Changing The Language of Parenting: Seed Planters

Parenting is hard work. You’ve been entrusted with a human to raise, train and disciple. An 18 year minimum commitment to a life that looks to you for every basic need. That’s overwhelming to think about, but God knew what He was doing and He gave us a manual to follow. The Bible is the ultimate parenting manual. The Word is living and active. “All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.” 2 Timothy 3:16

I want you to put on some glasses that will change your perspective for a few minutes. I want you to look at your child’s heart like a garden. Have you ever marveled at the process of planting seeds and watching them bloom? Seeing something beautiful and amazing blossom from the tiny seed that was planted? It reminds me of the power and potential packed in those little seeds. The content of the seed determines the value. Now look at the garden of your child’s heart. What do you see?

Did you know that as a mom, we are planting seeds everyday, multiple times a day? We have a choice though…we can choose to plant seeds of life or plant weeds. Our words and actions determine the kinds of seeds we plant in the hearts of our children.

Have you ever noticed the power a word carries? Certain words evoke certain emotions within us. Words that we may be immune to can plant seeds in another person that will grow fear, rejection, resentment, self-hatred, insecurity…..the list goes on.

As confessing Jesus followers, our job as parents is to train, to plant good seeds into good soil. He blessed us with a child(ren) to steward; arrows to craft for His kingdom. Too many children growing up in Christian homes are leaving the church when they hit adulthood*.  We have to break the cycle of broken children through our language, actions, the lies we believe and start walking in humility.

I truly believe that how we parent our children is a direct reflection of how we view God, our Father. If we are angry militant parents, we view God as an angry militant father. That is not a true reflection of God that our children see lived out through us in everyday life.

Seeds of punishment. Punishment is a word that has been accepted in the everyday language of parenting, without thought. The thought goes something like this, “My child disobeyed, so I inflict punishment. That’s the responsible thing to do, the Bible says so.” But, what does the Bible ACTUALLY say? In 1 John 4:18 it says “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Punishment produces fear in our children and out of fear, we punish, because we want to control. The cycle starts and seeds are planted.

Name calling, threats and shaming, plant seeds of insecurity, self-hatred and rejection. Our response in a moment of frustration can have lasting affects. The plan of Jesus is redemptive, the plan of parenting should be redemptive not condemning. We don’t get a free pass to sin in our parenting. And we certainly won’t be able to remove all the weeds we planted out of frustration and anger once they leave home.

We need to remove words like punishment, fear, control, manipulation, accusations, name calling, threats and shaming from our parenting tool box. These are not fruitful tools provided by our Heavenly Father to cultivate good soil for good seeds. The Bible tells us in John 10:10 that the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. These commonly accepted words and methods are tools from the enemy. They do not bring LIFE. They are like weeds planted in the garden.

Did you know that weed seeds are unique? Here are some interesting facts about weeds.

1. They produce lots of seeds and multiply rapidly.
2. The seed of a weed can sometimes survive for a very long time in the soil, laying dormant and then sprouting as soon as conditions are right.
3. They are able to establish quickly, sometimes they sprout up in a blink.
4. They can grow in inhospitable environments.

Words that bring LIFE are kind, gentle, loving, pure, good and useful for building up. Our words should build up, not tear down.

The content of a seed is what determines it’s value. If I gave you an old torn up box with $1,000 inside, the value is in the content of the box. If I gave you a beautiful box wrapped with pristine silky ribbon and inside it contained rotted meat, the box didn’t determine the value, the content did. You can’t change the characteristics that make a weed what it is.

Weeds choke out life! The parable of the sower teaches us the importance of planting good seed in good soil.

We can break the cycle by intentionally changing the language of our parenting. We can plant seeds of life. Words are habits. Breaking habits take discipline and require work, but the reward is amazing.

God calls us to train and disciple. Ephesians 6:4 in the amplified says:

Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to the point of resentment with demands that are trivial or unreasonable or humiliating or abusive; nor by showing favoritism or indifference to any of them], but bring them up [tenderly, with loving kindness] in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

I used the Amplified version to show emphasis on breaking down the meaning.  The word father in the original Greek, translates to mean both mother and father.

Don’t let one bad day become an excuse for every day! The Lord’s mercies are new every morning, we don’t have to default to parenting in our own strength. Each day we can choose to clothe ourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; and plant seeds of life.

Discipleship (discipline) = Strength and Good Seeds

Punishment (control) = Weakness and Weed Seeds

<3 Jen

*Barna.org