The Dominion to Strive For

I had a good discussion today with a friend about how to help children be obedient.  We both have young children and struggle with those who sometimes refuse to listen.  As I’ve pondered this challenge we face as parents, I’ve realized that we have to give in to the simple truth that, despite how much we may want to, we cannot force obedience.  We can ask, teach, invite, persuade, direct, and reason with our children about right and wrong in order to help them obey, but I believe that in most cases, seeking to force our children is not the right way to cultivate obedience.  And if all our efforts at raising obedient children seem in the moment to be failing, we are at least in good company with the Lord of the vineyard who cried out, “But what could I have done more in my vineyard? Have I slackened mine hand, that I have not nourished it? Nay, I have nourished it, and I have digged about it, and I have pruned it, and I have dunged it; and I have stretched forth mine hand almost all the day long” (Jacob 5:47).    

                  In the hymn Know This, That Every Soul Is Free, we sing this about our Father in Heaven, “He’ll call, persuade, direct aright, And bless with wisdom, love, and light, In nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind.”  That, I believe, is also a description of how we should seek to parent and lead our children—but of course, that’s much easier said than done.  I say this after spending twenty minutes at the park tonight trying to get my six-year-old to come with me in the car to go home.  In the Doctrine and Covenants we read that for the faithful, “The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:46).  I think this gives us a key insight into the ideal form of parenting—we don’t use compulsion but develop dominion that comes not from force but from an inner goodness that draws others in.  Mormon described what really makes a difference in helping others choose righteousness: “The preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them” (Alma 31:5).  The teaching we do with words and especially that we do by our example—the goodness they see in us and the right choices they watch us make—will surely have a more lasting effect on our children than the strict punishments or berating or forced behavior we are often tempted to inflict on them.    

            In The Horse and His Boy of C.S. Lewis, when the two talking horses finally saw Aslan the lion—of whom they had heard stories but never met—the smaller horse Hwin, who had showed many childlike attributes throughout the book, walked up to him immediately and without hesitation.  She said this as she looked at Aslan, the type of Christ in the book, in all of his splendor and goodness and said: “Please, you’re so beautiful.  You may eat me if you like.  I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”  She was completely drawn to Aslan because he was so good and radiated such light—she simply couldn’t do anything other than to be submissive to him even if that meant she would be eaten by him (which of course she was not).  The lion had power over the horse “without compulsory means” by simply who he was.  That is the kind of “dominion” I believe we should seek for as parents over our children, that as they watch us day after day they will be drawn to want to live lives of goodness that they see us striving to do.