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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Recipe for Rebellion

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

So I guess this would be more appropriately coined as a time to listen…not talk. And this is why….

The problems with Ingredient # 1: Rules Without Reasons are also found in Ingredient #2: Rules Without Response (plus one other “biggie”):

1. “No-Response-Allowed” Is Aggravating!

There are many problems with this ingredient, of course, not the least of which involves the verse in the Bible that tells fathers not to aggravate their children: “Fathers, don’t aggravate your children, if you do they will become discouraged and quit trying” Colossians 3:21 (NLT). It is aggravating not to be listened to! Think about how annoying it is for you with work or relatives when you are not allowed to voice your opinion. Your children feel the same way–only perhaps even more helpless because they are, well, children.

2. “No-Response-Allowed” Handicaps Our Children in Their Future Decision Making

Additionally, not allowing our children to respond to our rules and choices for them causes them to be unable to make decisions for themselves later in life. They need to know the process a Christian goes through to determine how to live and act. If we consistently tell them that this is the way it is, and they just need to buck up and do it, they will not learn how to make wise decisions for themselves and their own families some day.

3. “No-Response-Allowed” Is Not How God Treats Us!

If we truly want to follow a Christian protocol in parenting, we will want to try to parent our children like God parents us. God listens to us! Think of how painfully honest David was in the Psalms—“God, why are you doing this to me! Why don’t you listen to me? Why do you let my enemies overtake me? Oh, I want to follow your way, but it is so hard. Okay, God, I will trust in you, not in chariots and horses.” God allows us to respond to what he is doing in our lives! Or how about Abraham: Will you destroy the city if there are some godly people still there? He not only responded to God’s edict, but he gave God suggestions on how to change it. And God listened!

4. “No-Response-Allowed” Causes Our Children to Argue With Us

Besides the three above difficulties with Ingredient #1 and Ingredient #2, “No-Response-Allowed” has the added problem of arguments and fighting that result when children try to discuss rules with us and we do not listen. This is where a communication technique that we have used with our children comes in handy: the godly appeal.

Most parents, when presented with the concept of letting their children respond to them, are not altogether wrong in their opposition. Their children might already be responding–and Mom and Dad do not like it!

Parents usually do not like it because they have not allowed (or taught) proper responses from their children early on, so their sons and daughters have resorted to arguing, bickering, and begging. That is not the type of response we are recommending in this appeal advice.

So this time to talk is when you need to let your kids respond—the next one will give you an outline for how to let your kids respond/appeal to you in a non-argumentative way. So stay tuned!

Links:

[Download] Recipe for Rebellion Posters

[Podcast] Recipe for Rebellion and Ingredients for Intimacy

[Podcast] Dealing With Heart Issues of Tweens

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Why not?

Can we change that to…..

These questions are often asked of us parents when we fail to give children the reason for our decisions and instruction.

While there it is true that our children should learn to obey us and trust that we have their best in mind (but again, that comes through lots of talking and letting them see that we have their best interest in mind!), we have determined four key ingredients that cause teens to rebel—Reishes’ Recipe for Rebellion.

Certainly each of the four of these “ingredients” is a reason to talk to our kids….including the first ingredient in the recipe—Rules Without Reasons.

Rules Without Reasons

Explaining reasons for our rules is an important time to talk to our kids! We have believed in giving our children the reasons for our requests and rules (as long as the children are not demanding them), mostly due to embracing Kevin Leman’s* writings, which we discovered early in our parenting. However, we did not realize the importance of our rules and requests being logical and understandable to our kids until after we began debate. Through our experience with teaching our children public speaking and debate (and through judging hundreds of competitions), we learned that not only should we give our children the reasons for our rules if possible, but that those reasons should be logical, scriptural, and understandable.

In other words, it is not enough to tell our kids yes or no and then add “because I told you so.” This goes back to the Proactive Parenting techniques that we have introduced earlier in this blog. One way to prevent problems before they begin is to explain the reasons behind your rules and requests to your children.

Many authoritarian parents do not believe that they should have to do this. After all, we are the parents and they are the children. While you would be hard pressed to find parents who require obedience and respect much more than my husband and I do, we do not buy into the “I am the parent, so the child should do it” mindset—without explanation and teaching concerning the rules we make.

Why? For a number of reasons:

1. That is not how God deals with us! His Word is a gold mine of reasons and explanations to us of why He wants us to do what He wants us to do. He is tender, long suffering, and patient with us. He does demand our obedience, but He does not say that it is “because I told you so.” Rather He says that it is “to help us grow in our faith,” “to keep weaker brethren from stumbling,” “to show that we love Him,” “to be a light to the world,” and on and on. One explanation after another; multiple cause and effect scenarios are presented.

2. It does not help our children “own” the lifestyle choices and rules we are making. You cannot own something of which you do not understand. When we tell our children to live this way or that because we are the parents and we demand it, we are not helping them to develop their own belief system in the future. In essence, we are not giving them learning hooks on which to hook old information, new information, and future information—to utilize when they need to make decisions for themselves.

3. It is aggravating for the child. Ephesians 6:4 says, “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” We as adults know how exasperating it is to work for someone who makes demands but does not give explanations. Our children often feel the same way with us. The Bible makes it clear that we have the potential to give our children life-giving truths (Proverbs tells us over and over to teach our kids God’s ways) or demanding, “aggravating” commands (without explanations).

So take the time to TALK…to give the reasons—especially when you are implementing a new rule, schedule, approach, or lifestyle choice for your family.

Explain it to the children thoroughly—and give them opportunities to respond (see next post!). Because avoiding the Rules Without Reasons is important enough to talk about it.

Learn more about the Recipe for Rebellion with our parenting packet here.

Recipe for Rebellion

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

Learn more about the Recipe for Rebellion with Donna’s Wondering Wednesday podcast episode here.

* Leman, Kevin. Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1987.

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