Parents who try to be best friends with their children are making a huge mistake - both now and for the future of their kids.
Talking Points:
- Even though it seems like a good idea to be best friends with your kids, you have to remember your role as parents. Your job is to raise your kids to be fully-functioning adults. This will require you to be a disciplinarian, not just a friend.
- The desire to be friends with your kids may stem from the fact that you didn’t have a great relationship with your own parents. To avoid that with your kids, you might think being more of a friend is the only way to a good relationship.
- There will come a day when you can be best friends with your kids but that happens when they’re adults and out from under your care. If you create that dynamic too soon, you have nothing to look forward to, and it diminishes your ability to train and mentor.
- If you have several kids in differing age ranges, recognize that you should interact with each of them differently, depending on their age.
Discussion:
- What is your initial reaction to this topic? What jumped out at you?
- How have you seen parents try to be best friends with their kids? How has it worked out?
- What was your relationship like with your parents? How has that shaped the way you parent?
- Why is it so tempting to want to be your kid’s BFF? What does it reveal about us as parents?
- Read Proverbs 29:15. Why is discipline important in your role as parents? Have you been afraid to discipline your kids? Explain.
- Read Ephesians 6:4. How can parents invoke anger and bitterness in their kids? What needs to be a part of any productive discipline?
- What do you think is the right balance between being a friend to your teens while also being an authority figure they are to respect?
- Is there a step you need to take based on today’s topic?
