How to Break Your Child’s Heart in Five Easy Steps

Five Ways to Break Your Child’s Heart

1. Parent out of Selfishness or Narcissism – Make everything in their life about you.When a parent lives vicariously through their child, we have a problem. When a parent makes a child’s strengths because of them, but then condemns or completely ignores their weaknesses, we have a problem. Chances are if you can’t get over yourself long enough to mold and shape both your child’s abilities and their weakness then you will raise a child who resents you. A narcissistic parent is unable to detach from their child long enough to allow them to be average, to be ok with an average child.

Ask yourself… are you OK with having an AVERAGE kid? or does your child have to be on the honor roll or accelerated classes, successful at sports, on the homecoming court, president of every club, considered popular, and willing to give you the praise in the process. Are you OK with average?

2. Discredit their Feelings or how they experience a situation
A parent that has to defend every situation in the light of their own actions or a parent that has to come to their own defense instead of allowing a child to be angry, be hurt, be confused…is a parent insensitive to their child’s feelings. To not listen and only respond to defend yourself is just another way of proving that you really aren’t willing to listen. When you defend yourself first… you discredit or invalidate your child’s opinion or what they were feeling about you. If you have an automatic answer for every accusation… then you are not hearing your child’s truth. You may not have meant it that way, but this is what your child felt. You break your child’s heart when you invalidate their feelings with excuses and justifications.

Ask yourself… do I rush to defend myself, or quickly justify my actions when confronted OR do I listen to the reasons my child is hurt and only be willing to honestly apologize (not offer excuses). Am I known for listening to my child’s hurts or justifying why I acted the way I did?

3. Ignore God in their lives
The truth is that many parents pass the spiritual development buck. They give their child’s spiritual training to Sunday School teachers and rarely walk beside them in light of God’s truth. How is a child supposed to discern the will of God… if you only talk about it? How are they supposed to know how to pray if you just hand them a manual or make them sit in a sermon series on prayer? How are children supposed to know how to walk with God… when their parents’ faith is shallow and for show? Our God is a God of details and He is to be trusted with the smallest and biggest things in the lives of our children. But growing in a deeper understanding of God is not something that happens through osmosis. Jesus wants all of our children’s lives, not just their Sunday mornings.

Ask yourself… is God continually present in our home? Do we teach our children how to be prayer warriors, scripture study (not talking fluffy devotionals) or do we expect them to get that training through AWANA or church? You can not leave the spiritual places of your child to the wolves to raise… Satan just loves that.

4. Squash their quirks, differences, strengths and weaknesses
Every child has the right to be different. Every child has the right to be unique because there is no such thing as “cookie-cutter” children. Our children deserve our respect. (She said what?) We have a responsibility to them, a responsibility to celebrate who they are, who God created them to be.

“A lot of parents are convinced that their kids could care less about them. Maybe it’s because we’ve squandered too many opportunities to show how much they matter to us. We’ve been too busy when they needed our attention, we’ve been too harsh when they’ve let us down, and we’ve been too skeptical when they let us peek at their dreams. They long to have a significant purpose, and they long to know that their purpose matters to us.” (Tim Kimmel, Grace-Based Parenting)

Ask yourself, Are you applauding God at work in your child’s life (in whatever form that comes) or are you squashing their potential?

5. Offer them no place to share their hurts, disagreements with you, struggles…
One of my biggest desires in raising our children is that they will feel like they can talk to me in truth without me reacting. I want to respond in love, to listen to their words and for them to feel that their opinions matter to me. I’m not looking to be their friends. I’m hoping to be their best friend. I pray that I am their solid support no matter what. I am shooting for the longterm development of our family not just the immediate. I don’t want to be dictator mom 24/7. I’d much rather be known for a gentle spirit, open attentive heart, active listening skills, and joy filled delight in who they are as God’s creation.

Ask yourself… do my children feel that they can openly, respectfully disagree with me? Do they share the details of their lives? Do they ignore my questions?

We do seem to forget how important our children are to God. Their lives matter to Him. Their hearts are so important to Him. Our children can be angry with Him, disgusted, afraid and He is there for them. He is attentive to their every request, He acknowledges their presence and shapes their futures. He is a God invested in their details.

Can your child say that about you?

J.