Everything we’ve talked about the last couple of months is for the purpose of teaching our children self-control, wisdom and responsibility. When we do this, we lead our children to a place where they can live out Jesus’ words to love God and others. If you raise children who are obedient and respectful in their actions but not in their hearts, you’re not finished. Reb says it’s like building the foundation of a house and then stopping construction. Chapter 15 goes into great detail about this so please, if you haven’t already, read the rest of the book.
We must model genuine love for God, for them and for others if we want them to do the same.
How do we love God? I John 5:3 "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome." How do we know the commandments of God? Spending time with Him in prayer and studying His Word.
What about teaching our kids to love others? If we want our kids to love others, we have to show love to them in our words and deeds, with our attitudes and tones. That can be as simple as smiling at them. Be excited to see them, even after naptime when you’re not ready for them to be up yet. Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” I’d like to add to that, with her own mouth tears it down.
Fill their love tanks by speaking their love language. Love them unconditionally. I can easily put performance over people. This is wrong. Perfect closets, good grades or all-star status means nothing in eternity. Paul says in 1 Cor 13 “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Try to understand them. Romans 15:1 “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” We need to be careful that our expectations are God’s expectations, first of all. Then when we are dealing with our children, practice patience and empathy. If they come to you with an opinion or talk to you about their feelings, don’t automatically correct them by saying, “Well that’s just silly, you shouldn’t worry about that.” They need to feel safe and accepted by you. If they don’t, there will be a time when they will look elsewhere to find acceptance. If you feel you need to talk to them about an issue, you may want to wait until another day. This goes for elementary aged kids and up.
Accept them. We should not compare our kids to their siblings or anyone else. God made your child exactly the way he is for a reason. Our job is not to criticize but help them bring out the strengths of their personalities, temperaments and gifts. Don’t label. They will live up the expectations you set for them. We have had to be very careful not to talk about Charlie in front of him or his siblings by saying he’s the hard one. I don’t want him to live up to that standard.
Growing up I was labeled “opinionated and outspoken.” So I lived up to that. I was rough and not very lady like. What I wasn’t taught was that everyone is opinionated, not everyone shares their opinions. One day when Emma was little I said some things to her that didn’t need saying. Roddy revealed to me a truth that I wish I had known 20 years sooner. He said, “You know you don’t have to say everything you think.” Really? I didn’t know that! I’m so glad he told me.
You see if someone had taken the time to figure out, or help me figure, out that my spiritual gift is prophesy and that it is engrained in my very makeup to tell the truth about life or anything else and had helped me learn a long time ago to speak the truth in love, everyone would have been a lot better off. You can do this for your children. Study them. We all have positives and negatives to our particular characteristics. Ask God to show you how to bring out the positive in your children. How to use the way He made them for His glory. A bossy child can be taught how to be a leader. A strong-willed kid has strong convictions. We are to give the right convictions. Letter from Cece…
Now, the best place for your kids to practice loving others is at home.
Sibling Rivalry is not just a phase of life to be accepted as normal with the hope that it will go away. Children should be just as loving, kind and respectful of each other as you would have them be to their great grandmother. There are a couple of verses that are key when dealing with sibling relationships. Matthew 7:12 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, and Matthew 22:39b “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Your child’s closest neighbor is their sibling. Almost any dispute or trouble that arises between siblings can be addressed with these two verses. Now there are plenty of other verses but these can cover a lot. When there’s a dispute between them ask them if they are treating each other the way they want to be treated or if they are they showing love to each other.
Letting them work it out…results in the one who is bigger or a better talker winning. Doesn’t teach them to love each other. We need to teach them that.
I used to think I needed to send my kids to school to give them a break from each other so they’d get along better. I’ve learned I just need to teach them to get along better.
Two of our boys were having a hard time getting along with each other. The younger one is not as easy to get along with and the older one would egg him on or just avoid playing with him. I asked the older one if he would want his big brother to treat him the way he was treating his little brother. I also appealed to him on the basis on love. I told him how his little brother looked up to him and loved him and just wanted him to love him back. We prayed together often for his younger brother. I would ask him in the mornings what he could do to show love to him that day. I also corrected the younger one when he was selfish and worked with him to show love to his big brother.
If your children tend to argue back and forth over trying to make their point, ask them if it’s better to be kind or to be right.
We already talked about role-playing to teach your kids how to share but let’s say you’re children are fighting over a toy. Our first instinct is to just say, “Who had it first? Give it back!” and move on. Instead, ask each child, “Who are you putting first?” Of course, they are each putting themselves first. But Philippians 2:4 says, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” I Corinthians 10:24 “Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.” So ask them how they can put the other person first.
What if one child has been playing with a toy and left the room for a minute only to come back to find that another child is now playing with that toy? Instruct the first child how to ask for it back in a calm, polite manner. “I was still playing with that, can I have it back please?” And the second child must give it back and can ask, “Can I have it when you’re finished.” A great thing to teach them is if they know someone was playing with a toy and they put it down, they should ask if they are finished with it before swooping in and taking it.
Teach how to ask to use something that belongs to someone else. What we tell our kids is if they get something for their birthday or Christmas, it is theirs for the day and the others shouldn’t even ask to play with it. After that a sibling must ask to play with someone else’s toy to show respect but the one the toy belongs to should always let them play with it – unless they are actually currently playing with it. Then they can say, “When I’m done with it, I’ll give it to you.”
Teach them how to ask each other to stop doing something. They shouldn’t be allowed to use an unloving tone like: “Stop it!” They should say, “Will you stop, please?” And the other person should respect that request and stop immediately.
Do not allow them to yell at each other or use unkind words or tones with each other. If they do, correct them and help them use the right words in the right way. If one child is having a problem with doing this on a regular basis, like our 3 year old, we spank for it until it greatly improves.
We also spank for hitting, biting, throwing something at the sibling in anger, or name calling.
Teach them how to apologize and to forgive. The earlier you start the better. When an apology is given it should be sincere and not just, “I’m sorry.” It should be, “I’m sorry for…” The other should say, “I forgive you.” And hugs and kisses given. Do not allow a bad attitude to linger.
Teach how to react to an offense. Let’s say a sibling calls another sibling a name or was unkind or hit. Teach them that people hit Jesus. They spit on Him and they called Him all kinds of names but he never hit back or yelled back or became angry with them. I Peter 2:23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 1 Corinthians 4:12 says, “When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.” Ask you kids how they can be kind back to the one who was unkind to them. Then be sure to talk to the one who was unkind and have them make things right.
If our kids are having an unusually hard time getting along with each other, I’ll call them all in, line them up. Then I’ll have each one take turns looking at each of the other siblings, smiling at them and saying I love you. Then they have to give a hug and kiss to each other.
On birthdays, we go around and each of us takes turns saying what we like most about the birthday boy or girl. You can do this any day. It helps build an appreciation for each other. God puts us in families so we can learn how to relate to different personalities. I did not grow up with an appreciation for my siblings’ differences. So it’s important to me that we talk about how God makes us all different for important reasons. How would every thing get done if we were all good at the same thing. We are each gifted to serve God differently. How boring would it be if we were all the same?
Talk to them about how lucky they are to have brothers or sisters. Not everyone gets to have a brother or sister, right Shelley? Talk about how God picked each person to be a part of your family and families are very special. Proverbs says “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” Tell them friends will come and go but brothers and sisters are forever. We teach our kids to always put their siblings before friends or even extended family members like cousins that they think are so cool. This means when they’re playing with others they aren’t allowed to leave their siblings out. If someone says to your daughter, “Let’s not play with the boys” or they say, “No boys allowed” Or visa versa. Teach your kids to say, “No thanks, I don’t want to leave them out.” Also – girls are not yucky nor are boys!
Competition – Teach them how to be good winners and losers. We are happy for the winner and always say congratulations. The winner can’t be overly in your face “I won, I won!!!” Pouting is not allowing when they lose. They should understand that if they always won that would never give anyone else a chance to win. How fun would that be for them if they never won?
They should help each other with whatever they can. Older ones can help younger ones get dressed or put their shoes on. If one is able to cut an apple or slice bread they should do that for those who can’t. Send little ones to ask the bigger ones for help sometimes. Let those who can read, read to siblings. Older ones can help give younger ones baths. This is a big time saver.
Ask them at breakfast what they can do to serve or show love to each other during the day. Encourage them to surprise their sibling by doing a chore for them.
Role-play situations that come up often that you would like to change. Show them the wrong way and the right way. Then have them do it the right way – several times. (Getting in or out of the car)
Teach your kids to look out for each other and protect each other. Boys should be taught to be gentlemen. Hold the door, help carry things, let the girls go first. Girls should be taught to be ladies. Show appreciation for brothers being gentlemen. Let younger brothers be leaders sometimes in making decisions about what they want to play.
There is no magic formula here for producing perfect children. Because they will never be perfect and neither will we. We are utterly dependent on God to guide us through every minute of our lives. We have got to ask Him for wisdom and He says He will give it generously. As long as we are on this earth, we all will sin. We can, however, teach our children that they have a King. A King who is kind and loving, just and patient, all powerful and all knowing, worthy of praise and worthy of fear. They need to know that when they disobey the King there will be consequences. At this age, the consequences will come from Mommy and Daddy. It’s our job to teach them right from wrong. Later in life, consequences for sin will come from God. There will also be blessings for obedience. God is a good King and does not give us commands that are too hard for us. He wants to live in us and there is fruit when we let Him take charge of our lives. Your children have the choice to obey or not – to choose consequences or blessings. But point them to their need for the Savior to help them obey. The Bible commands us to control our tongues and thoughts and other areas of our lives, but we can’t do it in our own strength. We and our children need Jesus!
