Parents are parenting harder than ever.

Look around. Look in your own home. It’s like the harder we parent, the greater the frustration.  Do you know why? Raising children is harder than ever.

The problem with so many of our kids is not our culture. The problem lies in our homes. We are teaching our children by not teaching them. The passivity of parents these days is inexcusable. One of the worst things that parents these days are doing is what I call “The Art of Passive Parenting.” Somehow, somewhere a bunch of parents all collectively started believing that it was someone else’s job to raise their children. This has created this passive position in parenting. And our children are confused, stumbling and even more rebellious than ever. Don’t be a passive parent.

Passivity is “used to describe someone who allows things to happen or who accepts what other people do or decide without trying to change anything.”

This must not describe your “style” of parenting. You need to engage, disengage and re-engage your children to mold and shape their heart and behavior so that they can be valuable, difference-makers in their generation. You are running out of time. Get active. Get involved. Get present. Get engaged.

There are five things that can help you kids change their world:

1- Humility. Kids don’t start humble. They start proud. Feed me. Bathe me. Change me. At first it’s necessary. They can’t speak, so they cry to let you know they have a need. Then, as they develop language, they have be taught what is appropriate communication. You have to actually teach your kids not to be demanding. How do you teach your kids not to be demanding (notice I didn’t say babies)? You deny them. As they get older, you teach them the discipline of self-denial. We don’t have children that know this discipline, because it’s not practiced in the home by the parents.

Here is a crazy rule that on both sides of produces the same thing: Passive parents produce demanding children & Aggressive or Demanding Parents produce demanding children. So, if your answer is simply to sit back and watch your kids develop, they will develop a strong, unyielding will. If your answer is to crush their will, you will create resentful, demanding adults. Neither way will change the world.

The answer is humility. How do you teach humility? Every day. Teach them that the world does not revolve around them. Teach them that they will not get their way simply because they demand it or think it. Life hasn’t ever worked that way, nor will it ever. Teach them how to think about every impulse that hits them. This is why it’s harder today to parent your kids–they are bombarded from all sides with information and impulses. It’s your job to teach them how to think through these impulses and how to deny them. Thoughtful children are humble children.

2- Mercy. The world your children are growing up in is increasingly harsher and harsher. There are fewer and fewer places where they will receive mercy. The answer for the harshness of the world is to teach your kids how to practice mercy. Mercy is kind of like the mixture of kindness and forgiveness. The world will teach your children to ignore issues so that they don’t offend anyone. This is foolishness. When you ignore problems resentment grows. As resentment grows frustration, anger and impetuousness increases.

This harsh world is a judgmental world. It’s laughable that the world loves to quote “judge not lest ye be judged,” yet all the world does is judge who those it doesn’t approve of (especially the Christians who the verse is an instruction for). The way to counteract judgment is to demonstrate mercy. To love, to be kind and to forgive is what the harsh world really needs more of. Kids are awesome at doing this until you taint them with your toxic anger and venomous resentment. Children deserve better. If you want your kids to change the world, teach them how to be merciful to others, especially to those who don’t deserve it. Merciful children are kind children.

3- Responsibility: Personal responsibility is at an all time low. No one seems to be responsible for their words, deeds or actions. Everything seems to be someone else’s fault. You must teach your children that they are responsible for their grades, for their behavior and for their choices.

One of the best ways to teach your children this paramount principle of responsibility is to hold them accountable for what they say, what they do and even, what they don’t do. Teach them that actions have reactions. Teach them that there are good consequences and bad consequences to the decisions they make.

Responsibility also teaches your children the basic principle of management. There aren’t magic fairies that pay the bills, put food on the table, clean up messes or make beds. Your children need chores. As the parent it is your duty to assign your children responsibilities around your home. Chances are if you are reading this, then your children due to technology and the age we live in are living better than every generation that has ever walked the face of this planet. Think of what your children take for granted: air conditioning, the internal combustion engine (cars), refrigeration, indoor plumbing and now the internet.

Give your children chores. Make a chart. Make a list. Develop a system in your home from an early age that assigns your children responsibility. I have seen in hiring students for over 20 years that the kids that came from homes where they had chores, consequences and real responsibility are much further ahead in understanding how the world really works than those who don’t. They are promoted faster, earn raises faster and develop as leaders quicker.

Our world is becoming more and more irresponsible. Parents give your kids real responsibility at the appropriate ages and appropriate task levels and then hold them accountable to fulfilling their obligations.

4- Honesty: The world is full of liars. Don’t let your kid grow up to be one of them. Lying has become an acceptable practice among our business leaders and our politicians. Cheating is now being reclassified as a competitive advantage. Bribery is being viewed as an effective way to get things done. The best way to teach your kids to be honest is to be honest with them yourself. They don’t need the entire story, but they need enough of the story to know the truth. Now, you as the parent decide when to dessiminate the information, but beware the world is rapidly spewing forth all manner of deception and lies to your kids. You better reach them before the world does.

Hold your kids accountable for telling the truth. Even if it causes awkwardness or discomfort. You don’t have to teach your kids to lie. They already know how. One day you woke up and your toddler started lying! You are not the worst parent on the planet– it happens to every parent. It’s your job as a parent to stop your child from a pattern of deceptive behavior and lying. You have to create a pattern of integrity in your home. There is no fool-proof way to correct this, but know that you are dealing with the child’s heart. Integrity and honesty are always a heart issue.

5- Eternity: If your children will learn to live in light of eternity, then they will truly make a difference on this planet. They will be touched as if they have one foot in this life and one foot in the next. Such people have made the greatest difference to their communities, to their world than all others that have walked upon the face of the earth. We must teach our children that what they see and experience on earth is temporary. When we view the world as temporary, we learn to not hold things of this world too close to our hearts or too tightly in our hands.

Teaching your children that there is life after this life is extremely easy for them to believe. The Bible says that it is “appointed once for man to die and after that the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27). If you want to make this life count, teach your kids that the accounting takes place in eternity. This will change your child’s perspective on what truly is important. Eternity is about treasure–what you value and where you store it. And what a child values is stored in their heart. So you must teach your children to guard their heart. Parents teach your kids these verses that lead to their heart.  And then live it out with them until they leave your home…

“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and ruste destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.“

Matthew 6:19-21

Let’s change the world one child at a time.