No Rules Parenting

In a brilliant show of parenting skills, my husband declared a no-rules night for our 9yo. While folding laundry, the 9yo complained that kids don't like work or rules. After that, my husband informed our oldest son that he could do whatever he wanted for the rest of the night.

If you know my son, then you know that he is very loyal and tries hard to be obedient. This morning before hubby left for work, he declard it a Wii-free day. With the Wii banned lifted our son was torn. He knew that Daddy didn't want him to play the Wii, but he also knew that Daddy had just given him the freedom to do whatever he wanted.

It was awesome to watch. He sat on the floor, trying to figure out what to do. He was shaken and upset and eventually said "I want rules! I want rules!" My husband's awesome parenting kicked in and he gave our oldest a great teaching on rule-living like the pharisees vs. rule-living sprung from loving the rule-giver.

Of course, this approach would look quite differently with our 3yo. If we gave him a rule-free day, he would jump to it and eat chocolate chips and play video games. The brilliant parenting for this child would come in by allowing his indulgence to cause him pain. We'd have to let him eat so many chocolate chips that his tummy hurt.

Parenting is fun...Thank God we're not alone doing it.

9:28 PM - Jan. 22, 2008 - post comment

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a local Hebrew roots institute that believe YeShua is Messiah are having a class I really wanted to attend but it's a 12 week committment and weather this time of year is unpredictable...anyway the point of the class is that Jesus agreed with the pharisees 83% of the time.

another book with some perspective on pharisees called Meet the Rabbis

even some minister RT Kendall was writing a book with 2 chapters on "how wrong" the pharisees were and then he met David Rosen - a pharisee - and they have a book together also where they write letters back and forth and Mr Kendall decides to leave his pharisee bashing chapter out of his book.

hth

noahsmom - 9:41 AM - Jan. 23, 2008

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