Many parents today are under the impression, whether conscious or not, that part of their job is to control their kids.

How often do we say or hear something like, “they really need to learn how to control their kids.” What’s typically meant is that the kids are out of control, and the parents need to figure out how to make their kids stop doing whatever undesirable thing it is that they’re doing. And having three kids of my own, I get how people think this way. There seems to be a tremendous amount of societal pressure to raise kids who don’t act like kids.

Now, obedience isn’t a bad thing. In fact, Jesus said that obedience to Him is a sign that we love Him (John 14:15), and Paul wrote that a child’s obedience is pleasing to the Lord (Col. 3:20, Eph. 6:1). I can’t justify being against obedience, but there’s something we desperately need to understand as parents:

Obedience is not a healthy goal.

Obedience is wonderful as an outcome, but when we make it our primary aim there are many problems that follow. Here are two specific problems with this approach, as well as the solution.

Problem #1 — The justification of harshness

When the goal of raising a child becomes their obedience, we’ll feel justified in whatever methods “work.”

In the tool belt of a parent whose goal is obedience, there won’t be much variety. It will mostly be different types of hammers. But they’re all used for one purpose — compelled compliance. When put to use they’ll look something like anger, fear, shouting, and threats.

If the goal is to simply get your kid to comply, then it’s easy to justify using anger and fear, especially when you’re getting results.

But we need to ask ourselves — if our kids are doing what we ask because they’re afraid of us, are they obeying us, or are they surviving us? And if all they’re learning is how to survive us, are they actually being equipped to think critically and make good decisions? More likely than not, the skill that kids in this type of environment are learning is how to hide, because their goal will not be to make good choices, but to not get caught.

In John 14:31 Jesus gave us an important insight into the nature of obedience. He said, “I do what the Father commanded so that the world may know that I love the Father.”

The order here matters. Jesus is teaching us that obedience is the product of love, not fear. The natural order is love first, obedience second. When a child is raised in a home where compliance is the priority, he might receive the opposite message. He may learn that 1) obedience precedes love, and that affection and connection are earned through compliance, or that 2) dad (or mom) is scary and the way to survive their anger is to do what they say.

Fear doesn’t just distort the meaning of obedience, but it teaches the wrong lesson.

Problem #2 — Kids don’t learn the lessons you think they learn

Imagine a kid makes a mistake. They’re great at that, by the way. Maybe he spilled his drink or knocked over a plant. He knows what’s coming next — he thinks, “dad is going to be angry. He’ll probably yell at me, he might even hit me.”

The lesson we think the kid will learn is that they need to be more careful. But what they actually learned from that experience was that the way we deal with things we don’t like is to get angry, yell, or hit.

The next day the same kid is playing with his toys, and his little brother comes and takes one of them. He doesn’t like that, but thankfully his dad showed him how to deal with situations like this. He gets angry and hits his brother.

To be fair, kids will try the shout and hit method without ever seeing it modeled. Anger comes naturally, but knowing how to manage emotions is a learned behavior. And the best chance for kids to grow up to become emotionally mature adults is to see what that looks like in action.

So, what’s the solution?

We need a new goal. The problem isn’t that we have a value for obedience, because obedience is healthy. And it’s not that we don’t love our kids. Parents who can relate to this likely love their kids very deeply, but their efforts to love and lead them may be misguided. In order to properly care for something, we must understand it. This is true of our cars, house plants, and our kids.

Rather than obedience, we need to pursue the goal of connection.

This doesn’t mean that we become passive. It doesn’t mean that our kids are permitted to do whatever they want, free from consequences and discipline. Kids need parents who are both kind and firm, establishing an environment that holds the tension of both freedom and boundaries.

It means that we parent from the inside out. Behavior is a form of communication, and what’s being communicated is what’s going on in their heart and mind.

Trying to change somebody’s behavior through external punishments and threats is like trying to get an apple tree to grow lemons by picking off all of the apples. It sounds crazy, because it is.

When the goal is connection, it creates a path by which parents can properly address not just the undesirable behavior, but whatever is producing the behavior. The outcome of pursuing connection is a healthy relationship that both parties want to protect, and one of the ways a child will protect a strong connection with their parent is through cooperation. And here’s the best part — the choice to cooperate will be their own.

This is what obedience looks like. It looks like the healthy outcome of a relationship based on connection rather than control. Obedience is the product of love and connection, while fear and punishments only produce survival.

The fear-based punishment method only works when there’s the presence of a punisher. Kids who are taught to “behave” through fear and anger find themselves unequipped to think critically about and take responsibility for their choices. They never learned how or why to make good choices, they only ever learned how to survive, and part of their survival skills will likely include hiding.

As I said previously, if we want our kids to grow up to become honest, critical thinkers who have a value for not just avoiding getting caught, but for making good choices, we need to set down some of our hammers and pick up some new tools. Ones that will allow us to lead them in loving discipline and instruction rather than fearful and angry threats.