Grace Based Discipline: How to Be at Your Best When Your Kids Are at Their Worst

by Karis Kimmel Murray

the theology of parenting is simply this: treat the people you are called to love the way God treats you—with grace.

In order to get control of our emotional reactions so that we can respond instead, we must take two counterintuitive action steps: Choose not to take their behavior personally, even if it is. Don’t waste your emotional oxygen huffing and puffing about your kids’ behavior.

You must separate your child’s behavior from their heart.

God sees us (His children) in light of Christ’s atonement and forgiveness. He sees us through the filter of grace and mercy. Our heavenly Father still disciplines our behavior (because that’s what a loving parent does), but He chooses not to define us by it.

Legalistic parents create a scorching atmosphere that dictates behavior modification and sin management in order to “earn” God’s favor, which leaves their kids burned by contaminated religion and crippling shame. At the other extreme, license-based parents create a frigid atmosphere that ignores the implications that God’s commandments have on their behavior, which leaves their kids frozen by spiritual chaos and painful consequences.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor. God offers us His favor not because of what we deserve or because of who we are, but because of who He is.

That’s how God parents us, and that’s why a grace-based home is one where our kids know that their identity as a loved member of our family doesn’t hinge on their behavior.

In the same way, a grace-based home isn’t one where rules, boundaries, and standards don’t exist. Our kids need consequences for their choices and behavior, but they need to feel sure that our love and grace for them will remain steady and constant regardless.

Parents are the primary reflection our kids see of God’s heart and His grace.

Vulnerability is our kids showing us the things about themselves that they hate the most, that they wish they could change but can’t, to test if we’ll be repulsed or accepting.

Grace helps us base the rules of our home on love and have an outward-focused relationship with God and others.

Overly restrictive regulations turn otherwise well-intended, conscientious kids into noncompliant violators. In order to comply, they become lifeless robots, or worse, they feel they’ll never measure up so they completely give up trying.

We can’t protect our kids from sin, because we can’t protect ourselves from sin . . . because we are sin.

Sometimes our kids do stuff (sinful or otherwise) because they are trying to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way.

I see at least three categories17 of legitimate needs our kids might be seeking to meet in illegitimate ways with their behavior: physical needs, special needs, and inner needs.

Consequences are uncomfortable or undesirable outcomes of behavior. Consequences can be seen as the cost of our behavior and also the pain that that price or outcome inflicts.

As parents, choosing and applying consequences carefully and consistently is one of the most loving things we can do because it protects our kids from far worse consequences later.

The more we allow our kids to feel the full brunt of natural consequences and help them learn from them while they are still in our homes, the more pain we prevent them from experiencing as a result of natural consequences in the future.

If you’re still unsure how to respond to your kids’ defiance, ask, “How does God respond to me?” If you’re still unclear about what to do about your kids’ behavior, ask, “How does God discipline me?”

More than anything, we’ve got to get out of our own way and let God parent our children through us. That’s how faith will come alive in our kids.

Parenting (and disciplining) our kids the way God does requires that we see our Father for who He really is. It’s hard to copy a picture you can’t see.

When our kids are at their worst, responding with grace-based discipline, rather than a panicked reaction, requires an intentional consciousness built upon correct ideological foundations. But even with that, some folks still struggle to build from there.

Kids parented with grace have a tendency to be others-oriented and focused on the things in life that have eternal value.

Raising kids who grow up to be adults who love a hurting world and transform it for God’s glory is all the reward we need.