Purpose and Practice
Christ-Centered or Child Centered? Child-Centered Home Christ-Centered Home Where children learn to:
- Interrupt adults talking
- Use manipulation and rebellion to get their way
- Dictate the family schedule
- Take precedence over spouse’ s needs
- Have equal or overriding vote
- Demand excessive time or attention
- Escape the consequences of sinful and irresponsible behavior
- Speak to parents as though peers
- Be the dominant influence in the home
- Be entertained or coddled out of a bad mood
- The child perceives that the entire family exists to please him and make him happy.
Where children learn to:
- Know the joy of serving others
- Cheerfully obey the first time
- Not interrupt parents
- Not manipulate others
- Know that they will not always get their way
- Work their schedule around their parents’ schedule
- Have input into decisions but not an equal vote
- Understand parents have other God-given responsibilities
- Suffer natural consequences for sinful and irresponsible behavior
- Honor parents as authorities
- Esteem others more important than selves
- Fulfill household duties (chores)
- Protect themselves from bad influences
- Not divide parents on disciplinary issues
- Not be more intimate with either parent, than the parents are with each other
- The child perceives that the husband is the head of the family and the wife is submissive to her husband. Theirs is the primary relationship.