During the podcast How to Overcome Parent Child Relationship Problems (episode 265) aired May 10th with Dr. Bengston and Jeff Schadt, we touched on the unconditional love of Jesus the Good Shepherd and why it’s so important for our kids today.
When parents consider changing their approach in line with The One Rule Home and Jesus’ one command that he left the disciples before he departed their lives (LOVE) they often have very similar questions:
- How does leading with love work?
- Won’t this mean I am enabling them?
- I can’t do that, my kids will go crazy!
I have to be honest. When I was doing the research with kids as a parent at the outset I wanted to argue with just about everything they said. Why? Because I am older, own a house and have kids possessing far more experience and wisdom than they did. Yet as I listened, and the same things were said over and over, combined with the discouragement and resignation I saw in so many of their eyes, it forced me to really begin to listen to understand them.
As I listened it became easy to see things from their perspective, and the picture wasn’t pretty, because many of the things their parents were targeting in their lives were not the real cause of their struggles and the decisions their parents lamented.
I have to admit most of what they said was insightful, fair and relationally true. This presented me with my own personal parenting dilemma, especially once I bounced what they were saying by my own kids and found my kids saw me the same way all these kids saw their parents.
It was then I was convicted that I looked nothing like the Good Shepherd to my own kids.
I realized I needed to radically change the way I was parenting to remain the primary influence in my kids’ lives. Especially if I wanted to see my oldest turn around as she had grown hard, distant, and so defensive that we had to debate her for over an hour to get her to admit she had lied or done anything to her brother or sister. In spite of this conviction given my research with growing numbers of kids I still feared making the change thinking:
- My kids will go crazy without my control tactics.
- There’s no way this will work, love won’t fix the issues with my defiant, lying oldest child….
I’m happy to report, I was oh so wrong.
In fact, within 12 months she was close to me and wanted to talk with me. Not long after that she freely began to admit things to me and soon was traveling with me to speak at parenting events. She was buried in questions after every session from questioning and skeptical parents.
Leading with Love works but it challenges so many of our long-held beliefs of parenting as well as some sacred cows as well!
In fact it took me months before I was willing to attempt to lead with love… due to my doubts and fears. Yet it worked and led to amazing changes in my kids and family.
During episode 265 Dr Bengston and I discussed how profoundly different Jesus’ leadership style and approach was from that of the world then and today! The Roman Empire and the synagogue were based upon position, authority, rules and consequences or sacrifices.
Jesus came breaking many of the laws and led his disciples to do the same. In fact, we do not see an example of Jesus or his disciples sacrificing in accordance with the law for their many transgressions of the laws or expectations of the day.
He led very differently: Not from a position of power and authority, but from a position of sincerity, care and compassion…Really a position of love and it worked!
The disciples followed him all the way to their deaths, never turning from the truth of Jesus’ love and forgiveness. Even more surprisingly, in spite of not following the many laws or expectations, we do not find that the disciples fell to temptation even though Jesus had them around the woman at the well who was sleeping around or the adulterous woman and the tax collectors with all their corruption….
While I saw this as true I did not believe it would work with my kids, but it did. Just like the crowd of 5,000 who chased Jesus around the lake, when I began to lead with love rather than rules, boundaries and expectations my kids began to listen to me and chase me around the lake rather than their friends…
Why does this work???
Great question…. Something I have wrestled with for years. In my kids’ life the fact that they did not fear me at all, felt loved and encouraged even when they made mistakes and were able to discuss the reasons going on within that led to some of their struggles made our relationship unlike any other relationship they had, with friends, teachers and certainly social media darlings. The fact that I extended unconditional love and was safe caused them to let me in far more deeply than any parent child relationship I had ever witnessed.
The fact that I was safe, consistent, caring, compassionate and encouraging meant I treated my kids better than the world, their friends, teachers, youth pastor etc… So they chose to follow me because they bought me more than their friends and the world.
Just like with Jesus and the disciples and crowds, no where else would they be looked upon with compassion when failing, like Jesus looks on the crowds in Matthew 9:36
When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.
He looked upon the sinners with compassion, not frustration, disappointment or anger because he was looking at their lonely hearts, insecure hearts, that had them making all sorts of bad decisions….that were not decisions at all but were being driven by the roots in their unconscious thoughts and emotions because they did not feel safe and protected by a shepherd in their lives.
The synagogue had added so many rules or expectations to the biblical law or torah and had become so corrupt the Pharisees were taking advantage of the people – their sheep. The Roman government and its heavy-handed authority also left the sheep feeling unsafe and insecure in their position and future. As a result their unconscious thoughts and feelings had them looking for some type of safety, acceptance, and/or escape for their uncomfortable feelings and fears. This made many do things to fit in, provide financial security or make them feel better about themselves that were counter to all the laws and expectations of the faith.
By contrast, Jesus made it clear that no one could lead such a perfect life as to attain the law. In fact, he taught that perfection was not a goal to even be attempted on this side of heaven. As a result, Jesus knew all would fail and was not surprised, hurt or offended when they failed.
This truth and his own internal security enabled him to approach people making bad decisions with care, understanding, compassion, and even protection. Think back to how Jesus protected the adulterous women from being stoned because she broke the law, rules or expectations of the day and the consequence was to be stoned to death.
It was due to Jesus’ unconditional love and protection that the disciples and crowds granted Jesus more influence in their life than any Roman authority, Synagogue leader or social leader that existed in either Israel or Rome. His influence was so strong it scared the leaders of the day to the core of their very being and power, so they put him to death.
Leading with love is radically different than leading with authority, position, rules and our ability to dole out consequences……
It reaches the motivation center of our kids’ hearts, draws them close and offers security and safety they can not find in the world. As a result they choose to follow, listen to us, their parents, and their confidence grows as they begin to learn from their mistakes rather than try to hide them for fear of another lecture, disappointment, frustration or losing their screen.
Leading with Love works. It is in fact the most powerful form of leadership the world has ever seen but it challenges us at the very core of being parents….
I had to turn and face things in my life to be able to lead more and more like Jesus the good shepherd.
Jesus’ command was to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself.
From working with so many families it has become clear how few people even like, let alone love, themselves…. I was there myself. I was so hard on myself. Trying to say everything right, do everything right and when I didn’t I would replay it in my head saying, “I should have said this, I should have said that. I’m so stupid.” At times feeling helpless to change anything about me.
Our research found that kids were in the same place but would not open up to their parents for the parents to even see this. Rather they saw defensiveness, disrespectful reactions, and pushback as they sought to protect themselves from what was coming their way when they fell short.
This is why leading with love is so vital today. It gives parents so much more influence than the world, friends, teachers and schools in their kids’ lives, making them immune to the various contagions sweeping through so many kids’ lives and hearts today.
When kids feel loved, accepted and encouraged in spite of their imperfections (imperfections they will encounter no matter what they do) they grow more confident, they learn, grow and mature faster than when they fear making mistakes, beat themselves up and try to hide their failures from us.
What does leading with love look like and how does it function? Great question:
Love has many practical facets to it that alter how we view ourselves, life, failure and our kids. Believe it or not I found Love to be the strongest and most effective boundary in my kids’ lives. At one point I was a fairly high control: a rules-and-consequence parent. I gained compliance but lost influence in their lives as my kids sought to protect themselves from me and my consequences.
When love became the only rule in our home it became so much easier to address issues between the kids and in their lives because they had nothing to get defensive about or push back against, opening them to really consider what was going on and what led to their failure.
In one great example, my son Paul at age 12 called me and said, “Dad, what do I do?”
“About what, Paul?” I asked.
“Max asked me to pee in a cup for him so he could pass his parents’ drug test.” Paul said.
Max had been grounded for three months while Marijuana worked out of his 12-year-old body. Just three weeks later he was asking Paul to pee in a cup. The grounding had not deterred him because he had many roots going on below his decision that drove him to escape.
What’s worse was what he told my son. That none of his other friends or his three siblings could pass the drug test. He was the only one in his family to have been unlucky enough to have been caught. So there was a lot of pressure on my son to comply, especially since Max was about his only friend given our recent move.
When he asked, “What should I do?” I want you to notice my son not only called me at 12 about stuff related to drugs, but he called to ask me what he should do! That was how much he trusted me, felt safe with me, and looked to me as a safe place to consider his decisions. Talk about influence in his life. Far more than when I had when I used boundaries and consequences to gain compliance and he would not come to me for anything.
I asked him what he felt it looked like to truly love Max in this situation. He knew what I was asking and saying given that Love was the one rule in our home. So he responded, “Dad, if I don’t pee in the cup I’ll probably lose my only friend.”
I said, “That’s what makes this such a hard decision.”
He then went on to say, “But if I pee in a cup he’ll keep doing drugs and he’s already talking about trying more serious stuff and that’s not what’s best for him.”
We got off the call with him having considered all the options and outcomes. Later that day when he got home he told me he decided to say no because helping him keep doing drugs was not what was best for him and thus not loving.
Sadly he was right when he lost his friend. Was it a good decision though? Yes, as Max went on to do more drugs and find himself in more and more issues in his life.
Leading with Love granted me access to help him process his decision and led to him choosing the right thing for himself. I have seen the opposite play out in so many of the families I have helped through the years as they sought to prevent their kids from being friends with negative influences, costing them the relationship and influence in their kid’s lives and sending them toward the negative influence and the relationship.
Paul by contrast made a choice that extricated himself from the relationship that I already knew was fraught with danger because he knew what love meant, how it functioned and he chose to love Max and lay down his life and desires to do what was best for him. This took him out of a relationship I knew was a bad influence by his own decision because I trusted Jesus’s one Rule of love to work in my son’s life.
There are many other practical facets of using love in our homes. It impacts how we handle failure, how transparent we are with our kids, the way we view our kids and the way we respect and communicate with each other. If you would like to learn more about leading with love, Consider getting my book the One Rule Home or join a Leading with Love cohort where you’ll spend 30 hours with me or another amazing One Rule Home Coach over twenty weeks as we learn to see our kids differently and how love will help us get below the surface to target the roots below their baffling reaction, decisions and struggles.
