In fact, it is much easier if they don't do any independent thinking at all. We take the responsibility for seeing what they need to do and telling them to do it. They just need to learn to obey.

Well, obedience is wonderful. Godly. Essential. But we're not raising dogs here. We're raising potential adults, and we've got to keep that end in view, even when they are just toddling through life. Regulating every move works okay when kids are small. In fact, they need a fair amount of that. Give your two-year-old too many choices—what to eat, what to wear, etc—and you're grooming a little dictator. But the level of parental control appropriate at two and three is oppressive at sixteen and seventeen. Besides that, we run the risk of raising a crop of children who have not learned how to look around and see what needs to be done. They are good at standing politely and waiting to be told, but initiative? Virtually non-existent.

The remedy? As our children grow, we too must grow—grow in our ability to let them shoulder the responsibilities that belong to them, handing over the reins bit by intentional bit. As we do this, helping them learn the mechanics of wise decision making and allowing them to experience the law of sowing and reaping, reality has a way of teaching lasting life lessons to our kids.

CONSEQUENCES

Parents must look to the future—the bigger picture, if you will. "God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." This is not a threat. This is a principle that has marvelous potential to transform immature, selfish children into mature young adults that look before they leap. Unfortunately, so many of us parents, having reaped what we sowed in a moment of youthful self-indulgence, have a tendency to step in and short-circuit the process in our children's lives in order to keep them from doing the same.

That's bad. If we prevent our children from experiencing the natural consequences of their decisions, they have no reason to choose differently next time. For example, if you forget to haul firewood up to the deck in the daylight and you have to go out in the cold and dark to get it, chances are, you'll remember next time. But if Mommy continually reminds you (essentially she is carrying the responsibility for getting the wood in, rather than leaving it on your shoulders), or Daddy takes pity on you and does it for you when he comes home from work, or says, "We'll just run the furnace tonight," what do you learn? That it doesn't really matter—someone will bail you out.

Parents, we've got to get this deep into our fiber—we bail, they fail. The more we interrupt God's process, the more we set our children up for pain. Going out to haul wood in the dark while everyone else is in by the fire may not be fun. But the pain doesn't hold a candle to what your son would feel when he gets fired for not being responsible, or your daughter might experience when she overdraws her account one too many times and is added to the "bad checks" list at the local grocery store.