Would you agree that children naturally lack self-control… in their behavior, their spending, and their choices, etc.? If left to themselves and their own desires, they would naturally spend all the money they have, eat all the sugar they could possibly want, and stay up till midnight every night of the week watching movies and playing video games.
I remember as a boy that I fell in love with my mom’s chocolate chip cookies. Seriously, if no one was around, and I had a glass of milk, I had about zero self-control to be able to stop eating them. (I still find it hard now as an adult. Can you relate?)
I developed an appetite that may not have been wrong in and of itself but had the potential to lead me down a dangerous path if left unchecked.
Proverbs 25:16 reminds us of this important principle of keeping our appetites in check, “Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.” In other words, even too much of a good thing can quickly become a very bad thing.
It’s important to remember that our children are constantly developing appetites that they will carry with them throughout the rest of their lives. Some of them good, some bad, and some that we need to be very cautious about allowing. Because when fed, appetites will naturally grow, so we must choose carefully which ones we will feed.
As parents, it is our responsibility to protect our child’s appetites
Why? Because appetites develop into affections, and affections become a lifestyle of actions and attitudes.
Dennis Rainey once said this, “If you’re doing it right, parenthood often means being ‘the pain’ to your children, interfering with what they want. But those early years of character and development are so important. That’s when you play the role of your children’s consciences – calling them, training them, prodding them on to a higher good, helping them learn the value of refusing evil.”
As parents, we have the ability to require certain things of our children. And we should be prepared to regularly use that ability as needed. We have both the ability to feed healthy appetites, and we have the ability to suppress or starve out unhealthy ones.
If I allow my children to make their own choices and develop their own appetites when it comes to things like music, friends, entertainment, food, etc. by just accepting their appetites as okay simply because “I want them to be their own person”, I end up doing them a great disservice if I fail to help guide and shape those appetites. Just as children need spiritual direction to know right from wrong, they also need practical direction to know what is wise from what is foolish.
But what about my child’s preferences?
While our children can certainly have the right to their own preferences (external likes and dislikes), they should not have free control over their appetites (internal desires that have been cultivated). Because preferences are simply personal, but appetites are more deeply developed over time.
Our preferences are a part of the way God made us as an individual, but our appetites are dependent upon what we have been exposed to or influenced by. This means that with time, preferences start being shaped by appetites. So of the two, appetites need to be kept in greater check than preferences. Because in the end, it is our child’s appetites that will ultimately drive their life decisions and future direction.
For example:
- Children who are allowed to be lazy while they are young will naturally and even habitually become lazy as adults in various areas of their life.
- Children allowed to develop unhealthy food appetites while they are young will struggle with healthy eating habits as they age.
- Children who are allowed to make their own entertainment and media choices will have a much harder time developing healthy moral disciplines on their own as they get older.
In fact, generally speaking, in all areas of life, these things will only increase towards a further and deeper unhealthy leniency if appetites are allowed to go unchecked.
Why? Because children have the same tendency to follow their sinful nature as you and I do, and if left to themselves, that is exactly what they will naturally gravitate towards. They will naturally want to eat far too many “chocolate chip cookies” and sometimes other “cookies” that they have no business eating.
At the heart of the problem is a problem of the heart
This is why it’s very important for parents to be careful to protect their child’s appetites, and even more important, to help develop them, especially while they are young because appetites are tied to what’s in a person’s heart.
Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life.
Romans 13:14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.
Just as a good parent controls the physical appetites of their children for their physical health, parents must do the same in other areas of life (mental, relational, emotional, and spiritual health). As children, God did not intend for them to make certain decisions on their own. And one of the ways we protect the fleshly tendencies of their heart is by protecting their appetites.
A dangerous lie we must avoid
When it comes to helping our children develop their personal life desires and direction, one of the great lies of our culture is that we have to be more permissive with our children than previous generations. But unfortunately, that is a misguided notion without any proven record of success. In fact, it has much more of a record of failure if you look at those from previous generations who have chosen a more permissive path. Because overly permissive parenting often leads to overly undisciplined children.
There are very few adults I talk to who thank their parents for being so permissive. However, I’ve talked to many grown adults who say they are thankful now that their parents were strict on them as a child, keeping their appetites in check, even when they didn’t like it.
One of the purposes of kids being given parents is to help them develop self-control while they are still young and to help them make wise decisions that they would not otherwise make on their own. A parent’s role is to prepare their child for both life and responsible adulthood, but this does not happen by accident.
Practically speaking, there are things that may not be wrong for our children to participate in, yet that does not mean that they are ultimately healthy or wise for them to participate in either.
Like the Apostle Paul said, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient.” (I Cor. 6:12) This is one of the great challenges for parents who are trying to practice grace-based parenting over a more legalistic approach. Just because something may be allowed, does not necessarily mean it is always best.
Final questions to consider
So here are some questions I ask myself when evaluating how to help my children develop healthy appetites:
- Does this presently have more potential to draw them towards the Lord, or away from Him?
- By allowing my child to develop this appetite, does the principle that “what parents do in moderation, their children will do in excess” at all concern me?
- Will this appetite have more potential to become a spiritual stepping stone or a spiritual stumbling block in their future adulthood?
I have seen good and even godly kids over the years who have been allowed to developed unhealthy appetites that end up hurting them in the long run. When in reality, if mom and dad would have simply stepped in and stepped up to keep their child’s appetites in check, they could have potentially avoided many problems and much pain.
It’s a simple principle really… “Protect your child’s appetites, protect your child’s heart.”
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Proverbs 29:15 A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
Proverbs 23:26 My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways.
If you are a parent with kids still in the home, what can you do starting today to better protect your child’s appetites, and as a result, better protect your child’s heart?
