Rebellion vs Defiance

When my pastor, Dr. J. Wayne Mancari, was raising his two sons, he often talked about that transition into adolescence and how tricky that can be for a parent.  The key was to find the natural line that should be drawn by a teenager’s normal desire for individualizing and use that to determine your approach.

Christ-followers understand that children are not ours to begin with.  We are given the wonderful privilege of raising our family, but they are God’s first.  Eventually, the pattern is that they leave home AND parents to find their own way in the world.  The first seismic shift in this process happens between 10-13.   During adolescence, the young person wants to redefine who they are by detaching from how they were as a child, from how parents are, and from how parents want them to be. This growing dissimilarity and incompatibility can create more estrangement in their relationship reflected in parents increasingly feeling “it’s harder to enjoy each other’s company, it’s harder to understand the person our teenager is becoming, and it’s harder to find what we can share in common.”  Parent’s that fail to adjust in this period bring a lot of unnecessary trouble into the process.  At this time, the young person defines a lot of her or his individuality based on separating from parents, belonging with peers, and experimenting with more diversity.

Rebellion

Rebellion is always easy to spot in children and it is the ONE THING that should not be tolerated in the home.  We are NOT good people.  I’ve already spoken about the Doctrine of Original Sin.  This dogma says that man is born into sin that separates us from a Holy God.  Apart from God’s mercy and grace, we have NO hope of spending an eternity with Him.  It’s not then about what you do, it’s about who you are.   Psalm 14:1-3 says that no one is good.  Jesus declares that only God is good.  (Luke 18:19).  Our ‘righteousness’ (our goodness) is like a filthy rag to God. (Isaiah 64:6)  Anyone who has ever raised children knows that the first words they utter are “NO”.  Even in a toddler room or playground, it’s not hard to see a dominant sin nature.  The point of this is that rebellion is attractive to us.  This is a problem in God’s kingdom where obedience is mandated.  While rebellion is attractive, obedience is not and our responsibility as parents is to lead a child in the way they should go. (Proverbs 22:6) If we want to put them on the ‘narrow way’ we must work drive out rebellion in their young lives.

So, I made discipline a matter of rebellion. Rebellion was always the primary issue in executing discipline when I was raising my boys through the age of 12.  If they were doing something that was wrong, I would tell them, “If you do that again, you will be disciplined for it.”  I always made sure they understood what “that” was and usually what the discipline would be.  Now, about here is where parents make the epic fail!  Once you have drawn a line in the sand and framed it in terms of rebellion, you are obliged to carry out that discipline. Don’t count to three.  Time’s up. This is especially true in relation to establishing healthy boundaries for your kids.  Children want boundaries.  It makes them feel safe.  They want to know how far they can push the envelope.  I am appalled by the number of times I’ve heard, “If you do x or y one more time, I’ll a or b.”  When x happens again, neither a or b follows and all bets are off.  That is devastating to a child.

Remember, your role as a parent is to partner with God in raising HIS children.  That means you should use God’s plan.  God never tolerates rebellion.  The Garden, The Flood, The Tower of Babel, The Wilderness, Hell….It’s always about driving out rebellion.  When you pray the Lord’s Prayer, do you consider the line that says, “Thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?” How do you think it IS done in heaven? God’s will is accomplished always and disobedience/rebellion is never tolerated.  You can learn now or you can learn it later, when it’s much harder to learn.

Little League

When I was a Little League coach, I had a boy on my team named Jack.  In the first team meeting, Jack’s mother told me that Jack had ODD.  Isn’t that ODD?  Oppositional Defiance Disorder.  Yes, they have a label for rebellion that apparently makes it okay.  She proceeded to tell me that I would need to carefully manage him and only speak to him if I got down on his level so we were eye-to-eye.  I was not prepared for what happened with Jack that baseball season.  He didn’t come to practices and he was disruptive in the dugout.  His parents were board members and made quite a bit of stink about how I coached the team, since little Jack didn’t get to play all the time.  He didn’t take signs.  He didn’t generally follow our protocols.  He was rebellious and he did what he wanted.  I guess it was okay because he had a label.  In the championship game, I needed him to take four balls.  Simple.  Just stand in the batter’s box and let the pitcher walk you.  It probably means we win the game.  Jack swung at all three pitches that were thrown to him.  They were all well outside the strike zone and he would have easily walked.  When I initially gave him the ‘take’ signs from the coach’s box, he yelled “I want to hit the ball.”  I called time-out and went and told him again what I wanted him to do.  I did NOT get down on one knee and look him in the eye.  His rebellion cost us the championship.  I often wonder what happened to him.  I can’t imagine that his life hasn’t been hell without some major intervention, like the Holy Spirit.

Never in Anger

One more thing about children and rebellion.  Never discipline your children in anger.  If you are angry you must walk away from the situation until you have control.  The great shepherd controlled his sheep with a ROD and a STAFF.  The rod was made of iron and it was heavy.  It was used for punishment.  The Staff however, was a light wood and it was used for gently prodding and leading.  Sometimes, punishment IS required and sometimes prodding is necessary.  Be sure to differentiate.  When I spanked my children, I never did it in anger.  I always explained what I was going to do and why I was doing it.  I never flung them over my knee or paddled them up the road.  It was orderly and controlled.  After the punishment, I held them and told them I loved them and why disciple was a consequence of THEIR actions and not MY anger.  And, sometimes I made mistakes.  Go figure.

Now, rebellion becomes more nebulous in adolescence.  As a parent, you must start to weigh out rebellion in terms of defiance.  You see, the individualization process is normal and desired.  So, you have to give them more room to make their own choices and let them be more responsible for their actions.  Now it’s not so much about rebellion, but defiance.  Defiance is defined as ‘open resistance’ and ‘bold disobedience.’  When their actions are in open defiance to your authority in the home, then there must be discipline.  There certainly comes a time when corporal punishment is not useful or no longer appropriate.  In these situations, I tried to make the punishment commensurate with the crime.  Generally, this meant loss of privileges.  This is why you should ‘phase-in’ privileges with your kids in order to teach them that they come with increased responsibility  Cell phones, cars, exta-curricular activities, etc.  You need leverage!

Best Friends

When my oldest son was born, the first thing I whispered to him was “We’re going to be best friends someday”.  I’ve said the same thing to my grandsons.  But, you must first commit to raising them in accordance with God’s design.  Often, that means you must be the bad guy and there’s certainly no place for being ‘best buddies’ when they are growing up.  But someday, when they do make their own way, through childhood and adolescence, you may be lucky enough to have the friend you hoped for.