Are We Raising Children Without Self-Control? Are We Accommodating Behaviors We Should Be Correcting?
This is an uncomfortable question, but Christian parents should be willing to ask it.
Today we hear increasingly about emotional regulation, calming strategies, sensory environments, behavioral interventions and mental-health treatment. A minimal percentage of children genuinely have developmental, neurological, psychological or sensory difficulties requiring professional assessment and appropriate support. We should not assume that every child's behavioral difficulty results from bad parenting, rebellion or lack of discipline.
At the same time, acknowledging legitimate conditions shouldn't prevent us from asking whether some ordinary childhood behaviors are increasingly being interpreted through a therapeutic lens when they also require parental training and correction.
Note that regardless of a diagnosis, every child is responsible for their choice to disobey.
All children need to learn:
“You cannot behave that way.”
Christian parents need wisdom to understand that even though a child genuinely needs additional support, their attitude should be that of obedience and all children needs correction—and sometimes a child needs both.
Sensory Rooms Cannot Replace Self-Control
Sensory rooms and calming spaces may serve legitimate purposes for some children with particular sensory or developmental needs.
But a sensory strategy should never become a substitute for teaching appropriate behavior.
If every time a child becomes angry, frustrated or oppositional the solution is simply to change the child's environment, what happens when that child becomes an adult?
The world will not always become quiet because we're overwhelmed.
Our employer will not always remove expectations because we're frustrated.
Our spouse will not always accommodate an angry response.
Eventually, we have to learn to govern ourselves.
The biblical objective goes deeper than environmental regulation. We want children to develop self-government.
Ultimately, for the Christian, true self-control is produced through the Holy Spirit.
What About ADHD and Behavioral Medication?
This is another area where Christians need wisdom rather than extremes.
ADHD is a recognized neurodevelopmental disorder. At the same time, medication can have side effects, and parents should be informed participants in decisions concerning their children.
Depending on the medication, ADHD treatments can be associated with effects such as decreased appetite, difficulty sleeping, headaches, stomach discomfort, changes in heart rate or blood pressure, and sometimes mood or behavioral changes. Medication also does not eliminate the parent's responsibility to teach character, responsibility, obedience and self-control. A diagnosis should help us understand a child's challenges. It should not automatically become an excuse for every behavior.
We Also Need to Talk About Screens
Before assuming that every attention or behavioral problem requires another intervention, parents should also examine the child's environment.
Screens have become children's constant companions.
Phones.
Tablets.
Video games.
YouTube.
Social media.
Short-form videos.
Children can spend hours receiving rapid, highly stimulating entertainment and then be expected to sit quietly in a classroom and concentrate on something that doesn't provide the same constant stimulation. Research has found associations between problematic or excessive digital-media use and difficulties involving attention, sleep and emotional regulation. That does not establish that screens are the cause of every case of ADHD, nor should ADHD be reduced to a screen-time problem. ADHD has substantial genetic and neurodevelopmental components.
But parents should still ask:
How much screen time is my child getting?
What kind of content is my child consuming?
Is screen use interfering with sleep?
Has entertainment replaced reading, physical activity, conversation, chores or imaginative play?
Does my child become extremely angry when the device is removed?
Those are important parenting questions.
Technology should serve our families. Our families should not become servants of technology.
Parents Must Lead the Home
Christian parenting cannot simply follow every new cultural philosophy.
Our authority is Scripture.
Children need compassion.
They need affection.
They need parents who listen.
They need encouragement.
They need patience.
But they also need authority, instruction, correction, boundaries and consequences.
Most importantly, they need parents who model what they are teaching.
We cannot demand self-control from our children while screaming uncontrollably at them.
We cannot teach them to submit to God's authority while refusing to submit ourselves.
We cannot teach them that Scripture is authoritative if our parenting philosophy is ultimately determined by whichever psychological theory is currently popular.
The goal isn't merely to raise well-behaved children.
The goal is to raise children who know God, understand His Word, recognize His authority and learn to govern their lives according to His truth.
Love Them Enough to Train Them
The choice shouldn't be between loving our children and disciplining them.
Biblically, those things belong together.
God loves us.
God comforts us.
God is patient with us.
God is merciful toward us.
And God corrects us.
Christian parents should strive to reflect that same balance.
Our children need to know they are deeply loved. But they also need to know that feelings don't determine truth, anger doesn't justify sinful behavior, obedience isn't dependent upon whether they feel like obeying, and choices have consequences.
We aren't merely preparing children to survive childhood.
We are preparing them for adulthood and, more importantly, teaching them to become disciples of Jesus Christ.
Let us raise children who don't have to be controlled by every emotion, impulse or desire.
Let us teach them the Word.
Let us lovingly correct them.
Let us establish godly boundaries.
Let us model the behavior we expect from them.
And above all, let us teach them to walk in the Spirit, because:
“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”
— Galatians 5:22–23
Our children need love. Our children need grace. And our children need the loving correction and training that God has entrusted parents to provide.
Key Scriptures
Galatians 5:16, 19–23 • Romans 8:13 • Colossians 3:8 • Proverbs 22:6, 15 • Proverbs 25:28 • Proverbs 29:15, 17 • Hebrews 12:6–11 • Ephesians 6:1–4 • James 1:19–20