Earlier I introduced Gregg Harris’ “attachment” principle for doing the many things that are important in our kids’ Christian upbringing. (Read Attaching Important Things To Your Schedule here.)

Today I want to introduce another paradigm that has kept us going in all of the myriad Christian training endeavors: If something is important to you, you will do it more often than you do not.

Simple, really. But it has kept us going when we felt defeated, overwhelmed, or unsuccessful in our parenting. No matter what was happening, we tried to follow that principle. When one of us got discouraged, the other would remind the first that we were, indeed, doing what we were supposed to be doing.

I haven’t done afternoon story time for two days in a row with Kara’s colic. Ray’s answer? All that matters is that you do it more often than you don’t. And I knew that it was true. I am not perfect. Managing a houseful of preschoolers certainly made perfection on a daily basis out of the question!

However, I knew in my heart of hearts what I wanted our home to be. I knew what I wanted my day to look like (and what it needed to look like in order to accomplish all that we wanted to accomplish).

We knew what we wanted in our children’s Christian upbringing. And we knew that as long as we persevered and did those important things “more often than not,” we could make it.

Make that your goal for new disciplines in your family—that if you plan to do devotions every school morning during breakfast, and you make it three of the five—you have done it “more often than not.”

If you want to read aloud to your tweens before bed during the week, and you read three out of the five weeknight bedtimes, you have done it—“more often than not.” And you are well on your way to success in carrying out the things that are important to you in your Christian parenting.

Raising children for the Lord is not a sprint. It is a marathon, or if you are married, a life-long relay. Running fast and hard at the beginning is not what will get you to the finish line. Slow and steady is what will get you there. And reading, praying, singing, talking, choring, playing, teaching, training, etc. “more often than not” will help you cross that finish line someday knowing that have done what you were supposed to do—without regrets for all of the “priorities” that never truly were priorities but just unfulfilled wishes.

How could the “more often than not” principle help you in your parenting? Would it bring freedom? Could it bring more consistency than you get with trying for perfection?

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Recipe for Rebellion

Rules Without Reasons
Rules Without Response
Rules Without Repetition
Rules Without Relationship

Our last couple of times to talk have been times in which we avoid the first two ingredients in The Recipe for Rebellion (Rules Without Reasons and Rules Without Response). In other words, they were talking to give reasons and talking (or not talking!) in order to allow a response.

Rules Without Repetition

The third ingredient in the Recipe for Rebellion is Rules Without Repetition. This ingredient deals with inconsistency in applying rules. (It would more aptly be called Rules Without Consistency, but then it wouldn’t fit as well into our Recipe!)

Talking all the time gives us the opportunity to avoid this ingredient—to be repetitive and consistent in our family rules and ways.

This ingredient points to the times our children comment, “Last time you let me.” It means that when a rule is a rule, it remains the rule (unless it is truly, permanently changed, and then the change is enforced on a consistent basis—not a different rule or take on a rule each time).

This ingredient harms our relationship with our children for many reasons:

1. Inconsistency hinders many areas inconsistency will hinder a Christian in every area of his life.

Our testimonies, relationships, interactions with others, decisions, morals–everything in our lives–must have some semblance of consistency in order to be accepted by others.

A young lady recently told one of my daughters that her parents are so inconsistent that she simply doesn’t know what they want. One minute, she is allowed to date. Then when she begins dating someone they do not like, she is not permitted to go anywhere in a car with a boy.

Inconsistency in rules will “provoke our children to wrath” almost quicker than anything else. The guidelines we have for our family’s lifestyle must have consistency in order for children to follow them. Our schedules need consistency, or our children will never heed them–since they will change on a whim anyway.

2. Inconsistency Creates a Poor Testimony

Everyday we Christians hear people comment that they would never go to church because of the hypocrites. This is a long time problem that will likely never be solved since there will always be hypocrites—and non-believers looking for hypocrites– in the church. Our inconsistent Christian living creates a poor testimony.

With our children, it is even worse. Our inconsistency in parenting causes confusion, anger, and bitterness. Just like the girl told my daughter: “One day it is this rule, and the next day it is something different.”

Our children will not respect our rules if they are not consistently followed–or if the reason for a rule is not consistent in developing other rules (i.e. “one day I can date, the next day I can’t be in a boy’s car even with others there”).

It should be noted here that we do not believe that consistency in making and following rules means that you cannot change rules. You may decide to change a rule: through God revealing something to you; through a friend pointing out a blind spot; through discussion with your spouse; or even through the appeal process.

Consistency does not mean that you never change anything. However, when a rule is changed, your children need to know it is so, and you need to be sure to be consistent in applying the “new” rule.

So how does this rule apply to talking to our kids all the time?

When we talk to our kids all the time—about everything, including our family’s rules, ways, and specialness, we are setting our children up to expect consistency in our home.

A rule or family way isn’t something that we just came up with out of thin air. It is something that is a part of us. It is something that makes our family, our family.

And we talk about those things all the time—so that we foster that consistency in our family—and so that our children trust us to be consistent.

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