Now, drop down to your knees, in a very private place, take a handkerchief with you, lay that list on floor in front of you, and prepare to intercede over it. Prepare to weep some. Begin, just for good measure, by humbling your heart before God, something like this "Oh God, You alone are holy, Your purity is without flaw. How we need to be conformed to Your image. Help us Lord."

Ready now, grab that handkerchief, and get ready to weep. Here comes the next step in this important exercise. Now that we're in the attitude and position of prayer. Here we go...

Look over that list. Upsetting right? Now, place on the floor in front of you, right next to that list, an imaginary mirror. See it there? Right next to that upsetting list? Now look at the list, and then real quickly "glance in the mirror," then back to the list, then "glance in the mirror." Now back to the list. What just happened to you? Any idea? Are you there yet? Are you at the place I'm leading you yet? Ahhh, you're getting my drift aren't you?

Where did they get those traits???? Yes Sir...Yes Mam, from you!!!! No, not really? No way! How could they have gotten that from me if I've been trying to pound that out of them? Look deeply into your heart and see that the source of their flaws lie deeply and personally within your own heart.

Now here's a law of the Spirit that is just as valid as the law of gravity. Your kids are not likely to overcome in these irritating, sinful, and disappointing traits until you do! Whew...take your breath away yet?

You and I can pound on them, and threaten them, ground them, take away their cell phone, etc etc, until there is nothing more to take away, but until we let the Spirit of Christ deal with us we're not likely going to see much improvement in them.

Here's an illustration a very good friend of mine often refers to, when trying to communicate this point. We in North America, have all looked up into the sky, in the latter summer or early fall, and noticed that wonderful sight in the sky. Usually we hear it before we see it. You know what I'm referring to? That glorious wedge in the sky. A "V" shaped wedge of geese, flying in near perfect formation, across the sky, as they honk their hellos to you while they fly south for the winter.

Think about that lead goose for a moment. We all know what their role is. They punch through the air just enough to create a tiny space of breakthrough, for the goose behind to continue breaking, and all on down the line the rest of the geese experience a slightly easier time of flying...almost as if a draft were developing, drawing them forward, relieving their strain, helping them reach their destination. This is what parenting is all about.

If we are to break the resistance our kids feel to change. If we are help them experience an easier time of moving towards Christ likeness. If we are to develop a draft behind ourselves, that draws them towards the changes we long for them, relieving the strain the whole family is feeling...especially them, and help them reach their destination of maturity, strong lives, happy marriages, successful occupations, God honoring ministries, etc, we are going to have to take up that mirror, look deeply into it, and identify what it is in our own lives that is being reflected in theirs.

It is nearly an undeniable principle of parenting and leadership in general. What we don't adequately deal with in our lives gets passed on to the next generation. And, because this is a spiritual principle, it is also true that even if our kids leave our homes as adults, most often they will not overcome their weaknesses until we ourselves experience a measure of breakthrough, and create a tiny space for them to squeeze through to the next dimension of spiritual growth in their lives.

They need us to "own our own stuff," before they can fully "own their own." I don't like this principle any more than you do, but I've watched it over and over again. It is an axiom of life. Kids reflect the parenting they've received, and when they have traits we don't like if we want to see them changed we must take a very humbling look in the mirror of God's Spirit, and let Him expose in us the root system of our children's flaws.

Listen to Paul reference this principle:

1 Corinthians 11:1 Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ.

If we imitate the good things in our mentors we become more like Christ. But the opposite is just as true. If our mentors give us unhealthy things to imitate then our lives will often reflect that example as well. Maybe not one-for-one, but there will be a corresponding manifestation in some area.

This is also what Paul is referring to in Ephesians:

Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

This involves more than just pressing them too hard towards the change you desire to see in their lives. Provocation can come through any sinful manifestation in our lives. Every area where we manifest the flesh will provoke our children to their own unique manifestation of their flesh. Often they are like in kind, though perhaps not exact in manifestation.

Own this principle and the entire dynamic of your family and life will begin to transform. Don't do this, and generally speaking your family will continue its dysfunctional cycle of generational transmission of sin, to the third and fourth generations, and beyond.

So here are some steps in resolving this ugly cycle:

Invite the Spirit of God to search your own heart for the roots of their behavior and attitudes. He knows how to expose it in you. He knows how its developed, how you excuse it, how you deny it, and how it rules your own life. He can do this step with you without damaging your heart with condemnation or rejection. He will gently and deeply reveal how any particular flaw in them is sourced in your heart, your attitudes, your beliefs, and your thinking, and then He will pour in His wine and oil to soothe and comfort your distraught heart. This is His specialty!

This step may involve personal counsel, from a trusted spiritual advisor. It may involve reading some good books, that will help you work through your own personal issues. It may take some long walks, deep talks, and heart searching prayer. Whatever it takes it will be worth it. To resist this need is to create a greater likelihood of serious problems arising in your children's lives, down the road. Major backfires! To deal with these things now may be to create the best chance of good success for their lives. A guarantee? No! A greater likelihood of success? Yes!

Chances are your spouse has either thought it, or told you, that their behavior was sourced in you, and you didn't want to hear it. Now go confess to them that the Spirit has opened your eyes to it, and you need to apologize to him/her for making the parenting process harder than it had to have been, had you just humbled yourself earlier, and let Jesus deal with you before you passed your own sin on to your kids.

This is the really hard one. You need to spend some quiet time, alone with your child, and admit to them that the very thing you've been pounding on them about is sourced in you. They need to hear you own your own root system of bad attitudes and beliefs, before they will likely own their own.

Apologize to them for blaming them as the source of their bad attitudes, or the devil, or their friends, or society...and let them know that you now recognize you are the source, and you want to change, and you are repenting before God, and you understand that it is very unlikely they will get the victory over their stuff until you get the victory over your own.

Only as we go through these steps and honestly invite the Lord to expose and root out these things in our lives, can we hope to see much change in our children.

Someone will say... "But Tom, my kids are doing drugs, and I never did drugs...so how can they have gotten that from me?" Simple, behind every sinful choice is a motivational factor encouraging that choice. I may not be able, by a Word of Knowledge here, describe for every parent on the planet, what your motivating factor was, but it was there. It might be pride, legalism, insensitivity, lack of quality listening and caring time, anger, lust, impatience...should I go on? These types of things, manifesting in us, tend to create the sinful manifestations in them. They are, in essence, just manifesting their way of dealing with the pain they've experienced from you. They are medicating their pain with their own private way of dealing with what they don't understand.

I know these words hurt. They hurt me too. We're not alone in this issue. This isn't limited to just a few carnal parents. We ALL struggle with these things.

The areas we aren't allowing the Holy Spirit to resolve in our lives are urging our kids to manifest in sinful ways that often match up with what our societies are offering them to medicate their emotional pain. That may be sex, drugs, clothing styles, hair styles, tattoos, music, crime etc. Each of those areas provide them with forms of emotional medicating for the pain they have experienced in their homes and lives.

Please don't hear me say that parents are the entire cause for their children's bad behavior. If this were so, then the parents would be guilty and the children free of guilt. Such is not the case. They have their own "sin in the flesh" issues, that Paul references in Romans 6 thru 8. Our culture works on them at a fevered pitch. The devil is active daily in tempting and agitating them. But, somehow, if we hope to see them have the best chance of overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil, we, as parents, are going to have to own our contribution to their struggle, and hope and pray that that helps them more successfully deal with the big trio that works on them when they are away from us.

The more we humble ourselves, we break their resistence to moving forward. The way is cleared for them to enter into agreement with the Spirit of Jesus. When we break rank, drop out of the lead, and force them into the lead position, given their immaturity, we set them up for exhaustion, frustration, and then failure. It is our job to go before them in these areas.

It does you no good, nor your children, to drop into a season of personal self condemnation. The goal of this article is not to create a defeating sense of failure and self hatred. The goal of this article is to create within our hearts a sense of hope for the change we've been so frustrated in seeing in our children. So often we wonder what we can say or do to help them become the mature adults we have envisioned for them. This is one of them. It's not the whole solution, but it is a big piece of the puzzle. The first step is humility, and its impact is huge. To humbly admit your part in their struggles. This opens the door for the Spirit to reach places within them that previously He was on the outside of.

All parents fail to some degree, so looking at these things is not an admission of being a complete failure as a parent. Don't take the message of this article further than is intended. Look to the grace of God to help you work on yourself, own things before your spouse and children, and let it move you towards healing in your own life and their lives. Let this message be a positive and you will begin to see the benefits of it fairly quickly in your home.

Just a word of caution...depending on how dysfunctional are the lives of your children currently, as you face these roots in your own life, you may find yourself feeling strong needs for unhealthy self medicating, due to discouragement. For this reason, it is generally best to not face these issues alone. I recommend you find a trusted brother or sister in Christ, to walk you prayerfully through this time. Don't go it alone. We need the body of Christ, and that is a part of the reason the body exists.

Give this principle some time to work. Don't expect an immediate turn around in your family. You may have sown a large field of weeds, by the seeds in your own life. Give God time to harvest the one field and replant another. It will happen. If it took years to create the first harvest it may take years to create the new harvest, but if you are patient you will see the fruits of your own repentance. This too is a pretty reliable principle of life. Good things will almost surely result in their lives. If not, they will certainly result in your own, and in the end...you are who you are most responsible for. Even if they continue to resist the Spirit's work in their lives, you will have done the right thing in owning, confessing, and repenting from the things the Spirit reveals in you. This will glorify Jesus, and this will put surgical instruments in His hands to operate more deeply in the lives of your family.

God bless you as you take these crucial steps. You won't regret it!