Parenting: Meant for Joy, Sabotaged by Anger

It’s been said that parenting is not for the faint of heart. Much like marriage, parenting is intended by God to be one of life's greatest joys. And yet, with the capacity for great joy comes the mirror capacity for disappointment and frustration. Suppose you’ve been a parent for any length of time. In that case, you’ve likely experienced the twin experiences of parental bliss (as you watch your child play, read them books, tickle them until their face is red with laughter, etc.) and parental sorrow (as you witness them stubbornly refuse to obey, feel your blood boil over with anger, and unfortunately, express that anger in sinful ways). If we’re honest, these experiences often occur within the same day; sometimes even in the span of minutes.

If we’re going to parent our children who are still under our roof in a way that pleases our heavenly Father, we’ve got to know some things that also lead to doing certain things. In some ways, there can be no neat dichotomy or divide between knowing and doing. Don’t get me wrong; it is quite possible to know true things cognitively and not be practically changed in how we live. But at the same time, to truly know and be gripped by precious realities is to be actively changing. That is why the do section below will simply be an outworking of the know section. The do section points will correspond in turn with each of the precedi section points.

This post will not cover everything that could be said, but my hope is that it will offer some thoughts centered on gospel-laden realities. My hope is that you will not feel crushed as you read this. Or if you do feel initially crushed, it will be followed up by gospel assurance.

What We Must Know

• The fatherly characteristics of God. Have we “soaked” in the way God himself is described in Scripture? If you were to describe God based on the Bible’s portrayal of him, would you see him as:
  
  • A Father whose default is happy rather than irritable and impatient (Luke 15)?
  • A Father who loves his children in spite of their (sometimes highly offensive) sins (Luke 15)?
  • A Father who loves prior to, and apart from, the “accomplishments” of his children (Matthew 3)?
  • A Father who demonstrates visible affection for his children (Luke 15)?
  • A Father who is attentive to the needs and desires of his children (Matthew 6)?
  • A Father who lavishly gives his best for his children (Luke 11-12)?
• Your reasons for combating the anger that rises in your heart against your children. We are made by God to be driven by motivations. Therefore, to “dangle a carrot” in front of us to spur on Christ-honoring attitudes and actions is not wrong. None of us will take the least step towards righteousness without having our reasons/motivations for doing so. So, what are your reasons for combating anger directed at your children? These can be stated positively or negatively (you will often find the Proverbs doing both – steering us away from sin and destruction and towards God and wholeness). Either way, you need to have them and to know explicitly what they are. The more specific, the better. Here are some examples:
  
  • I don’t want to be controlled by anything, especially anger.
  • I don’t want my kids to respond to me based on fear.
  • As my kids get older, I don’t want them to look back on their childhood with a sense of regret due to my temper.
  • As my kids get older, I do want my attitude to affirm that they can come to me with any struggle they may have.
  • I don’t want to have my relationship with God be based on grace, while my kids’ functional relationship with me is based on their performance.
  • I want my kids to be better equipped to manage their emotions effectively, thanks in part to how I have handled anger in a healthy manner.
• Our anger is not like Jesus’s anger. Therefore, resist the urge to quickly defend your anger by saying that Jesus got angry as well. Here are some diagnostic questions and criteria that can help assess how our anger is different from that of Jesus:
  
  • Do you get angry about the right things?
  • Do you express anger in the right way?
  • How long does your anger last?
  • How controlled or proportional is your anger?
  • What motivates your anger?
    
    • Righteous anger reacts against actual sin (not my preferences).
    • Righteous anger is God-oriented, not me-oriented (i.e., this is anger that responds because God himself has been offended).
  • Is your anger “primed and ready” to respond to another person?
  • What is the effect of your anger?
• Anger is closely tied to abuse. The essence of abusive behavior is using your God-given capacities to overwhelm someone else’s God-given capacities. Let this sink in. Does this describe the attitude and behavior with which you parent?

What We Must Do

• Get our gaze on God. This is why it’s so important that we take in Scripture and meditate on it. If we are to emulate our heavenly Father’s character, we must absorb how he describes himself through his Word. We must find ways to get this into our heads and hearts.
• Have specific reasons for combating anger. Consider making these concrete. Write them down on an index card and put the card in a location(s) you’re likely to see often (e.g., your car dashboard, your bathroom mirror, etc.). Tell them to a trusted friend and invite them to ask you how you’re doing on them. The point is to get these reasons “front of mind and tip of tongue.” You need to know them and ponder them often.
• Resist comparing your anger to that of Jesus. Rehearse why it is that Jesus’s anger in Scripture is as different from your anger as light is from darkness. It is true that anger can at times come from righteous reasons. But this is relatively rare. The exception does not undo the rule.

Tremble at the impact of your actions. You are an image-bearer. So are your children. Every day, you use your God-given role to either enhance or diminish the likelihood of your children using their God-given capacities in the way God designed them to.