More on Double Standards – What I'm Reading

2 Comments

“So double standards are an enemy of effective discipline in the home. No one wants to hear a parent yelling that the children need to learn to keep quiet. But another enemy of effective discipline is the reluctance that some parents have to discipline at all because they are so aware of their own shortcomings. Because they are afraid of hypocrisy, they don’t intervene at those places where their children desperately need to be corrected and taught. Children (particularly teenagers) will then exploit this, using lack of parental perfection as a reason for disregarding what they were told to do. Compare it to food and cooking. Perhaps a mother doesn’t feel that her cooking is what it ought to be. This doesn’t keep the children from needing the food, and children need discipline just like they need food. So parental hypocrisy is one danger. But preferring ‘no discipline’ to ‘imperfect discipline’ is another.” (My Life for Yours, p. 111)

Categories:

Published by Jeff Voegtlin

Dr. Jeff Voegtlin has been in Christian service for over twenty years. He is an associate pastor at Fairhaven Baptist Church in Chesterton, Indiana, and a Vice President of Fairhaven Baptist College. As conductor of the church and schools' orchestra program, and overseer of the educational program of the college, his teaching has helped to train hundreds of young adults to prepare for full-time ministry. After completing a bachelor's degree from Fairhaven Baptist College, he received a master's degree in Bible from Pensacola Christian College. In 2007, he completed the requirements to finish a doctor's degree in education from Bob Jones University. Dr. Voegtlin is available for seminars in instrumental and choral music practice and philosophy, for education seminars, and to preach and present the college ministry.

Tags:

2 Comments

  1. I essentially agree with all this material on double standards. I don’t know if he deals with this, but children need to know that we all serve out of the grace of God, and not out of our own sinless perfection. This does not license sin, but gives us confidence to parent despite our own struggle with the flesh. Children must also learn to forgive their parents. The Bible emphasizes forgiveness—see Mt. 18:21-35, the model of prayer of the Lord includes it.

  2. I think that is kind of his point. That parents must not shrink away from disciplining children because of shortcomings in their own lives. They should discipline even though they are not perfect.

    I do know that he emphasizes parents seeking forgiveness when they have sinned against their children, and with this I agree. I don’t think children should be expected to have to figure out what to “accept” from their parents because the parents are doing right and what to “forgive” in their parents because the parents are doing wrong. Parents ought to seek their children’s forgiveness when they have sinned against them. Parents should, of course, strive not to sin against their children. But, they are around them more than most other human beings, so it probably happens more than we’d like to admit.

Comments are closed.