“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.”

So says the Psalm.  (Psalm 127:4)  But some people’s approach to parenting would leave one thinking the Bible refers to children as arrows in the warrior’s face!  To hear some people talk, you’d think our children were the enemy — and all too often, that idea creeps into our thinking, even without our notice.

Be Sure to Win Every Battle

“Make sure you win every battle” is a common admonition.  There’s some wisdom to this.  If you’re going head-to-head with your child, you cannot let him overrule you, or your authority over him ceases to carry the necessary weight.  But there’s a downside here, as well, and it’s one that becomes a greater liability the more heavily over-focused we are on this idea of “winning battles” — it’s easy to start seeing everything as a battle, and our children as the enemy.

Choose Your Battles

A balancing admonition is to “choose your battles.”  The idea is that it’s easier to win every battle we engage in if we choose when to engage.  We can take this even farther, though, when we recognize that our children are not the enemy.  Our ultimate goal is to be on the same team.  Sometimes they choose to fight us, and we have to stand our ground, but sometimes it’s our choice.  We can often choose whether something has to be a battle.

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Not every situation has to be a battle of wills.  Not every scenario requires that we go head-to-head.  If we choose to view our children as on the same side, we can often choose to work with them, making situations into teaching opportunities where we come alongside them to help them learn a particular lesson, where we might otherwise turn the same situation into a battle, feeling the need to “hammer” them into accepting our view.

How important is the lesson?

Is there a Scriptural principle at stake, or just a preference?

Is it life-or-death?  A little bit safety-oriented?  Or just a matter of pride?

Are the consequences big or small?

Are the consequences tangible or intangible?

Does it ultimately matter if the child agrees with our assessment of the situation (apart from the fact that we want him to agree/comply with Mom or Dad)?

We have hundreds of opportunities to help our children learn to make their own decisions by enabling them to experience relatively minor, tangible consequences to help them practice discerning wisdom and foolishness.  These lessons will transfer over to more important decisions with bigger or more abstract consequences — but not if we insist on their only ever doing what we would do.

Even little children have to be given opportunities to make mistakes within safe limits, or someday they will make mistakes without safe boundaries.  We can help them by recognizing their personhood, understanding that they’re wired differently and may use different thought processes than we do when decision-making, and not assuming they’re “out to get us.”

Take advantage of all those opportunities to “play for the same team,” because there are going to be times you do have to “duke it out”!  You don’t want every time to be one of those times.