Let’s be honest. Talking about sin with your children doesn’t feel fun. You may already be at a stage in parenting when it feels like your days are spent in constant correction mode. Why take the time to talk about heavy topics like sin, Hell, repentance, redemption and atonement? These topics are not only crucial for having a strong Christian faith, but your rules and your enforcement of them will unknowingly be how your children grow up viewing God and these topics. Too harsh with your kids? They will often angrily reject God because He is “mean”. Too lenient? Your children may attend worship, but probably won’t make any attempts to actually obey God’s commands because they have learned from your parenting that rules are for obeying only if you like them and disobedience carries no consequences.
The parents in the early years of the church had an interesting take on teaching their children about sin. Instead of threatening them to scare them out of sin, they focused on helping their children understand that sins and sinning should be repulsive to them. What’s the difference? It may be subtle on the surface as both entail explaining the earthly and eternal consequences of disobeying God. The key is the motivation for obedience it creates.
Threatening children with scare tactics when teaching them about sin relies on only fear as a motivation. Fear may be a decent motivator in the moment, but when your children are older, it may not be very effective. They will be surrounded by people who will try very hard to get them to ignore their fears and disobey God. Who will try and convince them Hell isn’t real and they have nothing to fear. They may even be told by some Christians that God would never punish them for disobeying Him.
Repulsion, on the other hand, is built on a foundation of seeing the world how God sees it. Of loving and wanting to please God. Of realizing that God has our best interests at heart and even if we don’t understand a command, it is in our best interest to follow it. Of being repulsed by the very idea of sin and being deeply repentant when we do sin. Of truly desiring and trying to be who God wants us to be.
It all begins with you. Pray about your parenting style. Move away from authoritarian and permissive parenting to authoritative parenting. There are plenty of articles on the topic to guide you, because studies have found it is the best parenting style for children in general. Examine your own heart. Are you repulsed by sin or merely avoiding it out of fear? Or not avoiding it at all? Try to move your heart towards reflecting God’s heart and becoming repulsed by sin. Then teach your children to view sin through God’s eyes. Teach them to be repulsed by sin.
