Watch Your Conjunctions in Parenting ♦
“I love you, but you need to obey.”
… Using but may be communicating something we don’t want to say—-namely, that there is some kind of conceptual opposition between “I love you” and “You need to obey.”
I grow concerned when I see well-meaning parents who, in an attempt to practice gospel-centered parenting, do not readily insist on obedience because they want to display that their love for the child does not depend on obedience. Unfortunately, parents take on an apologetic air when wills begin to collide. They hesitate to subdue disobedience out of fear of transgressing the unconditional part of love. Insisting on obedience from children feels legalistic or repressive. They fear that they’d slowly stiffen into the hawk-eyed disciplinarians of a bygone era with timorous children arranged silently around the dinner table.
… The but has to go. Try so instead. “I love you, so you need to obey.”
This was a good article for anyone attempting gospel-centered parenting.