Let me start with an Old Testament passage that was on every parent’s mind as they brought a child into the world: “Deuteronomy 21:18-21: “If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.’read more. Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel will hear of it and fear”
Let me say, if you metaphorically are ready to stone your child if he goes astray, then you have close to the attitude towards parenting.

What is the proper way to develop children into strong, mature, spiritual adults?
Children are to be nurtured and trained up on the Word of God, the Truth. Eph 6 says,
In a world where black is called white, and evil is called good, and sour is called sweet, there is a distorting of parenting roles and methods in raising children. IN SUCH A WORLD MORE THAN EVER WE MUST FOLLOW THE BIBLE.

Coddling Overindulgence is confused with love..
Permissiveness, Spoiling, and Overindulgence is requested with Love
Permissive Parenting creates entitled and weak children. Coddling children is like keeping them in cast so they don’t break bones.

Nurturing.is maturing, developing,

If there is confusion on the right way to parent, it’s the devil’s deceptions.

Definition of Terms.
Nurture:
We use the term ‘nurture vs nature’ for the difference between what is inculcated through the growing up environment ones growth up in vs vs what is born into a person.
There’s also to nurture or to not nurturing. “It was not a nurturing environment”.
Nurture in the Bible: synonymous with “training”.
Holman says to nurture is to develop the spiritual growth.

Coddle: to be so confining and suffocating that the child will be morally soft the way unused bones are weak.
Definition from Oxford: “treat in an indulgent or overprotective way.”
This is two pronged and explains where American kids are: they are indulged by being given everything too easy and they are overprotected so never to feel the pain of taking risk.
The end result is 18 yr olds who still do not drive
21 yr old kids who still live in their parents basements playing video games.
They are the 20% identified by the military as too weak to qualify for service.

You people are afraid to make commitments.
They are the early teen boys and girls who still haven’t got an answer why they should be worshiping and praising God.

Parents are afraid to do the hard stuff.
I see PSA billboards encouraging parents to have the difficult conversations with their children on drinking or drugs. The coddling parents are afraid to broach the difficult conversations.
I’m pretty sure I said more than once to my children, in a serious tone, I didn’t bring you into this world for you to be a pagan. My God is true and it’s time for you to approach God.
The challenge for parents, maybe especially mothers is to be tender and protective of children AND giving them room to grow, and experience the pain of maturing growth. Moms must be willing to push the little birdie out of the nest.

Examples of children coddled in the Bible.
Eli the priest stands out. Eli had two sons, Hophni and Phinehas. Eli was such a weak parent that God had to tell him to go do something about his two sons! And Eli only responded with a wimpish, “it’s not good the report I hear” which is the king of understatements.
Says of Eli’s sons:.”they were useless and did not know the LORD” 1 Sam 2:12
Here is what it says about the sons: “22Now Eli was very old, and he heard about everything his sons were doing to all Israel and how they were sleeping with the women who served at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 23“Why are you doing these things?” Eli said to his sons. “I hear about your wicked deeds from all these people. 24No, my sons; it is not a good report I hear circulating among the LORD’s people.
The boys did not listen to the father! And the father whose job it was to keep the temple and sacrifice holy to God. He had the power to stop it, instead protected them. It reminds me of Joe Biden protecting Hunter Biden.
Samuel was a great judge, but he was trained to parent by Eli, and Samuel knew like everyone else that the two sons were as worthless as Eli’s sons, but Samuel still tried making them the leaders of Israel.

Ahab was a grown man in position as king, but he was a sulking baby when a landowner wouldn’t sell his property to Ahab.
Ahab was married to daughter of king of Tyre, a Sidonian Princess, and we see how he sulked when Naboth wouldn’t sell his vineyard to him.
Sulking, pouting behavior is a sign of weakness, the kind that is formed in childhood. Jezebel told him to drink his bottle while mommy takes care of that bad man!

Coddling: “treat in an indulgent or overprotective way.” Oxford Dict online.
In Jonathan Haidts book, the Coddling of the America mind, he says the average 18 year olds have the maturity level of a 15 yr old 30 years ago. He said youths today are not challenged and have sheltered themselves from difficult things and need more exposure to challenges not provided safe spaces every time they are triggered.
Someone wrote that parents who coddle their children are committing a form of idolatry.

When coddled, the plan of God to train the child is flouted and ignored.
Albert Mohler in his book Culture Shift, titled his 11th chapter, A CODDLED GENERATION CANNOT COPE. His chapter addresses parenting who have been overprotected and unfamiliar with tackling problems and overcoming. Mohler says these coddled people are grown but act like 5 yr olds who remain emotionally undeveloped and dependent on parents.
Coddling a child is more protecting and less preparing. The so-called “helicopter parenting” is more accurately applied to the coddling style of over protection from healthy engagement needed for development.
A coddling mother wants to metaphorically keep the child latched on and wont, as they say, “cut the apron strings.”
Coddling is being overprotective in a way that hinders development through risk. Coddling makes less resilient.
Did you spoil your children? Spoiling children is to ruin them by making them soft like a brown banana. I have had people tell me that the role of grandparents is to spoil their grandchildren. I have heard parents boast, ‘we spoil our kids’. That’s a very strange thing to say.

Friends , if you coddle your children, you will regret it.

Good Parenting = Nurturing :MOTHER’S
Mary was a mother who nurtured. Mary and Joseph are seen focusing Jesus on the spiritual.
God considered Mary favored. And God entrusted His only begotten Son to be nurtured, trained and guided as a youth until he was ready as a man.
Being the mother of the Son of God was not without costs. It’s impossible that she didn’t have disbelievers in the story. But she stood firm.
The way Jesus grew up “in wisdom and stature, in favor with God and man.” Lk 2:52
As Jesus is our Example for living, Mary and Joseph were examples to raise their child to be pleasing to God.
Timothy’s mother and grandmother nurtured:
“that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith” 2 Tim 3:15
It was grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice who had in them the “sincere faith” which they imparted to their son, the future preacher.
It gives me joy to hear my children and grandchildren are walking with the Lord.

Pharaoh’s daughter brought up ANATROPHEI, nourish or nurse, Moses as her own son. Often translated as ‘raise’ or ‘bring up’; Acts 7:21, 20. Moses was ANATROPHEI.
Acts 7:20 says he was nurtured for three months in his father’s home. And then with God’s providence, Moses was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter who “nurtured him as her own child”.
Pharaoh’s daughter raised Moses up to be a powerful man in the ways of the world: “22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was proficient in [o]speaking and action. 23But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his [p]mind to visit his countrymen, the sons of Israel.” Acts 7
Moses had a mother who engineered for her son to live and to be trained in the ways of God. There is good circumstantial evidence that the mother who nursed Moses inculcated into him the love of his people and the rudiments of the Abrahamic faith.
Hannah was an example of a mother who wanted her son to be nurtured in the ways of God.
She spent her days praying to and serving God. God rewarded her faith with many children, the first from the womb was Samuel: meaning
In her prayer is the promise: “remember me by giving me a son, then I will give my son to serve you, God, for all the days of his life.” 1 Samuel 1:11
I am not making up history when I say Hazel, Daniel’s mother, was praying with the spirit of Hannah and was promising to God that our boy would be dedicated to Him.
God’s parents know children are just on loan but that they are always to be pointed to their Heavenly Father.

Second, not to distract from the focus on the the one God chose to be the primary nurturer, but fathers nurture. Mothers nurture
Eph 6:4, PEIDEIA, NOUN, “discipline; training and education of children, hence: instruction; chastisement, correction.”
44c MOTHER MUST NURTURE WITHOUT BEING TOO SOFT, AND A FATHER MUST NURTURE WITHOUT BEING TOO HARD.
DISCIPLINE AND ADMONITION – one says to train, but the second say to warn. Many moms and dads are scared to follow this.
Young’s Literal Translation has the best: “nourish them in the instruction and admonition of the Lord”
This term goes back to the ancient Greeks for the rearing and educating of youths to be good citizens.
KJV Proverbs 19:18, “Chasten thy son while there is hope, And let not thy soul spare for his crying.”
NASBB Heb 12:8, “8But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” …. “11For the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
Pro 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Blast the devil, has people reading this and hoping it’s just a general principle when the fact is they haven’t yet tried TRAINING UP THEIR CHILD IN THE WAY TO GOD
Pro 19:18 Disciple, CHASTEN, your son, because there’s hope. Do not desire his death.

My last word would be the wise words my wife repeats is that parents have to work their way out of a job. They can be assured of success with their faith and God’s help.

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