Joey & Carla Link
September 3, 2025
In last week’s blog we talked about what it looks like to consistently train your kids. When there isn’t a plan in place to help us be consistent in the training (both pro-active and re-active) of our kids, we all fall back on two things.
Every parent has a parenting toolbox full of things you use every day with your kids. The ones you grab first are the easiest to use, and they are reminders and lectures. Yes, that’s the two every parent falls back on. Let me ask you something. Do reminders and lectures work with your kids? If not, it is time to throw them out and replace them with something better, like the consistent training plan we mentioned in last week’s blog. When you remind your kids to do something, you are doing their thinking for them. They don’t have to remember what they are supposed to be doing because you have trained them to wait for your reminder. We were guilty of this in our parenting.
There isn’t a good time to use lectures either. Why? Because you are almost always telling your child in an unpleasant voice what he/she already knows. Get into the habit of giving consequences instead of lectures and reminders and you will see your kids’ behavior improve.
Giving your children consistent consequences really does hurt you more than it hurts them, but throughout the entire Bible, God clearly shows consequences are the effect of disobedience. The most effective coonsequence is to take away what your child has misused. Your child doesn’t do his chores? He loses the freedom of what he was doing instead of the chore. You teen doesn’t get ready for school on time? When he gets enough tardy’s, he will get detention. If you don’t stop bailing your kids out with reminders, who is going to do it for them when they get to college?
Giving your kids consistent consequences teaches them that they have to take ownership of their responsibilities. When you give up reminding and lecturing your kids, you are passing the baton of ownership to them. The next time they ask you to do something (age-appropriate), ask your child/teen this: “Why would I say ‘yes’?” Once they have answered, ask this child “Why would I say ‘no’?” If your child/teen doesn’t come up with the answers you have, then have him sit for awhile until he/she can come up with a different answer. Your kid knows what you are looking for and when he realizes you plan to make him stay there until he comes up with the responsibilities he hasn’t done yet, he will.
So when it comes to your parenting toolbox, throw out constant reminders and lectures and put in consistent consequences, especially taking away the freedom of what your child/teen was misusing.
“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home
and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
Understanding Freedoms, Part 1 & Understanding Freedoms, Part 2
This 2-part series explores the meaning of the statement “With responsibility comes freedom.” Are you frustrated with your children because you are constantly reminding them to do the things they know they should? In this presentation you will learn what to do when your children are not taking ownership of their behaviors in attitude and action.
Part 2 of this presentation looks at how to effectively train your children in the Repentance, Forgiveness, and Restoration process.
“Why Can’t I Get My Kids to Behave?” by Joey & Carla Link shares what tools should be in your parenting toolbox, which ones you need to throw out and much more. $13.95 SALE $8.95
“The biblical and practical teaching Joey and Carla Link share is something every parent should read. We are confident this book will be a good help for parents, no matter the ages of their children.” US Representative Bill (and Natalie) Huizenga (R-MI)
“Taming the Lecture Big and Getting Your Kids to Think” also by Joey and Carla Link is a helpful book for parents to learn ways to stop reminding, threatening and repeating and lecturing their kids/teens and get them to start thinking and take ownership of their responsibilities and behaviors instead. $14.95 SALE $9.95
“By transferring ownership of their behaviors and actions to our boys, we taught them how to think for themselves. When you are tempted to remind or lecture them, throw the ball of their responsibilities back in their court and they will pick it up and have to decide what to do with it. You will learn how to throw the ball back in their court and keep it there in this insightful book.” Chuck and Beth Ann Plumberg
#35 Developing My Child’s Responsibility Gene
Click the title or search Parenting Made Practical in your favorite
podcast app to listen!