Becoming a Big Kid: Obedience in the Five to Eight Year Old

Consistency. You've heard it a thousand times, but consistency truly is the key to successfully teaching and molding your children. As children grow up and become more mature and 'worldly-wise,' being consistent in what is acceptable and unacceptable becomes even more important. During the early elementary years, parents can find themselves falling into the trap of 'multiple warnings.' Imagine this scenario:

Mom's cooking dinner and Dad's reading the newspaper. Six-year-old Bobby runs into the living room and starts jumping on the couch. After a few minutes, Mom calls from the kitchen, "Bobby, quit jumping on the couch!" (By the way, they have a house rule against jumping on furniture.) Bobby stops and sits on the couch. Barely 30 seconds pass, and he's jumping on the couch again. Mom comes to the living room doorway and says, "I told you to stop it!" then goes back to the kitchen.

This time, Bobby doesn't even bother to sit down. He just continues jumping, having a grand time. Dad looks up from the paper to say, "Bobby, your mom told you to stop." So Bobby sits down, maybe for five minutes this time. But his wiggly boy-nature gets the best of him, and he begins to jump once more. Mom appears in the doorway and Dad puts the paper down at the same time. Now they're both upset and shouting, "We told you to stop jumping on that couch!" Everyone's frustrated and frazzled. Bobby can't understand why his mom and dad are shouting, and Mom and Dad can't understand why Bobby won't just mind what they say!

Have you ever found yourself in a similar situation? I sure have! Wouldn't life be so much easier if kids were born with fully mature instruction-following capabilities? We'd speak once, and they'd forever obey the command. That's just not the way God has designed them! For one thing, children are immature and cannot understand the reasoning behind most of their parents' instructions and rules. Secondly, like all human beings, they have a sinful nature and part of that sinful nature is rebellion and proud independence.

Confirming Your Expectation Of Obedience

During the early elementary years, children begin to respond to a wider variety of consequences for their actions. Losing privileges means a lot to children this age. Usually, by five or six years old, a child is showing a preference for certain activities. Maybe your child prefers reading above all else (mine does, believe it or not!) or perhaps he prefers sports, video games, playing outside, riding his bike. You know your child. What does he like best? For serious disobedience, losing a favorite activity for a few days or even a week can be a memorable consequence at this age.

Of course, you can't take away the favorite activity for each and every infraction. If you do that, your young baseball player may never be able to pick up the bat and glove again! In my family, we've divided the children's toys into categories—army men, art supplies, sports gear, dinosaurs, building blocks, and so on. The bicycle gets its own category, and books get their own special "serious infraction" classification. When our oldest son (age seven) disobeys or breaks household rules, he loses access to one of these categories. Depending on the seriousness of his misbehavior, the punishment may last the rest of the day, a couple days, or even a week.

Teach Our Children God's View Of Obedience

One thing we, as Christian parents, must do is back up our words with God's Word. After all, God is the One Who has given us the responsibility of instructing and training our children. Children this age (and preschoolers too) have strong faith in God as the Creator and Master of everything. By taking your child to the Bible to show him why a certain behavior (i.e. disobedience) is wrong, he is more likely to see the gravity of the situation.

I keep a list of Bible verses that relate to certain behaviors. For example, Philippians 2:14 says, "Do all things without murmurings and disputings." When my son whines or complains about a job I've asked him to do, I simply quote this verse to him, and usually he 'snaps out of it.' When something serious happens and the consequence is losing privileges or another form of discipline, I use Scripture to try and convey to my son why his actions were wrong and why he must be punished for them.

Allow me to share a few verses that I find helpful.

• Romans 12:10 - Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another; This verse can be used for many behaviors, including selfishness, stealing/grabbing toys, and angry words.
• Proverbs 19:5 - A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall not escape.
• Ecclesiastes 7:9 - Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.
• Romans 12:21 - Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Sometimes one child will begin to follow the naughtiness of another. For instance, ones hits so the other hits back. This verse can help teach the importance of not falling into that cycle.
• Romans 12:2a - And be not conformed to this world: This Scripture is helpful when a child's behavior or attitude is being negatively influenced by friends.
• Exodus 20:1-17 The Ten Commandments cover basically everything!