In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Now there are several things that I do believe that a parent needs to understand and needs to communicate to their children. And those messages that we communicate are going to be positive and negative. They're going to be helpful or a hindrance. They could be developing or they could be destructive.

But we are going to be communicating some things that are going to go either way in that child's life. That's why you and I have to be careful what we communicate. We have to stop and think, this is what I'm saying. What am I communicating?

Host (Male): Children are to be seen and not heard. Well, that old saying often had the effect of diminishing the value of young people. But today's edition of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, points us to Christ's view of children. Evaluate whether you might need to make some adjustments to your parenting technique as you listen today to Messages Parents Send. Let's listen in to Dr. Stanley's message.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Do you ever think of yourself as a communicator? Or more than likely, you would say no. But the truth is, you are. You communicate through your eyes, through your facial expressions, through your voice, through your gestures, through your posture, through your dress, through your presence or your absence, and sometimes powerfully through your silence.

And when I think about what parents communicate to their children, the kind of awesome effects it has upon them, and the truth is, it has lasting effects. And all of us are the products of what our parents have communicated to us.

And somebody says, well, but my parents passed away when I was very young in life, or they left me at my grandmother's house, or they divorced and walked away. It doesn't make any difference what they did. They communicated a message to you, and you either interpreted it properly or incorrectly. And it has had an effect upon you. It will always have an effect upon you as long as you live.

Because, you see, we don't outgrow those things that are communicated to us. Now, once in a while, we may recognize because it keeps coming back like a tape something that was communicated to us. And once you identify if it's not a good thing and you identify it as something that's been playing all of your life or for years and years and years, you can take that tape out. You can correct it.

But oftentimes, we never stop to think, where did that come from? Communicated to you probably before you realized what was happening. And I want us to think about these messages that we send as parents. And there are two primary areas of communication I want to discuss here.

Number one is simply this: that it is the responsibility of every parent to communicate to their children and to communicate very well to their children, very clearly to their children, those principles, both by what they teach and by their own actions, those principles that will enable their children to live a godly life and to fulfill God's purpose for their life.

It is the father's or the mother's and the parent's responsibility to communicate faithfully and adequately those provisions and those principles so that they'll be able to fulfill God's will for their life. That's our responsibility as parents.

A second area of communication is this: that every child needs to have communicated to them the following affirmations: I'm accepted. I belong. I'm competent. I'm loved. I'm secure. And I'm worthy.

When children are communicated those emotions and they feel that, they sense that, here's what you can expect. First of all, they're going to sense a security in their home for their provision, for their protection, and for their personal discipline to become the kind of children they ought to be.

They're going to feel like that they're somebody. They understand who they are, and therefore, they're not going to have to run out and try to get with their peers acceptance through sex and drugs and alcohol and partying. They don't have to find out who they are. They already know who they are.

They already have a sense of security. They already have a sense of belonging. They don't have to join some gang and join in some very sensual, immoral affair in order to find out who they are and if they're worth and if they're loved and if they're cared for and if their life really counts. It's already been delegated to them. They discovered that because their parents communicated to them those principles that they realized would have eternal value in their life.

They were communicated to that they're accepted, that they belong, that they're competent, that they're adequate to do, that they're loved, that they're worthy, and that certainly they're secure in that relationship with their parents. Those kind of children grow up to be godly. Those kind of children grow up to make a difference in life. They grow up to fulfill God's purpose and plan for their life. Why? Because the communication in those early years was those basic foundational emotions and truths that are so absolutely essential to all of us.

And this is the kind of communication God would send to all of us. He wants all of us as His children to understand that we're accepted, that we belong, that we are people who have become competent because of the Holy Spirit living within us, that we are eternally and unconditionally loved, that we're secure in Him, and that we're certainly worth something because His Son died at the cross to make sure all of us know what our worth's all about.

Now, there are several things that I do believe that a parent needs to understand and needs to communicate to their children. Parents need to communicate to their children very clearly that that child's emotions are very important to them, that they do matter, that they do count, that they do belong. All of these things are very simple on our part.

But how does a child interpret that? And when I think about that, how that happens, a child's emotions are programmed early in life, and those emotions become a vital part of their thinking that affect all of their thinking, their relationships, and every single aspect of their life.

And those messages that we communicate are going to be positive and negative. They're going to be helpful or a hindrance. They could be developing or they could be destructive. But we are going to be communicating some things that are going to go either way in that child's life.

That's why you and I have to be careful what we communicate. We have to stop and think, this is what I'm saying. What am I communicating? It is a parent's responsibility to treat every child differently. You say, well, you should treat them all alike. You can't do that. For the simple reason it's our responsibility as parents to understand the different types of personalities different children have.

And so you can send this message, communicate this message to one child, he interprets a certain way. You send the same message to another child, he may interpret it another way. And so it's our responsibility to learn the personality of our children and to be sure that the message we communicate is the message we intend for them to receive.

Now, no parent's perfect. We've all made our mistakes, and we'll all make them. Can we correct them? Yes, we can. And one way you can always correct any mistake is with love. When you know how to love someone, no matter what the mistake is, you can convey that. And love has this awesome power to heal.

And so you may hear this message and say, oh, my, my, how many mistakes I've made. None that God cannot correct. And it may be that those mistakes were made a long time ago and your children now are old enough to have been married and maybe they have their own children. And you know deep down inside that maybe you made some mistakes back then and you'd like to correct them and you think, well, it's too late to correct them.

Well, let's put it this way: it may be too late to correct fully that mistake. It's not too late to say, I'm sorry. It's not too late to say, I wish I had done better. It's not too late to say, if I just had it to go over again. It's never too late to say, how can I correct? How can I help?

And how can I communicate to you how deeply I love you and appreciate you and how much worth I place and value I place on you as my son or my daughter? Never too late to say that. So what I would like to do to make this very practical is this: I want to illustrate some of those circumstances that all of us as parents deal with in our life or grandparents.

Or some, for example, maybe you're not married, you don't have children, but you also have the problem of communicating sometimes exactly what you mean. And sometimes you leave a message that you never intended to leave. And sometimes people get very hurt, very, very deeply hurt because they hear a message you didn't intend to communicate, but that's what they heard and that's how they interpreted what you said.

Think about this: nobody trains us to be parents. You can be trained in theology, trained as an accountant, trained as a scientist, trained as a teacher, trained as this, trained in that. Who trains us as parents? We learn oftentimes by mistake. But if you'll listen to this message, it'll help you. It'll help you train your children and communicate to them in such a way that they're going to feel accepted, belonging, competent, loved, worthy, and very secure.

Every child needs to leave home with those emotions founded deep inside, very rooted and grounded as a foundation in their life. Those emotions need to be absolutely settled once and for all. So what I'd like to do is to talk about some of the things that we face in life. And what I want to do is give you the illustration, then I want to show you how we respond sometimes, then what does the child hear, and then how should we do it.

So let's begin with something very simple, and that is you are watching your favorite TV program and you are engrossed in it. Your son or your daughter walks in and says, "Hey, here's what I want to talk to you about something." "Don't bother me now! Don't you see this is my favorite program? I've been waiting all day for it to come on, and right now I don't have time. Just tell, we'll talk about it later."

Now, your message is, "I'm busy." The child's communication is this: "You're too busy with something that doesn't really make any difference. You're too busy watching a TV program or reading a newspaper or reading a magazine. What I have to say is very important, and what you're saying to me is what I have to say is not important. What you're doing is more important than me. And so I'm not as important as your newspaper, I'm not as important as your ballgame, I'm not as important as what you're thinking."

And so the child walks away. Now, you may not have meant to communicate that, but listen, it isn't what you think; it's what you communicate that matters. And when you turn a child away and you say to them, "I don't have time for you now," and look what I'm doing which to that child is very, very unimportant and very, very, listen, insignificant compared to what that child has on his or her mind, you communicate a very devastating message because this is the way it's communicated: "I don't count at this moment. He doesn't care. If he really loved me, he'd listen because what I have to say is very important." And what he's saying by not listening to me is, "What I have to say is not important at this time."

So how do you correct that? No matter what you and I are doing, when our child walks in and they said something, "I need to talk to you about but I want to talk to you about it," you know what? It's important. He's your child. She's your daughter. Whatever's on their mind, you need to listen to. Now, listen to me carefully because one of these days, you're going to want to listen to what they have to say.

But if you're too busy throughout their younger years to listen, one of these days, they don't care what you think and they're not going to tell you what you want to know. Very important you communicate: "You're important to me enough that whatever you have to say, I want to listen to it."

And it's not going to hurt you to take 30 seconds or 60 seconds at least to say, "Well, you know what? We can deal with that right now, or maybe we could deal with it a little bit later." But at least you have given them your attention. You've dropped everything and you've said, "You are so important, I want to hear what you have to say."

A second area that I want us to mention is this: and that is a child does his best in school, and his best is not very good. And so he comes home, and you say to that child, "Is that the best you can do? I know you can do better. You should, you ought, you must. It's very embarrassing to me if you to bring these kind of grades home. And besides that, look at your brothers, look at your sisters, look what they've done. You can do better than this."

Now, what you have sent is a communication that says, as far as you're concerned, you ought to do better. You know what the child hears? Communicated to the child is, "I don't measure up. I'll never be able to measure up to my brother or my sister. I can't please my father. When he says I ought and I should and I must, I'll never be able to do all that he thinks I should and ought and must."

And here's what happens: the gradual separation begins. It may be very little at the moment, but what that child begins to recognize is something is between him or her and her father. And you watch this, here's what will happen: when a child figures and thinks and realizes and you communicate to them, "You can't please me," because it's not going to just happen once, it's going to happen often.

The child becomes frustrated. The child becomes angry. Angry at themselves because they can't, angry at you because you sometimes holler at them. This "should, ought, must" is such pressure on them as a young child. And so what happens is they become angry.

And after a while, you know what? They just become rebellious. If they realize they can't do it and you keep on expecting it and they can't and their anger develops into rebellion, and then what happens? They withdraw and withdraw and withdraw. Then they become disobedient. Then you get on their case again. And it begins a vicious cycle. I have seen it over and over and over again.

Children become deeply, deeply hurt. They want to please their dad. They want to please their mom. And they can't, and right now they happen to be doing the best they can. They don't know how to do any better. And these expectations are awesomely destructive.

How do you correct that? Your son or your daughter comes in, they've done their best, their best just doesn't add up to what you think they can do. Here's what you say: "Well, we probably didn't do very good this time, did we?" What you've done is you've included yourself "we" because dad, more than likely, you had a part.

And so you say to them, "We didn't do very good this time, but you know what? I bet we'll do better next time. Let's see, how can I help you do better next time? Not expecting you to be perfect because, you know, old dad himself, I wasn't perfect, and so therefore, don't expect you to be perfect. But probably we can do a little better." What you have done is you have affirmed his belonging. You have affirmed his self-esteem. You have affirmed his competence. You have said to him, "I know you can do better, and we together will do better."

There's a third kind of experience, and that's when the father makes the promise to his son, "I'm going to take you to the ballgame Friday night. We're going. Got the tickets." Or the mother says, "Sweetheart, I'm going to take you shopping Friday. School's out, you and mama going shopping."

So either one of them. Father fails to come home, fails to take his son to the ballgame. Mother shows up later and says, "Well, it's too late." The father says, "Well, you know, sometimes in life you just have some things that are just more important than going to the ballgame, and so I couldn't come. Sorry." And so the mother says, "Well, you know, I just had to work and it just wasn't convenient. I just didn't feel like going shopping. We can go shopping some other time."

That's what you communicated. What did your children hear? The child grows up and says, "You know, you can't trust anybody." You say, "Well, I would never say this." Remember what I said: it's not what you think; it's what you communicate.

"Well, how am I to trust God to keep His promises? My father wouldn't keep his promises. How can I trust God to be trustworthy when I can't even see Him and I can see my father who's supposed to love me and I can't trust him to keep his promises and I can't trust him to do what he says he's going to do? How can I trust God? How do you expect me?"

And so how do you correct that? If you can't show up, you call him and tell him you're not coming and say, "I'm sorry, I apologize, here's what's happened, but as soon as I get home we're going to plan to do it next time, you can count on me, I know it's my fault, and I want to ask you to forgive me, we will do it next time."

You can correct it, but you don't wait a week or a month until the child's hurt has become deep and deeper and deeper and anger has developed and distrust has developed and then he says, "Well, you know, my father said he's going to take me to the ballgame, I don't know whether he is or not. The last time he didn't."

And so what happens? It just gets deeper and deeper, stronger and stronger, and you create distrust. No parent wants to create distrust in his child. You're communicating to your children many messages. And I want to ask you again, are you communicating: I accept you just the way you are. You belong to me. You're competent. I've got confidence in you. I love you. You're secure in our relationship. And you're worth more than you'll ever be able to understand.

Host (Male): Dr. Stanley's message encouraged you to carefully evaluate what you say and the attitudes you convey to your children. As you speak to them, let your words affirm that they are competent, valued, and that they belong. To listen again, click "Today on Radio" at intouch.org and search our online resources to learn more biblical parenting principles and how to relate to your own parents or what the Bible says about the family.

And if you go to our bookstore page, you can order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete sermon "Messages Parents Send." Again, you'll find these resources at intouch.org. To call or text us, the number simply is 1-800-INTOUCH. And to write to us, address your letter to In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357. Again, you can call us or text 1-800-INTOUCH.

Your kids need a variety of things from you. What's the best thing that you can do for them? Well, today's Moment with Charles Stanley is on the way.

Guest (Female): Does your prayer life need a jumpstart? With the In Touch Praying with Purpose cards, the time you spend talking with God will take on a whole new level of energy and intimacy. Beautifully designed and easy to use or to share with a friend, there are prayers to lift up each day of the month along with corresponding Bible verses and more. For your set of Praying with Purpose cards, call 1-800-INTOUCH or go to intouch.org/store.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, wonderful, incomparable relationship with a personal God.

Guest (Female): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus as we all want to do. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org.

Host (Male): You're listening to In Touch. How do you help your children develop a love for God? With advice for Christian parents, here's a Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: If you're a parent or plan to be one someday, it's never too late to begin having a positive impact on your children and grandchildren. And mother or dad, let me just say this: you need to learn to listen to God very early in the life of your child. And God does honor parents who want to raise their children in a godly fashion.

It begins by being an example. And also, a parent should have a clear goal: what is it that you want your child to learn? Where do you want them to go spiritually? How do you want them to grow up?

Another thing I would mention is this: introduce to them very early in life the Word of God and talk about God's Word. And don't just say when they get a little older, "Go read your Bible," but read it with them. Let them see you reading it. And a good place to do that is at the table sometimes at dinner. And also, keep bringing Jesus into your conversations.

So what happens? When you begin to magnify the place of the Word of God in your home and you're continually talking about Jesus in your conversations, at some point, at the right age and you'll know that, you begin to explain to them, well, what is sin? And what does the Bible mean when it says sin? And what about the cross and the bloody death of Jesus on the cross? And what about forgiveness?

There will come a time when it is your responsibility to explain to your child how to be saved. Now, mom and dad, you have to be sure that you are. And secondly, you want to be sure that you know how to explain that to them in a very simple fact so that they understand. Not to scare them, not to frighten them, and not in any way accuse them. You're just leading them to Jesus, which means you must be very sensitive and also sensitive to their progress as you see them growing.

Because what you're really doing as a parent once they're saved, you're disciplining your sons and your daughters. What you're doing is you're establishing in them the authority of the Word of God and the authority of God Himself. You want them to understand what does God say? What does He think about it?

And then when you get ready to buy them a Bible, make it a big deal. Create the kind of environment in your home where your children understand the Bible is God's authority. That's how we make decisions. Let them see you reading it, let them hear you praying, praying with them. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." That is the promise of God, and somewhere along the way, they're going to face up to this awesome truth that you as a parent built into their life.

Host (Male): You can learn more about raising your children to love and trust Jesus at intouch.org. And if today's program has prompted you to consider how you can share the grace of God with others, let us know about it. Next time on In Touch, we continue to focus on the critical role moms and dads play in the lives of their kids. So join us again for Part 2 of Messages Parents Send on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.