Parenting: The 14 Gospel PrinciplesShembull

Control

If you carefully watch your children and stop to think about the things that you have to deal with as their parent, you will be driven to the conclusion that they need more than careful parental control because something has gone wrong inside them.

It’s not just that they make foolish choices, or argue with you endlessly, or mistreat one another, or are entitled and demanding, or act as if they have wisdom that they don’t, or question your authority, or find 'no' more natural to say than 'yes,' or seem scarily attracted to the world, or seem to lack interest in the things of the Lord, or pout when they don’t get their way, or refuse to be happy until they get what they want.

It’s that all these things are moment-by-moment symptoms of a deep, abiding, and inescapable need that they came into the world with. And no matter how successfully you control their choices and behavior, your control cannot and will not free them from this deeper need.

—Paul David Tripp