3 reasons why you shouldn't teach children to be GOOD

‘He’s the devil himself’ said the mum leaning across my desk, gesturing to her 3 year old son across the room.

I take a deep breath. Just another day at work in my paediatric clinic.

Later on I get home to my family. ‘Have you been a good girl’ my friend asks my 4 year old daughter? ‘No’ she replies assertively.  

The desire to bring up a ‘good’ child in our society is huge; we feel pressure from ourselves but also from those who observe us at the school gate, at church and at toddler groups.

But maybe we need to stop and ask what drives our desire to have ‘good children’?

Of course we want to bring up well-adjusted children who contribute positively to the world. We want them to enjoy life and for life to work well for them.

So what are the problems with wanting a ‘good child’? Here are 3 of many:

 

 

1) We can forget they are just children

What passes for naughty behaviour can sometimes be childish immaturity. We need to distinguish when a child is being defiant and when he is being childish and simply needs someone to teach him a better way of doing something.

2) We risk creating mini-legalists

Legalistic children look great on the outside – they obey the rules and seem to do well in life, but they can have little understanding of how God thinks of them. This is subtle but potentially more damaging than overt violence or delinquency.

 

The Bible tells us that there is no-one good except God and that in and of ourselves we cannot please him in any way. Jesus met a rich man who called him ‘good teacher’. Jesus replied “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone”. This rich man was actually pretty good. He had kept all the 10 commandments. And yet it wasn’t enough; he wasn’t ready to give up on his own resources, his own attempts at goodness and truly follow God.

As a child and then a teenager I could still hear a voice in my head saying ‘be good John’ and me thinking ‘I can’t, I just keep failing’. Realising that God accepts me and loves me in my badness changed my life.

3) It reveals our insecurities

In church settings there’s a pressure to have children who are good, who are seen to obey when the parent speaks. When my child whacks another one in the face it can be so embarrassing.  First I’m angry at my child. “How dare they”! But then I wonder what others will think – “he can’t control his child, he’s weak as a parent, what’s he teaching them at home”? It’s humiliating. It’s even worse when they’ve been wrongly accused. “My child! She’d never do that”, I think. I take it so personally.

The thing is, if I care more about what people think of me that what God thinks of me, it reveals that deep down I am not secure in God.

Here are 3 possible solutions to these problems:

1) Focus on the inside not the outside

Life isn’t about having externally good children, but about addressing their inner motives. Rather than saying ‘be good’, encourage your children to do good, for example “be kind”. We can praise them for things that they do rather than criticise them for who they are.

2) Ensure your identity and security is in God

Know that God’s opinion counts more than other people’s. Whilst important for me, my children need to know that what God thinks of me is more important than anything else; they will catch it from me. When your child is doing something wrong, look at your reactions. Ask, what is in my heart? What’s my motive for wanting him to be good? Is it selfishness? Is it lack of security? And then ask God to make you secure in Him so you don't need to fear what others think.

 

3) Model repentance to your child

Too often we tell our children to respect us, to obey us, and to grow up. But our children need to see that we get things wrong too and that we need God’s help. We need to be ready to say, even to them, “I’ve made a mistake, I’m sorry”. We can sympathise with them when they make bad choices. We can show them that even in their badness, we, and by extension, God, love them just the same.

Lead your children, especially when they aren’t being ‘good’, to Jesus, and rely on Him, the only one who is good.