The Big Secret In Christian Families: Parents Should Not Be Child-Focused

In the counseling I do with couples concerning child-rearing issues, it’s usually prudent to explore their marriages. Almost invariably, I find that serious behavior problems with a child reflect equally serious problems in the husband/wife relationship—problems that have been swept under the proverbial rug. In most cases, the problems in question are so culturally ubiquitous that they are not obvious even to close family and friends much less the two people involved.

Perhaps the most prevalent report from the parents of a child who is giving them fits is, “My spouse and I are not on the same page when it comes to how to discipline or even what the problem is at times.”

They want to know how to get on the same page. At that point, most counselors—the exceptions are extremely rare, even among Christian counselors—direct the conversation toward the C-word: compromise.

“You two need to learn to truly listen to one another and show respect for one another’s points of view even when you disagree. Listening and respecting will lead to healthy compromise,” or so say 99.9 percent of marriage and family therapists.

But neither the problems with the child nor the parenting disagreements between husband and wife are due to failure to listen and compromise. Therefore, talking to the couple about the need to compromise and putting them through guided exercises in compromise isn’t going to move the needle on the problems in question.

Those problems, invariably, are due to failure to stay married in the real, day-to-day sense of the term. In the eyes of God, in other words, which are the eyes that truly count.

 I tell them, “You’re not on the same page because when you began having children, you slowly stopped being husband and wife and became, instead, Dad and Mom…and that’s where you’re stuck to this day.”

Unfortunately, that post-child metamorphosis is the norm in today’s America and has been for the last fifty years, ever since professional parenting experts—most of whom come from the field of mental health—began emphasizing the need for “child-centered families” in which children supposedly felt “truly significant,” that “their personhoods were respected,” and they could develop “feelings of positive self-worth.” Psychobabble, all of it, but that is, after all, the stock-in-trade of the mental health professions.

When a child is new to the world—for, say, the first two years—it is natural, normal, and virtually necessary that his parents place him at the center of their attention. The challenge of the third year of life (24 to 36 months) is that of moving the child off center-stage and into an orbital position. For two years (or thereabouts), the parents orbit around the child; then, a one-year transition takes place at the culmination of which the child should be orbiting around his parents. That was the norm for thousands of years prior to the psychological parenting revolution of the 1970s, and obviously the way God planned it.

Unfortunately, the culture is trumping God these days, even in many if not most Christian households. The transition from child-centric to parent-centric is not taking place according to schedule, if at all. The typical 21st Century family becomes forever stuck in a mode—child centricity—that is functional for two, maybe three years, and then begins to spoil.

It is nigh unto impossible to easily and successfully discipline a child who sits at the center of things. After all, why should a child obey people who are acting as if they are his inferiors, as if it is their job to please him, as if his feelings rule?

In a child-centric family, the terrible twos—incessant demands, wild tantrums, irrational opposition—never end. In most cases, they keep getting worse. When the child enters school, he becomes a target for the test-diagnose-and-medicate crowd, and the cover-up begins. Instead of putting him in his proper place and beginning his proper discipline, he’s given a bogus drug and perhaps even weekly doses of bogus therapy. 

Meanwhile, the real problem—two people who act like they took vows on their wedding day that said, “I take you to be my (husband or wife) until children do us part”—is never addressed, which greatly increases the possibility of divorce when the last child emancipates. Nearly everyone has seen that train wreck occur.

Genesis 2:24 commands husband and wife to be of “one flesh”—not, mind you, a state of compromise, but a state of one point of view. According to God’s design, two people who are occupying the roles of Mom and Dad cannot enter a state of one flesh. They’re permanently occupying roles that are meant to be temporary. By definition, Mom and Dad are child-centered, meaning they are in more of a relationship with said child than they are with each other. Therefore, Mom and Dad will not be on the same page no matter how many compromises they make. In fact, every compromise is just more evidence that they are not in sync with God’s design for the family.

HOW TO STAY IN SYNC WITH HIS PLAN, IN ALL THINGS: Begin every day by reading Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6. Is there a path in your life that needs straightening? Like, maybe, one that involves your kids? If so, begin there.