(^) This is what you must do:
(^) 1. Sit down with your children and explain your new insights. Tell
them what you believe you have done wrong in raising them. (Focus
on your deficiencies, not theirs.) Help them see how they would have
been helped if you had taught them to submit to authority when they
were younger.
(^) 2. Seek their forgiveness for your failures as a parent.
(^) 3. Give your children clear, biblical instruction about the
importance of being a person under authority. Help them understand
that God has established a chain of command in his world. Show them
how living under God’s authority is a great blessing. Understanding
one’s place is like knowing what steps are appropriate in a square
dance. The dance is the most enjoyable for all if each dancer knows
his place. Always begin any changes you make in your family life
with instruction.
(^) 4. Give them specific direction about what changes you think are
needed in their behavior, attitudes, and so forth. Discuss these things.
Help them see how being more submissive to authority will help
things to go well with them.
(^) 5. Determine how you will respond to disobedience in the future.
Be sure that they understand and are comfortable with how you will
respond.
(^) 6. No new approaches can be successfully undertaken for the sole
purpose of changing your children. They will respond to your
attempts to be consistently biblical in all of life. They will resist
anything that looks to them like manipulation.
(^) 7. Whatever you do will require patience. It is hard for a family to
change its direction. What is ahead of you is a matter of spiritual
struggle against the forces of evil. There is more to it than applying
some principles. Pray; seek God’s help. Wait on God. Study the
Scriptures with your children. Try to take them along with you on
your spiritual pilgrimage. Share with them what you’re learning and
barré
(Barré)
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