Which is more important to you as a parent, obedience or relationship?  Not that it has to be a case of either/or – but our answer to this question will say a lot about our parenting style and what we perceive our role as parents to be.  Is our intended end to produce children who easily comply and do everything that we want them to or is our intended end to train our children in the way that they should go (Proverbs 22:6).  If we want compliant children it doesn’t take a whole lot of work.  We can just tell them what we want them to be and do and then expect them to do it based on the rules and parameters that we have set up for them.

What happens though when they fail or are unable to live up to what we have set up for them?

If we want something more, like training our children to think, to act, and to respond to life from the right heart attitudes, it takes a lot of work.  It takes working at the relationship and putting ourselves in the place to allow them the freedoms they need to learn while remaining in the same place of our homes.  For this to happen though, we as parents have to be willing to let go more while working with our children to help them develop the right heart motivations.

I want my children to obey, not because they have to, but because they want to – because they want to honor and respect mom and dad and others in authority.  For this to happen though it takes work and time – it takes building a relationship.  It takes allowing greater freedoms while enforcing fewer rules.  When done right…a person doesn’t need a lot of limitations to make right decisions – they just need a lot of love.  May we cultivate these kinds of environments with our children.  They are worth it!