Biblical Wisdom for Parenting: How to Exasperate Your Children (Paul Schlehlein)

Parenting requires discipline. Children need boundaries, correction, instruction, and authority. Scripture does not call parents to be their children’s friends at the expense of being parents. Yet the same text (Ephesians 6:1–4) that commands parents to discipline and instruct their children (v. 1) gives an important warning: “Do not provoke your children to anger” (v. 4). That warning requires parents to look not only at their children’s behaviour but also at their own.

It is possible to discipline a child in a sinful way. It is possible to demand obedience while behaving unjustly. It is possible to correct a child’s wrong attitude while displaying a wrong attitude ourselves. Paul’s command therefore gives us both a negative and a positive responsibility. We must not provoke our children, but we must bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

If my previous article laid a theological foundation, here I want to be practical as I suggest ten ways that parents, particularly fathers, can be guilty of provoking their children.

No two children are identical. They have different personalities, different weaknesses, different strengths, and different needs. Treating children differently is therefore not necessarily sinful. One child may need a firmer hand while another may need more encouragement. But there is a difference between treating children differently and loving them differently.

Scripture gives us several examples of the destructive consequences of parental favouritism. Abraham favoured Isaac over Ishmael. Isaac favoured Esau while Rebekah favoured Jacob. Jacob favoured Joseph and later Benjamin.

Favouritism can communicate something devastating to a child: No matter what you do, i will always love your brother or sister more than I love you.

Wise parents recognise that their children are different, but they strive to love them equally. Children should not have to compete with their siblings for their parents’ affection.

There is a place for firm discipline. But firmness is not the same thing as harshness. A harsh parent is severe, uncompromising, and unnecessarily hard. Every offence receives the maximum punishment, regardless of its seriousness or the child’s age and understanding.

Paul’s warning against provoking children reminds us that discipline should be appropriate. Parents need wisdom to distinguish between deliberate disobedience and childish foolishness, between rebellion and immaturity. A child who deliberately defies a clear command has sinned. A child who makes a foolish mistake has not necessarily sinned. Godly discipline takes such distinctions seriously.

The goal of discipline is not to release parental frustration. It is to correct the child and teach what is right.

Ephesians 6:4 specifically addresses fathers: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” This does not diminish the essential role of mothers. Scripture gives mothers a significant responsibility in teaching and training their children. Proverbs repeatedly commends the instruction of mothers (1:8–9; 6:20–22; 31:1, 25–29; etc.), and Timothy’s mother and grandmother played a crucial part in shaping his faith (2 Timothy 1:5).

Yet Paul here, echoing other writers of Scripture, consistently places a particular responsibility uponfathers to lead and instruct their children. We cannot reduce fatherhood to financial provision. God calls fathers to take spiritual responsibility for the household.

Christian fathers cannot assume that the church, Christian school, Sunday school teacher, pastor, or even their wives will carry the primary responsibility for their children’s spiritual formation. Those people may and should assist—often providing invaluable help—but fathers must take the lead.

The exhortation is particularly relevant in a society dominated by fatherless homes. But the biblical solution is not simply to find someone else to fill the gap. The answer is for fathers to recover their God-given responsibility and take seriously the calling God has given them.

Some parents attempt to control every aspect of their children’s lives. They make every decision for them, refuse to let them make mistakes, and constantly intervene before their children have the opportunity to exercise wisdom for themselves.

Of course, children need guidance. Parents are responsible for training them precisely because they lack maturity and wisdom. But the goal of parenting is not to produce adults who cannot make decisions without their parents.

Godly parents gradually give their children the tools they need to exercise wisdom. They teach, advise, warn, and sometimes allow children to experience the consequences of foolish decisions. Parents must ultimately remember that their children belong to God. We train them faithfully, but God is sovereign over them.

Children need more than provision. They need their parents. A parent can love their children and still be too busy for them. Work, ministry, hobbies, technology, social commitments, and countless other good things can consume the time and attention that children need.

Alexander Duff was a missionary who left his young son behind when he went to India. Years later, that son remembered the painful departure and concluded, “I had a great father, but he loved missions more than me.”

The point is not that work or ministry is wrong. Duff’s missionary service was itself valuable. The warning is that even good things can become bad priorities when they cause parents to neglect the children God has entrusted to them.

Children require time, sacrifice, attention, and energy. But they are not an interruption to the important work of life. They are part of the important work God has given us.

Children need to know what is expected of them. When parents continually change the rules, move the goalposts, or demand obedience only when it suits them, children become frustrated.

Inconsistency can also teach children that parental commands do not really need to be taken seriously. If obedience is required only after repeated warnings, children quickly learn that the first command isn’t really the command.

Godly parents should strive for consistency. Their expectations should be clear, their discipline predictable, and their instructions followed by appropriate consequences.

Correction should never become humiliation. There is a difference between exposing a child’s sin for the purpose of correction and deliberately embarrassing that child in front of others.

Parents should be careful about correcting children publicly, particularly when doing so serves no purpose other than expressing anger. Even physical discipline, where parents practise it, should be handled privately rather than as a public spectacle. The goal of discipline is restoration and instruction, not humiliation.

Correction should never become humiliation. There is a difference between exposing a child’s sin for the purpose of correction and deliberately embarrassing that child in front of others.

Parents should be careful about correcting children publicly, particularly when doing so serves no purpose other than expressing anger. Even physical discipline, where parents practise it, should be handled privately rather than as a public spectacle. The goal of discipline is restoration and instruction, not humiliation.

Scolding is rebuke without instruction. Simply yelling, “Stop it!” without an attempt to correct is not appropriate discipline. Every parent has said something like this. But repeated scolding rarely addresses the heart of the problem.

Christian parents have something better available to them: Scripture. Rather than simply telling a child that their behaviour is wrong, parents can teach them what God’s word says about the sin they are committing.

If a child is provoking a sibling, Scripture can teach them not to “become conceited, provoking one another” (Galatians 5:26). If a child refuses correction, Scripture can explain the foolishness of rejecting instruction. The aim is not simply to stop the behaviour. It is to teach the child to understand the behaviour biblically. That takes more work than shouting, but it is far more consistent with Paul’s command to bring children up in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

Finally, parents can provoke their children by giving them too much. This may seem strange. How could giving a child what they want provoke them to anger? The answer is that parents are preparing children for a world that will not always give them what they want.

Children need to experience difficulty. They need to learn responsibility. They need to work, persevere, wait, sacrifice, and sometimes be disappointed. A child who is protected from every hardship may initially be delighted. But eventually that child will discover that life is difficult, and their parents have not prepared them to face it. Wise parenting therefore isn’t about making our children’s lives as comfortable as possible. It is about preparing them to live faithfully before God.

Paul’s warning in Ephesians 6:4 is ultimately an invitation to examine ourselves. It is easy to identify our children’s sins. It is harder to recognise the ways in which our own sinful attitudes may be provoking them.

Are we showing favouritism? Are we unnecessarily harsh? Are our words tearing down rather than building up? Are we controlling everything? Are we too busy? Are we inconsistent? Are we unwilling to listen? Are we humiliating our children? Are we merely scolding rather than instructing? Are we protecting them from every difficulty?

None of this means that Christian parents should become permissive. Paul does not say, “Do not discipline your children.” He says, “Do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” The goal is neither harshness nor permissiveness. It is godly parenting.

We discipline because our children need correction. We instruct because they need wisdom. We establish boundaries because they need guidance. And we do all of this remembering that our authority comes from God and must therefore be exercised in a way that reflects his character.

Parents will fail. Every parent will say something they regret, make a poor decision, discipline imperfectly, or realise afterwards that they responded in anger. When that happens, there is an important biblical response: humility.

We can confess our sin to God. We can ask our children for forgiveness. And we can seek to do better the next time.

The Christian parent is not the parent who never gets it wrong. The Christian parent is the parent who seeks to bring their children up “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” including by demonstrating what repentance and forgiveness look like.

Our children need our authority. But they also need our love. And they need to see both exercised under the authority of Christ.