Do you want to become your child's best friend? Of course you do! But does friendship with your child ever get in the way of your parenting? Do you cover your eyes and ears, or overlook problems with your teenager's behavior because you fear that confrontation will hurt your relationship?
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Some parents place so much value on having a great relationship with their child that they fail to take the appropriate position of parental authority in their life. It becomes more of an issue when there is a split in a family and each parent tries to impress a child in order to gain that child's love. Or, it can happen if a parent is insecure and their child's life has become their life too. It can even happen if a teen becomes rebellious and the parent caves in to their anger or bad behavior.
Parents who give up their authority in an effort to build a stronger relationship become more like a peer than a parent, so I call them "peer-ents." Peer-enting doesn't strengthen a parent-child relationship, it weakens it. Peer-ents tend to refrain from correcting or disciplining a child. They avoid conflict and act like a peer, wrongly defending a child's bad behavior to others, including teachers and law enforcement.
Proverbs 4:1 provides a pattern for proper parenting and parental authority. It says, "Listen, my sons, to a father's instruction; pay attention and gain understanding." (NIV) This scripture tells us that the role of a good parent is to provide a child with instruction that leads to their understanding.
Mark Gregston is an author, speaker, national radio host, and the founder of Heartlight, a residential counseling opportunity for struggling adolescents, where he lives with 50 high schoolers. Learn more at http://www.heartlightministries.org or call 903-668-2173.
