Exasperated Children

“Fathers (and mothers), do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” 

(Ephesians 6:4 emphasis added).

          An exasperated child is a frustrated, irritated, vexed and angry person. A constant dose of exasperated parenting in a child’s life can sever the parent-child relationship forever. This child will run from home never to be seen again unless the parent comes to full repentance (even then, it takes a miracle for recovery). Hazing parents run the risk of their children ignoring any of the good taught; because the child will throw out all (good and bad) as they see these lessons as one in the same. In essence, a parent unwilling to love their child with patience and understanding is a parent who has raised their child to live life alone without guidance.

          Many parents do not know what to do with their child when they turn 18 and still live at home. Some parents choose not to change their role; they insist on seeing their children as the same young developing age they were when they were young. Some remove their kids (a.k.a. kick out) from the home too early without preparing them for life on their own. However, successful parents will adjust their parenting style to their young adult’s needs. They learn to strike a balance between compromise and compliance so that their child will have opportunity to make choices, fail, learn, and grow while still under the influence of their parents. These parents choose to remove themselves from the role of overseer to mentor.  

A mentor guides their child’s decisions, not dictates them. An overseer is a manager; when a child is young, a child’s life needs managing, but God’s plan for each person is to learn to manage themselves. This change in parenting roles helps a young adult move from being an immature adolescent to an established successful adult. Does this mean young adults will make mistakes? Yes. Will they make some wrong decisions? Of course. Most of us at that young age made mistakes and learned from them.  Mistakes are one of the pathways to maturity. Let them learn. Let them fail. Pick them up with encouragement, not hindrance.

Understanding each adult child and their unique time frame of development is also a critical piece to mentoring them well. They all grow and mature at different paces. This is another area where a parent needs to strike a balance between pushing (prompting forward) and waiting on God’s motivation to help the child advance. When parents push their child to the point of exasperation, they end up accelerating their child’s failures to dangerous levels instead of learning levels. The waiting periods demand active prayer. The prompting periods demand God’s truth. Both work together to help an adult child move forward in their life with success. In the end, an adult child who is mentored and not managed will be one who returns often to continue that parent-child bond they hold so dear.