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Parenting, Dealing with your child’s sin

In dealing with your child’s sin:

  1. Expect the child to naturally offer explanations of “why” they sinned, instinctively attempting to justify what they did.
  2. Understand the principle that sin is sin regardless of the reasons why it was committed. No rationale justifies sin such that it is not sinful.
  3. Notice God’s example of dealing with sin, as seen in His interactions with Eve, then with Adam, when they first sinned. Genesis 3.11-19
    1. Eve, then Adam each offered a reason for why they sinned.
    2. God ignored the “why” they offered, and dealt exclusively with “what” they did.
  4. Follow this procedure:
    1. Establish what the child did.
    2. Review with the child the Biblical standard that was violated, making the act committed a sin.
    3. Remind the child, using Scripture, of three things:
      1. The wages of sin, any sin, is death. Rm 3.23. Explain this is spiritiual death, and includes eternal separation from God. (a web link to a short discussion of spiritual death is available at: 7jLx3N, or https://app.thebrain.com/brain/a04e7c48-6408-e0ca-8bed-e1dbe6de19ba/c97092c8-6549-5a1d-8cf8-531dd456fbce)
      2. God, in love, provided someone else to pay the price for the child’s sin. That person is God’s Son, Jesus Christ. Rm 5.8
      3. If the child is willing to relate to Christ as Lord, that is as God who they obey; and to believe Christ’s death paid the penalty for the child’s sin, serren in His resurrection from the dead; then they can escape God’s promised punishment for their sin. Jn 3.16, Jn 10.9-10
    4. Apply the discipline appropriate for the child’s sin.
    5. Reaffirm your love, acceptance, and appreciation of the child. Insure they know their sin does not diminish your affection for them. Give them a clean slate to, as Jesus told the sinning woman (Jn 8.11), “Go and sin no more.”

A personal suggestion: as much as possible employ discipline which can be completed as quickly and finally as possible. Long term disciplines have the disadvantage that the child’s guilt, and its impact on relationships, can seem to linger over the timeframe of the discipline.