible trials and struggles. God took them on unexpected detours that allowed them to experience the most beautiful places, but it wasn’t easy.
Struggles and trials force you to your knees, not to crush you, but to make you look to the Lord. In your weakness, God’s strength is made known. Struggles and trials change you. You will come through a struggle or trial differently than when you entered. Your faith will grow. Your resilience will increase. Your attitude will improve. Think about grandparents. Why are grandparents typically easier on grandkids than they were on you? They learned everything isn’t the battle we think.
How will you look at your next difficult circumstance? Will you learn to love struggles and trials?
Grief is part of life. Death, loss, separation, trials, unmet needs, or unfulfilled expectations are a few things we find ourselves grieving over. How can you walk wisely through seasons of grief?
How we deal with grief can depend on our age, temperament, the ages of our children, faith or lack thereof, and the circumstances surrounding the situation. With all these factors to consider, walking through seasons of grief is a rather personal matter. How you process what you are feeling is unique to you.
Planning for Grief
By the time I had hit my late teens, I had survived a boat explosion, my parent’s divorce, abuse, abandonment, and betrayal. That is quite a lot for a child to endure, but I learned lessons through these events that would serve me well throughout my life. I learned that:
God had a plan.
Life will still go on.
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, if you choose not to get bitter.
We can’t plan for accidents or losses. Oh, I wish we could. We can’t count on friends to walk with us — though some will. We can’t expect our spouse to know what to do — though many do try. People won’t fully understand what you are going through — so don’t expect them to. That isn’t fair to others.
While we can’t plan what will come our way, but God does. He knows precisely what is coming and how He will make a way if you lean on Him. His ability to help you overcome and walk through dark times is unmatched! You can’t do it on your own. And you were never meant to either.
I’ve learned people don’t get to the other side of grief in the same way. How will you choose to walk through grief?
How to Walk Wisely Through Seasons of Grief
These are some things to hold onto as you walk through seasons of grief:
Discover the joy within the stop and go of life.
Remember that the grieving process takes time.
Keep in mind that seasons of grief shape you.
Have patience. Transformation happens slowly. It’s doubtful you’ll see the change happening until you reflect back at a later time. But, if you walk through your season of grief well, you will be refined.
See how God gives you a greater capacity to walk with others in their seasons of grief.
We all will suffer. Suffering is as much a part of life as joy and happiness. What you do with that grief and how you allow God to refine you during those seasons of grief are what will define you.
