Nobody ever said that parenting was easy. We continually seek after that “perfect balance” that will promote our goal of leading our children ever onward in a committed walk with Christ. It seems we must constantly strive to balance discipline with grace, desire with duty, spiritual with practical, …and so on.

Romans 2:4 says that “the kindness of God leads you to repentance,” and of course there’s the old adage that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar…all true. I try to be an encourager to my children in areas where they struggle and I believe in giving them grace as I see them growing in the Lord. On the other hand, there are times when they just need decisive correction in order to remedy a strong will, a particularly stubborn attitude, or a willful sin. It’s all about balance.

I was reminded of that once again this week, as my oldest son was struggling with having a good attitude about something he was asked to do (in fact, volunteered to do). Though for the sake of his privacy I don’t want to go into great detail about the situation, suffice it to say that he knew he was not exhibiting a godly attitude nor behaving in a way that honored God. I continually encouraged him with prayer, Scriptures and other exhortations, believing that this would help to work things out. After two-going-on-three days of this, I was rather weary and not seeing any improvement in the situation as I had hoped.

Finally, I gave him a rather stern talking-to about some of the specifics of the situation and made clear his need for repentance. Very shortly thereafter was the breakthrough that I had been hoping for.

In talking to my husband about the incident later, he made a comment that I probably should have done that sooner. He may be right. Though I may be painting with a rather broad stroke when I say this, I do believe that Moms tend to be more relational, more emotional, and less likely to enter into perceived “conflict.” On the other hand, Dads tend to speak to issues rather bluntly and may be more quick to discipline. These are two different methods which God made to balance one another in parenting. However, when one parent (primarily) is addressing issues in child-rearing, it’s important to consider what style or method will achieve the desired results, rather than just defaulting to what feels comfortable or what we “always” do. At least, that was my lesson for this week…