White Flag Parenting
“You mean we get to take her home?” I remember my wife, Krista, putting into words the very thoughts I had been having since the nurse told us that we would be discharged from the hospital. Our daughter had been born not even 72 hours before we got into our Ford Focus and headed home. Were we ready? We thought we were…
Until we realized that “getting ready” meant much more than baby showers, putting cribs together and stocking up on diapers. In reality, our efforts to make our home a place that was absolutely perfect for our baby girl were vain attempts to control a situation that was out of our hands to begin with. What we only realized in part, was that God was yearning for us to fully surrender our newborn baby over to him. He was still certainly going to use us to raise her, but He had something very important for us to learn that we could not find in the pages of a self-help book. We would learn it by raising the white flag.
In the single act of surrender, we were doing more for our child than years spent striving to be a better parent or know enough about child-rearing. Our surrender meant that we believe God holds the victory in our daughter’s life and that we can choose to join him in it or be his adversaries. Whether or not we were enough as parents didn’t matter if we had gone “palms up” and handed her over. This surrender meant that we would have to become better listeners. We wait for God to speak. He does and we hear, then choose to continue on with the white flag raised. This surrender means that we may not have clear answers. We do not negotiate the terms, we simply trust.
When we raise the white flag and surrender our parenting over to God, he takes us where we are and begins the victory dance. In fact, he invites us to join in with him. When you dance with the Victor, the parenting battles become boogies, the tantrums become tangos, the wrestling turns to a waltz. We dance with God in the joy of surrender and let him take the lead.
~JK
Posted on February 6, 2013, in Family, God and tagged family, God, kids, parenting, spirituality. Bookmark the permalink. 2 Comments.
joshkellar 
I was a young mother who recognized my stewardship to raise my children unto God as well. But a few years into my life experience as a mother, I found my home had become a combat zone! I was a frustrated mom with a strong willed child. I tried everything to get relief and to be the best mom I could be. After a desperate prayer, I finally found an interactive parenting app at happyfacetokens.com. It is a discipline program that helps chidren give happy, first time obedience while learning to think of others, build moral character and learn educational concepts. I like it for many reasons, but it is fabulous using it strong willed children. It gives balance and fairness to the discipline of children and helps unite parenting and family togetherness. My strong willed child responded completely to this program. I was amazed at how compliant and happy she became. The book is called: From Combat Zone to Love at Home: The Happy Face Token System. It is guaranteed for 30 days too. I don’t know of too many books and parenting programs that are. It is really an amazing program that comes jam-packed with ideas and an outlined program with guaranteed success for happy parenting experiences. It also outlines a Christian parenting discipline program solidly based on the scriptures using the Garden of Eden as the beginning point for building a happy family garden. The author asks what the difference is between a bribe, blessing and reward. I used to say, Why should I bribe my child to do what I say? I am the mother-I ask, they do. But I learned something very important at biblebasedparenting101.com that changed my whole thought process. Now I bless and reward. I feel so much better about myself and my parenting skills. The children thank me and tell me I am the best mom in the world while they happily do what I ask.
Ok so my struggle with this post is not with anything you wrote. I agree with it all. My struggle is with that which you didn’t write. I guess I’m curious what this approach to parenting looks like in a practical sense. I guess maybe a real life example or 2 would bring it down to earth for me.