Effective Parenting: The Conscience Part 2

With intentional training on your part, you can move your child toward greater maturity as he or she grows over the years.

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Read Part 1 here.


Continuing on with our discussion of the four ways in which the conscience prompts our children, we want to look at the second way in this post.

 

#2 How to Handle Wrongs

The second area that the conscience helps with your child is in terms of how they process situations where they’ve done something wrong. Here are several questions that you can ask yourself about this particular area. And remember, if you respond negatively to many of these, it’s just an indication that your child needs more specific training. And guess what? A significant proportion of children do!

~When your child does something wrong, is he or she willing to admit it?

~When your child is corrected, does he or she respond well, or does he or she argue, blame, justify, or try to change the subject?

~Does your child learn the valuable lessons of correction, or does he or she continue to make the same choices after being corrected?

~How are your children with respect for accepting responsibility in their part of a situation. Even when children are 90% innocent in a situation or didn’t “start it,” they still have a responsibility to behave appropriately. Are they willing to accept that responsibility?

~Do they feel regret when they’ve done something wrong?

~When they know they’ve done something wrong, do they desire to take steps to make it right?

You’ll notice that a lot of these require a healthy level of maturity on the part of the child. You may even be thinking, “How can I get my 4, 5, 6 or even 13-year-old to think and behave like this when I know adults who can’t?” That’s a great question, and I’ll tell you what. Young children are capable of so much more than we give them credit for, and with intentional training on your part, you can move your child toward greater maturity as he or she grows over the years.

Next time, we’ll look at the third way in which the conscience prompts a child.

 

We recently did a podcast about the conscience in which we talked over all four areas. You can check that episode out on the Dad Hackers Podcast.

Thank you so much for reading and listening. I hope this has been helpful.

~Patrick Antonucci

The views and opinions expressed by Kingdom Winds Collective Members, authors, and contributors are their own and do not represent the views of Kingdom Winds LLC.

About the Author

Founded by Patrick Antonucci, Dad Hackers is a community and podcast for Christian dads. We are devoted to encouraging and equipping Christian men to become who God designed them to be so that they can raise up the next generation of Christ-followers and leave a legacy of multi-generational faithfulness.