Do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. - Ephesians 6:4
No matter how hard we try, there’s just no such thing as a perfect parent. It’s a difficult job with lots of important aspects. One of the essentials is to provide our children with emotional security. And with parenting being so fast and furious—a non-stop event—we often forget how our words and actions can have lasting effects.
Maybe there’s no standard-issue handbook, no clear-cut formula to follow, but we do have God’s Word to guide us in how to encourage our kids in becoming who God created them to be. His Word gives us instruction as to how to parent without provoking our children to discouragement, resentfulness, and anger. Parents can exasperate their children through controlling behavior, public shame, unfair discipline, constant criticism, comparison, unrealistic expectations, emotional pressure, distraction, or an unwillingness to apologize. Ephesians 6:4 calls Christian parents to replace these patterns with patient instruction, consistent boundaries, humility, and grace.
With the above Scripture in mind, let’s take a look at 10 possible ways we could be exasperating our children without realizing it.
Key Points
- Ephesians 6:4 reminds parents to guide their children without provoking them toward anger, resentment, or discouragement.
- Overprotectiveness, permissiveness, unfair discipline, comparison, and unrealistic expectations can unintentionally damage a child’s sense of security and trust.
- Words matter: criticism, social shaming, or speaking negatively about a spouse or ex-spouse can leave lasting emotional wounds.
- Children need to feel loved, prioritized, and free from the pressure of being responsible for a parent’s happiness or sense of worth.
- Godly parenting includes humility—admitting mistakes, apologizing, seeking forgiveness, and modeling the same grace and Christlike character parents hope to see in their children.
1. How Overprotective or Permissive Parenting Exasperates Children
Children need both age-appropriate freedom and consistent boundaries; too much control or too little guidance can leave them anxious, resentful, or insecure. As our children grow older, like it or not, we have to give them some freedom to make their own decisions and experience certain aspects of life for themselves. Without it, they become fearful and later resentful that we’ve held the reins too tight and for too long.
This means giving them the opportunity to actually fail—as long as the liberty is appropriate and not one that could lead to a life-altering consequence. An occasional failure helps make our kids resilient and teaches them coping skills.
On the other hand, despite the current free-range trend, kids really need and desire structure, security, and our guidance. They’re not chickens; they’re small humans who need to know we care what they do and where they go. And they’re also the people who’ll one day lead this country.
Ask God to help you find the right balance between micromanaging and being hands-off as you guide your child on their journey to adulthood.
See Proverbs 22:6
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2. How Criticizing a Spouse or Co-Parent Hurts Your Child
Speaking contemptuously about someone your child loves can place an emotional burden on the child and leave them feeling caught between their parents. By making the mistake of projecting our hurt, anger, and pain onto our children, we’re not only placing them in the middle of it all, but we’re also saddling them with a burden. A burden not for them to carry and one they may feel somehow responsible for causing.
When we speak unkindly about someone our child loves, whether it’s true or not, the outcome is the same. It breaks our child’s heart, causing unnecessary pain. It also hurts your credibility with your child and others.
Ask God to help you refrain from speaking badly about others in front of your child—no matter how much your flesh screams in protest. Ask for His help in holding your tongue so that you can display grace as a model for your child’s future relationships.
See James 5:9
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3. How Favoritism and Comparison Create Resentment
Comparing children or repeatedly favoring one child can communicate that love and approval must be earned through performance. Those who have multiple children would probably agree that each child is quite different. Sometimes these differences can demand, or even attract, more than a fair share of our attention, which can also detract from siblings.
Sometimes we find ourselves comparing our children to one another. This can even happen with an only child by comparing him or her to a cousin who always makes straight A’s or to the teammate who, unlike your child, never strikes out. Whether intentional or inadvertent, showing favoritism and making comparisons create resentment and jealousy in a developing child.
Ask God to reveal to you if you’ve allowed the seed of jealousy to take root in your child’s life. Ask Him to help you take the steps needed to correct this and help you resist doing so in the future.
See James 2:1
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4. Why Parents Should Never Shame Children Online
Publicly sharing a child’s failures, discipline, or embarrassing moments can damage trust and create a permanent digital record the child never chose. Most parents would, without hesitation, take a stand against their child being bullied and hold those responsible accountable. That’s why it’s so hard to believe that some of these same parents are cyberbullying their children.
Social shaming is the digital age’s latest form of tough love for many parents. It can be as subtle as a Facebook post about her not making the A-Honor Roll yet again, or as drastic as a YouTube video of her sticking him on a street corner wearing a sandwich sign for the afternoon. It’s believed that if you embarrass the offender, whatever the offense was will never happen again. That may be true, but the trust you once had in your relationship will be a thing of the past, and anger and resentment will burn indefinitely. As parents, we’re to be our kids’ safe place, a refuge. We’re to parent in a way that pleases God.
Ask God to help you use good judgment before posting anything on your social media channels, particularly anything that may damage your relationship with your child.
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5. How Anger-Driven or Unfair Discipline Provokes Children
Biblical discipline should teach and correct with consistency, self-control, and love rather than humiliation, intimidation, or uncontrolled anger. Parental discipline is to be tempered with love, full of compassion, and should be fair so as not to harden our child’s heart toward us.
If we’re to be obedient to God’s command of not provoking our children to anger, we’ve got to be in control of our own anger.
As parents, we must refuse to allow our emotions control over us, which could lead to “losing our cool,” inciting excessive punishment.
Ask God to help you keep a cool head when the need for discipline arises and to help you model to your child how to relate lovingly to others.
See Proverbs 19:18
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6. How Constant Criticism Discourages a Child
Children need correction, but repeated criticism that attacks their character rather than addressing a specific behavior can leave them feeling incapable and unloved. Remember that not being perfect is okay, despite what the world would have us believe. As parents, we’re to be our kids’ biggest fans, encouraging them and lifting them up. Building them up, not belittling. Though they’re getting older, the truth is they still want us to be pleased with them. Proverbs 18:21says that the tongue possesses the power of life and death. As parents, we must monitor our criticism and ensure our children know it comes from a place of love.
Ask God for wisdom to discern when you should offer constructive criticism and how to offer it in a way that builds up your child.
See Ephesians 4:29
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7. Why Children Should Not Carry a Parent’s Happiness
Children should not feel responsible for managing a parent’s emotions, approval, identity, or sense of success. Good parents want happy kids, right? I’d even suggest that good kids want happy parents. Nothing wrong with that. But I wonder if we sometimes equate our child’s happiness with our success as a parent. And when this happens, we parents might be unknowingly burdening our kids with the responsibility of keeping us ever-happy. That begs the question: What happens when they see us unhappy?
Even if our unhappiness has nothing to do with what our kids did or didn’t do, if we’ve led our children to believe that the happiness of those they care about is wrapped up in their own performance, we’re setting them up for a frustrated life of people-pleasing. Ones who are more concerned with pleasing people than with pleasing God. Ones who strive for acceptance will say yes to anything and everything out of fear of disappointing someone, and will strive to find their worth in this world, not in Him.
Ask God to reveal to you if you’ve been putting undue pressure on your child to make you happy at all costs.
See Galatians 1:10
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8. How Distraction Can Make Children Feel Unimportant
When work, phones, entertainment, or other obligations repeatedly receive our best attention, children may conclude that they are less important. We can do everything right and say all the right things, but that won’t matter if we forget to make sure our children feel validated, loved, and valued.
It’s just so easy to get caught up in our Facebook feed or zoned out bingeing on Netflix instead of taking a walk with our kid or reading a good story with them.
Truth is that without even knowing it, many of us have allowed technology to supersede the intimate connection with those we say we love most—those who need us most.
Ask God to show you opportunities to have some old-fashioned eye contact and connection, and to help you be more conscious of making sure your child feels like a top priority.
See Psalm 127:3
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9. How Unrealistic Expectations Discourage Children
Expectations should challenge children without teaching them that parental approval depends on flawless achievement. Have you ever had a job where the expectations you were to meet were unattainable? One where, no matter how hard you worked or how many hours you logged, no mere mortal could achieve success.
If so, it most likely created immense stress, a feeling of helplessness, and a sense of “never good enough.” And something else may have happened. You may have even quit that job in search of one with achievable goals. Maybe you left in search of a place where you felt you could succeed and feel proud of your accomplishments.
As parents, we’re in charge of the goals we’ve set for our kids, making sure they're attainable yet challenging for them. By setting unfair and/or unattainable goals, we risk setting them up for failure and exasperating them to the point of discouragement.
Ask God for wisdom as you define your child’s goals and expectations, so you set them up for success now and in the future.
See Colossians 3:21
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10. Why Parents Should Admit Fault and Apologize
A sincere parental apology models humility, repentance, accountability, and the grace we want our children to practice themselves. Our children are watching us to see whether our private beliefs align with our public behavior. Watching to see if we model the Christ-like behavior we expect from them. And they’re also watching to see how we handle the consequences when we mess things up.
As parents, it’s important to be authentic and resist the urge to model an illusion of perfection. Kids need to see us mess up now and then. Just as importantly, they need to see us handle it in a graceful, godly way. See us own up to our mistakes, not cover them up. When you mess up, do you admit it? Do you accept responsibility for your actions? Do you apologize to those you’ve offended? Do you ask for forgiveness?
Maybe today God is prompting you to focus more on godly parenting that doesn’t provoke your child to anger or discouragement. Pray that He would help you model His commands to be patient with your growing child and to apologize when you fall short.
See James 5:16
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Download The Ultimate Guide to Family Fun This Autumn and choose one activity that will help your family reconnect this week.
Frequently Asked Questions about Exasperating Your Children
- What does “do not exasperate your children” mean?
It means parents should not repeatedly provoke children toward anger, resentment, discouragement, or hopelessness through harshness, inconsistency, humiliation, impossible expectations, or misuse of authority. - Is setting rules or disciplining a child the same as exasperating them?
No. Children need loving authority, clear rules, and consistent consequences. Discipline becomes exasperating when it is unpredictable, excessive, humiliating, unrelated to the behavior, or driven by a parent’s uncontrolled anger. - Should parents apologize to their children?
Yes. Parents retain their authority when they apologize; they do not weaken it. A complete apology identifies the wrong behavior, acknowledges its effect, avoids excuses, asks forgiveness, and explains what the parent intends to change. - How can I repair my relationship if my child resents me?
Begin by listening without interrupting, correcting, or immediately defending your intentions. Acknowledge specific harm, apologize for your part, respect appropriate boundaries, and demonstrate change consistently over time. - Can parents exasperate children by being too permissive?
Yes. Permissiveness can leave children feeling insecure because expectations and boundaries are unclear. Healthy parenting combines warmth and responsiveness with consistent, age-appropriate guidance. - What should I do when I recognize one of these patterns in myself?
Bring it honestly to God, apologize where necessary, and identify one concrete behavior to change. Conviction should lead to repentance and repair, not to paralyzing shame or the belief that you have permanently failed as a parent.
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Originally published Monday, 05 June 2017.
