How to Provoke Your Children to Anger

Paul warns parents to not provoke their children to anger. We see this warning in both Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21. Ephesians goes on to give us the positive side of parenting, “bring them up in the nurture and instruction.” But in Colossians, the only parenting advice we get in Colossians is, “Don’t provoke your children to anger!” Apparently if you want to be a good parent, the thing that Paul is most concerned about is that you not provoke your children to anger. The somewhat frustrating part of this, though, is that he doesn’t stop to explain what he means by this phrase or explain how it should be done! So what does it look like to provoke your children to anger?

Now, by not provoking your children, Paul clearly does not mean that your children will never be upset with decisions you make. After all, never displeasing your children will lead to disaster, just ask King David (1 Kings 1:6). As parents, we are called to discipline our children, and at times godly discipline will upset and even anger our children. If you stop disciplining every time your child throws a tantrum, you won’t help them, you’ll be encouraging more tantrums. This philosophy of parenting is sometimes called “gentle parenting,” or, as I like to call it, “not parenting.”

So sometimes our children’s anger is a result of their own sin and is in spite of our godliest efforts at parenting. Sometimes it’s because we’ve sinfully provoked them. We need to know the difference, because the souls of our children are at stake. The Bible nowhere gives a lengthy list of what provoking your children looks like, but I want to share a few things I’ve observed and been taught over the years that I think can help us know the difference between provoking and good, healthy parenting.

 

Being Angry Provokes Anger

The most obvious way that we sinfully provoke our children to sin is by being angry ourselves. Scripture clearly teaches that anger is contagious. The Bible warns that if we hang out with an angry person, we will become angry (Proverbs 22:24-25). This means that the opposite is true as well—if we are angry then the people around us will become angry, too. If this is true with our friends, how much more will it be true of our children? Discipline must never be carried out in anger. After all, James warns us that man’s anger doesn’t produce God’s righteousness (James 1:20).

When I find that my children are becoming increasingly agitated, when they are getting angry and staying angry, my first impulse has become to check my own anger. If I am short with them when I discipline them or if I find that there is frustration in my voice, then I shouldn’t be surprised if my children are angry, too. Conversely, I have watched how, when I get serious about being firm but loving, unwavering yet patient, it can calm my child down. The constant temptation is for me to try and make my child behave by being angry, but my sinful anger will in the end only produce sinful anger in my child.

 

Inconsistency Provokes Anger

Being consistent in parenting is hard, because being consistent takes a lot of work. It means addressing behavior when it’s not convenient. Far too often we address problems when they are easy to address or are making life difficult for us. Sometimes, though, addressing problems will make life more difficult. Sometimes we’d rather just not poke the bear. We might even excuse our inconsistency for mercy. “I’ll give them grace this time,” we nobly think. But the reality is that we just don’t want to handle it.

So how does this breed anger? Because children won’t think to themselves, “Oh wow, mom and dad showed me grace. I should be thankful and show my gratitude by doing right next time!” No, they will instead become frustrated because they don’t know when the rules apply and when they don’t. Something they do will be fine today, but a problem tomorrow. Rather than having security and consistency, they will be unsure and uncertain about what is allowed and what is not. Such uncertainty will be frustrating, and ultimately may drive them to anger.

 

Unreasonable Expectations Provoke Anger

Another way that parents can sinfully provoke their children to anger is by expecting things from them that they are not able to do. If a five-year-old is expected to behave like a fifteen-year-old, they will of course fail. The more they fail, the more they will become angry. Few things are as crushing as impossible standards. If your children believe that no matter how hard they try they will never be good enough, they’ll become discouraged, stop trying, and grow resentful and angry.

Now, it’s good to have high standards. Children should be pushed to greater maturity, but this must always be done in age-appropriate ways. Children will be children. A helpful distinction my wife and I were taught and to which we often refer is the difference between childishness and disobedience. I should expect children to act like children, and they shouldn’t be disciplined for that. Our expectations with our children need to be clear, reasonable, and consistent. If not, we run the risk of angering our children.

 

Hypocrisy Provokes Anger

Kids seem to intuitively grasp the wrongness of “rules for thee, but not for me.” If you hold your child to a standard that you don’t hold yourself to, that will cause frustration, and understandably so. Obviously, there will be things as parents that we can do that our children cannot. It’s not hypocritical of me to tell my children they are not allowed to drive a car and then drive a car, or to go to bed at 7:30 and then stay up until 11:00. But if I tell my children that they must be kind, or that they should always be honest, or that they must respect their authority, and then they watch me ignore those principles in my life, that can cause anger.

Does this mean you will be sinlessly perfect? Of course not. That’s why humility and honesty are important with our children. We need them to know that mommy and daddy aren’t perfect, that we make mistakes, and that we need God’s forgiveness and at times their forgiveness, too. Such behavior is the opposite of hypocrisy, because it shows that I take what I say I believe so seriously I hold myself to that standard. And when I fail, I must make it right, too. But if I say I believe something but don’t live it, all the while expecting them to live it, I will cause anger.

 

Children will often get angry and respond poorly when they’re corrected. This is to be expected. Yet we need to be willing to acknowledge that sometimes that anger is at least partially our fault. If there is one thing that concerned the apostle Paul most about our parenting, it’s that we would drive our children to anger. How do we do that? By being angry ourselves, by being hypocrites, or by having inconsistent or unreasonable standards. When we’ve done that, we need to swallow our pride and model for our children what we’ve been teaching them abstractly—that we are all sinners but fortunately we serve a forgiving Savior.

---

Ben Hicks is the Associate Pastor at Colonial Hills Baptist Church in Indianapolis. This article originally appeared on his Substack.

---

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash