"Ten Ways to Exasperate Our Children"

Hi there, this is Lon Solomon and I'd like to welcome you to our program today. You know it's a tremendous honor that God has given us to be on stations all around the nation bringing the truth of God's word as it is uncompromising and straightforward. And I'm so glad you've tuned in to listen and be part of that.

Thanks again for your support and your generosity that keeps us on the radio. And now let's get to the word of God. When it comes to being a father, most dads I know really love and care about their children. And most dads I know really try hard to be the best dads they can be. And yet most grown children I know seem to have real issues with their father. So how can we as dads keep this from happening?

Well this is what I want us to talk about today. And the passage that I want us to look at is Ephesians chapter 6. Now as Christian parents, most of us are familiar with the first three verses of this chapter.

Here's how they read. Verse 1. Children, the Bible says, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment, that is of the Ten Commandments, with a promise attached to it.

Namely, there's the promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live long on the earth. Most of us stop right here at verse 3. However, there's one more verse, verse 4 here in Ephesians 6, that also relates to the process of raising healthy children. It says, fathers, do not exasperate your children.

And the word exasperate, when you look it up, means to irritate, to aggravate, to cause someone to throw their hands up in frustration. And it's interesting that the Bible repeats this instruction to fathers a little later on in the book of Colossians. Colossians 3 21 says, fathers, do not embitter your children lest they lose heart. Now, what the Bible is telling us here, both in Ephesians 6 and Colossians 3, is that yes, as parents, God has given us authority over our children and that he wants us to teach our children to respect and obey the authority that he's given us and to do it for their own good.

You say, what do you mean by that? Well, what I mean is that the primary way a person learns to respect authority as an adult, which leads to things going well for them, which leads to them living a long life here on earth because they stay away from self-destructive habits that would shorten their life. The way most people learn to respect authority as an adult is to respect the authority of their parents in their home growing up.

And when I was raising our children, I kept saying to myself, by teaching my children to respect Brenda's authority and my authority over their life, we are doing them a huge favor because when they grow up they'll respect authority and life will go better for them as well. However, in Ephesians 6 and in Colossians 3, God is also telling us something else as parents. He's telling us that our authority over our children is not absolute.

It's limited, limited to being exercised in a godly, biblical, Christ-like way and not in an exasperating, embittering way. And that's why he says fathers do not exasperate your children. Fathers do not use your authority to embitter your children. Now certainly this applies to mothers as well, but isn't it interesting that God chose in both cases to address this instruction to fathers?

We could speculate why, but it doesn't matter. It simply means that these are two great verses for us to talk about on Father's Day. So if you're a father or a grandfather or a future father, I want you to pay a lot of attention to what we're going to say. And if you're a mom, hey, this works for you too because this applies to moms as well as dads.

And I've entitled my message, a little bit tongue-in-cheek, 10 ways to exasperate your children. So you ready? Are you ready?

Yes. Now we're good. All right, here we go. You say, Lon, you'll never make 10. Oh, yes, I will. Watch.

Here we go. Number one, 10 ways to exasperate your children. Way number one is love your children conditionally. That is only communicate love and acceptance to them when they perform the way that we want them to. Use our attention and our affection and our love for them as a tool to manipulate them.

Do this and I promise you, you will raise children that are exasperated and embittered against you. Now in contrast to this way of raising children, the Bible presents to us the example of the prodigal son's father. If you remember the prodigal son, his performance wasn't so great. He took his share of the family inheritance and he squandered it away on prostitutes and partying and, you know, living la vida loca, you know what I'm saying. And then he decided to come home. And what kind of reception did he get? Well, listen, Luke 15 verse 20 says, while his son was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion and he ran to his son.

I love this picture. And he threw his arms around his son and he kissed his son. Even that whole time that his son had been away living the wild and crazy life that he was, this father's love stayed unconditional for his son. And gentlemen, this is how God wants us to love our children. Number two, want to exasperate your children?

Then number two, don't be personally involved in their lives. You know, I had a dad just like this. My dad was utterly detached from my life.

Relationally, he and I were like two ships passing in the night. Who taught me how to hit a baseball and to tie my shoe and to shoot a basketball and to cut the grass and to study for tests? Who taught me how to apply to college and how to wax a car and how to treat a girl on a date and how to balance a checkbook and how to write a resume? Well, the answer, not my dad.

He wasn't there for any of this stuff. And as a child, I grew up to resent him deeply because of that. And you know, many of you know exactly what I'm talking about because you had dads just like this. But this is not the model of a biblical father. The model is found in Deuteronomy 6 where it talks about fathers who are involved in their children's lives and engaged in their children's lives. It talks about fathers, Deuteronomy 6-7, who are involved when they sit at home, when they walk along the road, when they lie down, and when they rise up.

That pretty well covers it all the time. This is the model of biblical fatherhood, quantity time invested in our children. Fred Barnes in the New Republic magazine, an article entitled Quantity Time, said this, and I quote. He said, Forget quality time. You can't plan magic moments or bonding or epiphanies in dealing with kids. What matters is quantity time. I love this. He said 90% of fatherhood is just showing up.

End of quote. Number three. If we want to exasperate our children, number three, then we need to favor one child above the rest. Focus all of our time and our energy and our attention and our conversation on this one child.

Make sure that no matter where the conversation starts, it always ends up back on that child and how great that child is. Remember how Jacob did this in the book of Genesis? Genesis 37, Now Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his sons.

You say, But Lon, wait a minute. You know, you can't control your emotions. I mean, if you like one of your children more than you like the other child.

If you love one of your children more than you love the other child. I mean, what can you do about that? Well, you cannot show it.

You can keep it to yourself. Hey, Genesis 37. So Jacob made a coat of many colors for Joseph that he didn't make for the rest of the boys.

Watch. And when Joseph's brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than any of them, they hated Joseph. And they couldn't even speak to him in peace. Hey, you want a surefire way to exasperate and embitter your children, just do what Jacob did. Number four, want to exasperate our children? Then number four, never admit that we're wrong. Give your children the impression that because you're the parent, you are above correction.

And I promise you, this one will really drive them crazy. And I know why we do this as men. We do this because we're worried that if we start admitting we're wrong to our children, we're going to lose their respect and their love when actually the exact opposite is true. Listen, children don't lose respect for imperfect parents. They lose respect for inauthentic parents. Parents that are dishonest, that who won't own their stuff.

Number five, want to exasperate our children? Then demand behavior from them that we're not willing to do ourselves. You know, like make them go to church while we stay home. You know, like forbid them to use certain words around the house, but then we feel the freedom to use those words.

You know, like punish them for lying and then let them hear us get on the phone and lie to our boss and tell them we're sick so we can go play golf. In other words, be a rip-roaring hypocrite in your house. This is what I love about what the Apostle Paul wrote and said to Timothy. He said, 2 Timothy 1.5, he said, Timothy, I recall the sincere faith.

I love that, the sincere faith which was first lived out in your grandmother Lois's life and then was lived out in your mother Eunice's life. Gentlemen, this is how we raise children who are not exasperated with us and not embittered against us or exasperated and embittered against God. We do it by living a sincere faith, an honest faith, a non-hypocritical faith in our home in front of our children. If we ask them to do it, we do it. If we tell them they can't do it, we don't do it.

Number six, want to exasperate our children? Then handle family issues unevenly and secretly. You know, do things for one child that you don't do for the other children. Slip things to one child that you don't tell the other children about. Let family heirlooms just kind of walk off to one child and let all the other children find out about it by surprise.

This is a guaranteed way, folks, to cause trouble. When we consider full disclosure an unnecessary issue in our family, we are asking to exasperate our children. Now, Isaac tried to do this in the book of Genesis, chapter 27. He had two children, Jacob and Esau. He loved Esau and he tried secretly to sneak the blessing of himself, the father, to his son Esau without Jacob knowing about it or his wife, Rebekah, knowing about it. Well, they found out and as a result, Isaac set in motion a series of events that embittered and alienated his two sons, Jacob and Esau, for 20 years with one another.

It was only the grace of God that they were able to patch it up. Listen, gentlemen, your children may not like certain decisions you make, but at least make them out in the open and at least make them with full disclosure. Don't do things in secret and let your children find out about it by mistake.

That will embittered them and exasperate them. Number seven, if you want to exasperate your children, then always have something negative to say to them. Never compliment your child when they get it right, but just always point out when they get it wrong. Psychologists tell us that for every one negative comment we make to our children, we need to make three positive comments to balance it out in a healthy way. And if we want to exasperate our children, it's simple to do. Just leave out the three positive comments.

That's all we have to do. This is why Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4 says, Don't exasperate our children, but bring them up in the nurture of the Lord. That is, speaking kindly to them, speaking encouragingly to them, building them up. And I'm not talking about undeserved, cheap flattery here. I'm talking about genuine praise for right actions. You want a guaranteed way to exasperate your children? Here it is. Always have something negative to point out, but never tell them when they're doing something right and good.

Number eight, we're almost finished. Want to exasperate our children? Then never confront their bad behavior. Just let them do whatever they want. Ephesians 6 also says we're to bring our children up not just in the nurture of the Lord, but in the admonition, in the discipline of the Lord. And you would think that letting children do whatever they felt like doing would make them grow up to love you so much and respect you so much.

Friends, actually the opposite is true. Look what happened in David's life with his son Adonijah, 1 Kings chapter 1 verse 6. The Bible says his father, David, had never crossed him. Can you imagine that? There's not a child in the world growing up that never does something wrong?

Come on. Never crossed him at any time or asked him, why did you do that? But instead of responding and growing up to love and respect David, this boy grew up to hate his father and even led a mutiny against his father, David, when his father became old. Hey, you want to produce a healthy child, friend, then do what the Bible says in Ephesians 6. Bring them up not just in the nurture of the Lord, but in the discipline of the Lord. Put boundaries on their lives and then gentlemen, have the courage and the guts to stand by your guns and enforce those boundaries. Don't you let your child run your house. You run your house. Number nine, want to exasperate our children?

And when they get older, undermine their relationships with their spouses. Remember the old television program, All in the Family? Remember? And remember what Archie Bunker used to always call his daughter's husband?

What did he call him? Meathead. Meathead, that's exactly right. You want to really exasperate your daughter? Walk in her house sometime and say, How's meathead? And see what happens.

Walk into your son's house. Well, don't call your daughter-in-law meathead, but just walk in there and give the impression that you don't like her. She can't do anything good. You never want him to marry her in the first place.

You know, you got no use for her. And you talk about exasperating your children, you will do it on a massive scale. Number ten, want to exasperate our children? Then number ten, you didn't think I'd make it, did you?

Uh-huh, uh-huh, see? Number ten, when our children get older, continue to treat them like a child. Now, I have to tell you, in our family, I am definitely the primary offender in this regard. And it's because of my basic nature. My basic nature is I am a control freak.

And so cutting the umbilical cord to my children and letting them go do whatever they want to do as adults has been very difficult to me. And my wife, Brenda, is constantly rebuking me on this. She says to me, Verbatim.

You say, you remember her words, verbatim? I do this one, because I hear it all the time. She says to Milan, your boys are grown men. They resent you, treating them like children. They have children of their own, for goodness sake. They're not your little boys anymore. Stop trying to control their lives.

Verbatim. And every once in a while, one of my boys will come to me and ask for advice. And then my wife tells me what to do then, too. She says, give them the piece of advice and then stop. Make it clear that they don't have to follow your advice if they don't want to. And I always say, well, why wouldn't they want to? I mean, I'm right. They're wrong.

So why wouldn't they want to take my advice? And that's when I exasperate my wife instead of my children. Oh, geez. Okay, listen. I'm sorry.

I'm bad at this. But it exaspirates everybody around me. This is a guaranteed way to do it. And so let's summarize. The way is to exasperate our children.

And the point is this is tongue in cheek. These are things we should not do. Number one, love our children conditionally. Number two, don't be involved in their lives. Number three, favor one child above the rest. Number four, never admit that we're wrong. Number five, be a rip-roaring hypocrite by making our children do what we won't do. Number six, handle family issues unevenly and secretly. Seven, always have something negative to say to our children. Eight, never discipline our children. Nine, undermine their relationship with their spouse. And number 10, keep treating them like a child. You say, well, Lon, but what if I've done a lot of this stuff as a dad?

Well, we all have. I can't imagine a person here that hasn't done a lot of these things in our career as a dad. You say, all right, so then what do we do? Well, we go back to our children and we apologize. We go back to our children and we say, man, I've become aware that I've done these and I continue to and I want you to forgive me. Now, if your child's three, that's great. They'll forgive you and you're done. If your child's 33, then you may have to really humble yourself and say I'm really sorry and I've really been wrong.

But you know what? I really would like to ask you to forgive me and I'd really like to have a new beginning in our relationship. Folks, gentlemen, we need to understand our children are aching to forgive us. Our children are, they're hurting to forgive us, they're dying to forgive us, but they can't open that door.

Only you and I can open that door by going to them and humbling ourselves. And I promise you, you go to your child and you humble yourself and there will be very, very few occasions where that child won't forgive you and say, dad, let's start over. Because they love you even though you drive them crazy. They love you.

Give them a chance to forgive you and to start new. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today about fatherhood. And everything we said applies to motherhood as well. Lord, being a father, as you know, is not easy and we all make lots of mistakes. And I thank you that you've worked a love for fathers into children that's intrinsic and basic and that it can be tapped and it can be revived if we will simply humble ourselves and accept the responsibilities for what we've done.

So many of us as fathers here today need to make a phone call or need to make a personal visit, need to go out to coffee with a child and need to have a conversation like we've talked about today. Help us to have the courage to do that, Lord. And then work in the heart of those children to have a heart to forgive us. Lord, we know you care a lot about fathers and their relationships with their children. Help us to have healthy ones because we're doing them biblically and we're doing them humbly. So change our lives because we were here as dads and because we sat under the teaching of the Word of God and we pray this in Jesus' name.

And what do God's people say? Amen. You've been listening to So What with Dr. Lon Solomon. So What is an outreach of Lon Solomon Ministries. To listen to today's message or for more information, visit our website, lonsolomonministries.org. Thank you for your support. If you would like to contact us, please visit our website or call us at 866-788-7770. We hope you will join us next time when Lon seeks to answer one of life's most important questions, So What.