Teaching Obedience
Obedience is more than an action. It is obeying, right away, with the right attitude, tone of voice and facial expression!
To help you teach obedience, use this whole child method to teach obedience for better results.
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Deal with the action of being obedient, the tone of voice, the facial expression, the body language and the heart of your child. Teaching these things will help your child move from being parent-controlled, to self-controlled to our wanted result of God-controlled!
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Yes, we need to monitor our children’s responses to see that they are obeying, answering with the right tone of voice, facial expression and body language.
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Obedience: What’s Going on INSIDE your child?
AND we also need to address what is going on in their hearts and minds. We want them to be nice, obedient children but our REAL goal is to raise God-honoring children.
If you have never thought of having a mission statement for your home or homeschool, I recommend one! The following article gives several examples and will help you get started: Homeschool Mission Statement: Is It Necessary?
When you have an end goal in mind, it is much easier to stay on track, avoid getting side-tracked, make decisions and reach your goal.
Prayer is Crucial!
- Of course we prayed for and with our children regularly.
- We pray at mealtimes, thanking the Lord for the food He has provided.
- We pray in the evenings, thanking the Lord for the blessings He has given us.
- We ask the Lord to help us have the wisdom we need as we raise the children He has given us!
He promises to help us and I hold onto those promises because I need His help.
If you feel your prayer life needs some assistance I recommend using a prayer notebook system. You can have an organized system to pray through your requests, pray scripturally and track God’s answers in your life.
If you wonder what you should be praying for concerning your children, here are some ideas for you.
Obedience: We want our children to do the action of obeying.
The action of obeying means that when we say, Pick up your toys and put them in the toy box, we want our children to immediately stop what they are doing and begin to put their toys in the toy box. We are looking for the action of compliance. We don’t want them to start coloring or ignore us or do something else.
We don’t want delayed obedience either.
We don’t want delayed obedience–the sloth version of picking up their toys. There is a cute song that reminds us that “to delay is to disobey,” from Patch the Pirate CD, Patch the Pirate Goes to Space. If you and your children learn the song together, you can just hum it when needed! Note: I have been very thankful over the years Ron Hamilton’s ministry to my children through his good character-building songs and stories. We listened to and sang the songs together and they listened to them as they went to sleep at night. Getting those good messages into your children when they are young is important.
What tone of voice shows obedience?
But we also want our children to use the right tone of voice when they are obeying: Why? Because that tone of voice reveals either an obedient heart or one that is still in rebellion to your requests. Some children do not naturally hear the difference in a kind tone of voice compared to a sarcastic tone of voice. You will need to model the way you want your children to talk AND explain that by talking a different way, they are sending a different message!
Facial Expressions can Reveal the Heart
Your child’s face often reveals if they are compliant or still angry! Show them the difference using a mirror if you need to. Usually they know when you are upset by your facial expression. Let them know that you can tell when they are upset too.
Obedience: What is their body language saying?
Body language also shows an obedient attitude. Are they acting like a mule that puts it front feet down and won’t budge? Are they slamming things around as they put their toys away? Make sure you are looking at the whole child to see if you are getting through to the most important part of him- his heart!
Talk to your child about their behavior. Keep teaching and modeling the right way to obey. Direct disobedience has to be dealt with directly, but childish behavior (of which there is much!) needs to be taught and explained, over and over so that you can know your child understands the behavior that you are wanting.
Remember, obedience is more than an action. It is obeying, right away, with the right attitude, tone of voice and facial expression!
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You might also like the article: Teaching Your Children to Tell the Truth.
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