“You’re important, we’re in charge”: grace & truth for kids

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I was on a train recently sitting next to a parent who had two young children with her, a girl of about 5 and her younger brother aged about 3. The girl was trying to read a book but the brother kept hitting the book out of her hands and generally bothering her.

The Mum tried to pacify him with sweets and offering her phone for him to play a game. He eagerly grabbed the phone, played for a few minutes, but then got frustrated and threw the phone on the floor of the train. He then wailed and screamed to have the phone back. And the cycle repeated…

I picked up the phone a few times and gave supportive half-smiles at the Mum in an attempt to show sympathy and solidarity. I tried to engage the kids too as I know this can help in such situations. But I didn’t get very far.

Not convincing

The mum repeatedly tried to tell her son off, but her tough talk was hardly convincing.  At one point she declared loudly:

“Right, that’s it. You are being so bad I am leaving you to yourself on the train”

And she got up and moved a few seats behind him where he could not see her.  

This did not seem to bother him too much and he carried on unsupervised for a few minutes until he got frustrated again and started wailing louder than ever. His mum raced back, picked him up and cuddled him:

“Did you think I had gone? Oh darling, Mummy would never leave you, Mummy loves you sooooo much.”

The pattern was clear: every time the boy behaved badly, he was rewarded for it. He knew it, everyone in the carriage knew it and his older sister’s eye-rolls showed that she knew it too.

Sadness

Its tricky criticising someone else’s parenting. I know nothing about the wider pressures this Mum might have been under or what specific needs her son may have. And I know from my experience that parenting young children is tough.

But whilst it was a bit annoying, the overriding feeling I felt was sadness. I was sad and distressed at how unable this Mum was to assert any form of authority. She was being absolutely run ragged by her 3 year old. He was in charge. And it was not good for her, her daughter and especially not her son. And stress and chaos affected everyone else in proximity.

Value and authority

The incident reminded me of something I used to say to our three children when they were young:

“You’re important, we’re in charge.’

Almost every parent wants their children to grow up knowing that they are important and valued.  This sense of secure attachment is vital to good emotional health and self-esteem.

But alongside that, they also need to know a sense of order: who is in charge and who is responsible for them. What the boundaries and limits are, and what will happen when these are transgressed.

Saying “You’re important, we’re in charge” was an attempt to state both their inherent value alongside asserting our authority as parents. Basically, grace and truth. For kids.

Alongside this, I particularly had to learn not to make threats of consequences that I was not prepared to follow through on. As I discovered, discipline is not about shouting or even verbal strictness: it’s fundamentally about doing what you said you would do.

Contained

In my experience, it is this balance of affirmation and boundaries that helps children feel contained, held and secure. They want to know that someone loving is holding them, that the right people are ‘in charge’. Deep down, they need to know that tantrums and selfish demands will not sway decisions or dictate events.

When children think these kind of behaviours are effective, the world becomes a more scary place.

And it’s a principle relevant to all youth and children’s work . When I talk to people (often now in their 20s) who I used to coach in cricket and football, they often talk fondly about the laughs we had but also express appreciation for the discipline and responsibility they learnt too.

Components of love

Most of all, children and young people need love. But ‘love’ is not a soft, mushy emotion which moulds itself around poor behaviour or simply bends in response to pressure. The love that makes a difference, which endures and transforms, has to be a bit tough.

This is why I believe that the key components of love are grace and truth. We need forming by both the deep acceptance of grace as well as the truth about how we fit into the world around us.

And this form of love is but a reflection of divine love: we are all important because each of us is created in the image of God. But we’re not God. We are created, not the Creator.

We’re all important. But we’re not in charge.