5 Ways Children Can Learn to Forgive Their Parents

Children learn from what they experience. Children sometimes don’t come from the best environments. This can lead them into adulthood where they may become angry and bitter at their parents for not giving them the life they deserved. Although they are victimized by their parents’ lack of ability to parent, for their overall health and well-being, they need to forgive their parents for what they couldn’t give them.

How Children Can Learn to Forgive Their Parents

Here are some ways children can learn to forgive their parents:

Realize they are only human.

Parents live out what they learned from experience, as well. In their humanity, they may have unmet needs they didn’t receive from their parents. Unknowingly, they may have projected those feelings and deprivations onto their child.

Parents do the best they can, but there are no guarantees that even their best parenting skills will produce healthy children. Extend grace to your parents in the same way you would extend grace to yourself for making mistakes throughout life.

We make mistakes based on our humanity. Your parents did the same. Parents are not perfect, and neither are your children. When children can switch their perspective from one of feeling jaded because they didn’t have the perfect childhood, to one of grace and mercy for parents doing the best they could, they can begin to become well-adjusted adults.

They may not have had a good model

Sometimes parents are victims of their upbringing, as well. Generations before them may have struggled with this. However, their sins were not widely talked about. Their generations attended church, smiled, and said everything was OK. But behind closed doors, their lives told a different story.

Past generations struggled with alcoholism, workaholism, poverty, and other issues just as we do today. However, their parents may have told them simply to work harder or stick it out. A child’s parents may not have had a good role model upon which to base their parenting. While children live what they learn, parents do what they saw modeled at home. Parents do the best they can, but in the end, they are just as flawed individuals as their children.

They didn’t know how to do better

Unfortunately, parenthood doesn’t come with a manual. If only there was a manual parents could read to produce the perfect children, everyone in the world would use it! However, there are many different parenting styles and beliefs regarding how to raise kids.

For example, an adult may have come from strict, controlling parents. They have emulated what they saw because they believed that was the best way to parent. However, children can become resentful of their parents who were too controlling.

Conversely, permissive parents raise kids who have difficulty understanding right from wrong. Permissive or passive parents may raise kids who believe they can do whatever they want. This is not good for their development either. Rarely do parents get it all right. They may not have had the proper training and example of how to raise good kids. Unfortunately, there’s less knowledge now than in generations past.

Recognize that they may have followed societal rules

Generations long ago most people raised in a Christian culture believed the same thing. Their sense of integrity and morality stemmed from the same place: the church. The church was the voice in people’s lives. However, today, that is simply not the case. Many parents navigate childrearing without a church to help guide them.

Morality and integrity are more subjective now than they ever were before. It is difficult for parents to raise kids with a high sense of integrity and morality when they’re not even sure what that is.

Faith is no longer a deciding factor

In addition to different parenting methods from past generations, faith was at the forefront of every household. Years ago, there were far fewer atheists. Most people adopted some sort of faith that they instilled in their children. However, today that is not the case. These days children are encouraged to find their own path when it comes to religion.

Christianity is not only a source of faith during difficult times, but it also instructs parents on raising godly kids. However, when parents aren’t using the principles outlined in the Bible, making disciplinary decisions can be more difficult.

Additionally, differing views on judgment and love are also a deciding factor. In modern society, parents are not allowed to say anything negative, or they’re accused of shaming their children. However, as Scripture says, “God disciplines those he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). God disciplines all His children so they can develop more Christlike character.

Children will learn to forgive others if parents set an example of forgiving their children and asking for forgiveness from their children when the parent has sinned against them. However, parents raising their children outside of Biblical teaching may not know how to do that.

Parents need to discipline their children so they can become kind, loving individuals who exhibit the Fruit of the Spirit. Parents who choose not to raise their children in the church might find it more difficult to raise kids who are not spoiled or entitled. Entitled children become especially resentful of their parents.

This can cause a rift between parents and children. Children may not understand that parents thought it was best to let their children discover their own path to religion. Those parents did their children a great disservice. Children will one day need to come to terms with the fact that their parents were doing the best they knew how.

Child rearing is more difficult than ever. No matter what parents do, or how they try to be different from their parents, they can still raise children that become resentful of the way they were raised. However, children who can forgive their parents and learn to adapt to their surroundings by receiving their own emotional needs through God will become more peaceful, kind, and loving people in the end.

Christian Family Counseling in Texas

Are you in need of further help to learn how to forgive your parents? Would you like biblical counsel regarding becoming part of a church and learning to raise your children with biblical principles? Call our office today at Texas Christian Counseling, Harlingen to set an appointment with one of the faith-based counselors in Harlingen, Texas.