Long-term Resentment in the Young, Part 1

Dr. Peter Masters

‘And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6.4).

It hardly needs to be said that parenthood is a tremendous responsibility, and we are glad of every word we have in the Bible showing how we should go about it.

In Ephesians 6.4 Paul gives direction to fathers. Mothers seem to be out of the picture, but obviously this cannot possibly be the case. Everything that is said here about fathers must apply also to mothers. However, the apostle avoids using the Greek word for ‘parents’, but puts the chief responsibility (and accountability to God) on fathers.

He begins by challenging fathers to think about how they may provoke their children to anger. This refers not only to immediate anger, but also to exasperation and resentment which may not emerge for several years. How, exactly, may we stir up anger and frustration in our children?

No parent should feel condemned by the answers given here, because every one of us has failed in so many ways. The purpose of this article is to help, not to hurt.

This caution not to provoke our children to exasperation, applies to children and young people of all ages. Do not frustrate and embitter them, says Paul. So important is this that he mentions it before giving any positive exhortation.

Clearly, bitterness can be provoked by ill-tempered and violent behaviour, but that is not the whole story. There are other mistakes of parenting that produce the same painful reaction in children.

Here, then, are seven ways in which we may anger and exasperate young people, both short-term and long-term.

1. Indifference

Firstly, and most obviously, we may give long-term bitterness and frustration to children by being indifferent to them and their concerns. This is very easily done these days. We live, after all, in the most complicated days which have ever occurred in the history of the world.

We are burdened by numerous responsibilities, and a vast amount of information constantly bombards us in this media age. It is all too easy for parents to find the needs of children tiresome and trivial. We may tend to sometimes ignore them or forget about them. Or we may leave all the close involvement to the other parent. We may take little interest in their developing views and distinctive interests, scarcely even noticing that one child is different from another. We may also become indifferent to our children’s need of companionship.

The time may come, as children get older, that they reject parental authority. But the reality may be that respect and authority was forfeited long before, through parental indifference.

When children reach mid or late teenage, parents want to protect them from the moral snares of society, and difficult conflicts sometimes arise. How much easier it is if their affection and respect for parents is intact.

2. Over-direction

A second action likely to provoke exasperation in children needs to be considered alongside the previous point. Parents may take too much interest, in the sense that they over-channel their children in their decisions. They over-direct them. Parents decide entirely by themselves that the child is going to go to a particular kind of school, or will engage in particular sports, or will take up particular subjects. Parents push the child all the way, so that independent judgement or taste is crushed.

This may occur due to pride on the parents’ part. The child must do this or that, because these things are what parents will be proud of when the child gets to late teenage, and on into adult life. The child’s course of life is predetermined. Compulsory direction which takes no account of the child’s tastes and inclinations (however gently carried out), may possibly embitter a child in the long term.

Over-protectiveness may equally frustrate a child. There are so many things that rightly concern parents, and from which children have to be protected. But we have to be careful not to overdo this protection, so that growing children are denied virtually anything which may appeal to them. Children are not blind. They see what other children are free to do. Unreasonable protectiveness may produce bitterness.

This is not a matter of skipping discipline. Parents who let their young children get away with rudeness and bad behaviour store up trouble for the future. To introduce reproof at sixteen is to court resentment, contempt and rebellion.

3. Too much criticism

Thirdly, children may become deeply angry if they are over-criticised and discouraged. Their minds and abilities are developing. They constantly do foolish things, measured by adult standards. Their ideas are frequently immature, and their method of carrying out projects sometimes bizarre. But they are children, and parents must ration their criticisms in the light of this. Children can only take so much criticism before being undermined and frustrated.

It is easy to discourage the young by crushing their dreams and aspirations. Children have all kinds of schemes and opinions, and these may change every couple of years, or even every couple of months. We cannot keep pouring cold water on them. If their dreams are not intrinsically bad, let them dream (particularly in the case of younger children). They are not committing themselves to a lifelong course of action. If children are younger, we should not behave as though we were counselling older teenagers. What does it matter if a child’s heart is set on being a train driver or an astronaut?

When older teenagers form totally unattainable or inappropriate dreams, it may be necessary to find amicable ways of talking them round. Even here, care and respect is called for. But the intellectual activity of a child, if morally wholesome, should not be crushed.

4. Failure to adjust to growing up

Fourthly (and building on the preceding point), exasperation may be produced in children by the failure of parents to adjust to their growing up. We are all slow to make this adjustment. Little by little, children become adults. And little by little, responsibility for their lives must be yielded to them, even if it means they make mistakes. If we find we are treating a child virtually the same way at 15 as at 10, we may be courting deep-seated rebellion in the future.

5. Ill-temper

Fifthly, everyone agrees we provoke our children to anger by hostility, ill-temper, and far-too-severe punishments. If tired and tense, parents may react to misbehaviour in an unjustifiable way. Despite fondness for their children, they may give way to bad temper, punishing children out of frustration, rather than in a proper spirit of correction. The scale of the punishment will be according to the parent’s emotional state.

Deep frustration may not be immediately apparent, because children seem to bounce back and get over their trials. But within them, a kind of debt may build up, and the time may come when they resent all unreasonable treatment. Then parental authority will be discredited and undermined.

What we do to a child may not come home to roost until the child is a teenager. We must take care that hostility and over-punishing does not provoke to wrath.

6. Unfairness

Sixthly, unfairness embitters and frustrates children, especially over time. The previous point covered unfairness in the scale of punishments. Unfairness may also arise in the assigning of blame between children. To decide a ‘case’ often requires the wisdom of Solomon. But if there is frequent unfairness, parental authority may be shattered. Exasperation may also build up in children if the reason for discipline is not apparent, or is not explained. Does it come like a bolt from the blue? A child may ask, ‘What was wrong with that?’ or, ‘Why can’t I do that?’

The unfairness of favouritism may be another failing. If one child regularly gets more than another, a parent may not be conscious it is happening, but the child who goes short most certainly is. If one child is punished more than another for the same offence, or one is encouraged more than another for the same achievement, parental guidance and authority could be at risk. If there is any unfairness in the giving of warmth or approval, trouble may lie ahead.

7. Lack of example

A seventh way of exasperating children is the failure of parental example. It is obvious that if parents do things themselves for which they punish or reprove their children, resentment and confusion may result. Beside this, children very often acquire the behaviour of the parents.

Many years ago a husband and wife came to see if they could be helped to master a serious problem. They said, ‘We cannot stop arguing.’ The evidence was soon seen, because even as they described the problem, the sparks began to fly. Immediately after discussing this, they raised a second problem. Their children were very volatile, and violent to each other. They could not be pacified. Why were their children so bad?

The answer was that they had learned their behaviour from their parents. By their own conduct these parents produced instant exasperation in their children, and forfeited authority. They were not credible people in the eyes of their youngsters.

To sum up, seven potential danger points for either short- or long-term ‘wrath’ are the following:

1. Indifference
2. Over-direction or over-protectiveness
3. Over-criticism
4. Parental failure to adjust to growing up
5. Hostility or ill-temper
6. Unfairness or favouritism
7. Bad parental example