Sep 4, 2026 · 19 min · 9 segments
Is it healthy for kids to be afraid of their parents? Before we can answer that, we have to ask a harder question first: should we, as God's children, be afraid of Him? In this episode, we dig into…
And the question is, is there a healthy form of fear or is there no room for fear at all in relationships? right so let's get into that i think one of the problems people have when we talk about this is they assume that because we don't think fear is the best motivator towards obedience that must mean that we're on the far other end of the spectrum right that we're extremely passive and we're very permissive right we don't discipline
our kids run the home our kids run the home yeah they're just walking all over us all day
Yeah.
And what I've wondered, because it's always, I always think of like just about everything in terms of like a pendulum where there's always unhealthy extremes on both sides.
Right.
It doesn't really discipline.
Like you said, the kids are running the home.
On the far other side, you have the total opposite.
Mom and dad are controlling.
They're angry.
They're very demanding.
It's high expectation, low warmth.
Mm-hmm.
And for people who assume that fear and yelling and threats and all of that is the proper way to go about raising kids, if they think that they're in the middle, then anything to the side of that they'll probably assume is extreme, which I think is why a lot of people accuse us of being the permissive passive side, not realizing that there is actually a healthy balance between the two.
And some of the ways we've defined that in the past are It can be the balance between kindness and being firm.
Like you can be firm and kind as a parent.
We've talked about it as the balance between having boundaries and freedom.
Kids are born into freedom.
They have a will of their own.
They're designed to make their own choices.
But we are required or maybe we have a responsibility to put boundaries around their freedom to help them learn how to navigate that.
Absolutely.
So all that to say, we are actively trying to find the right balance in the middle.
Yep.
And there's a couple Bible verses I want to look at that will help us understand how to navigate thinking about the role of fear in a relationship.
And the question is, is there a healthy form of fear or is there no room for fear at all in relationships? right so let's get into that i think one of the problems people have when we talk about this is they assume that because we don't think fear is the best motivator towards obedience that must mean that we're on the far other end of the spectrum right that we're extremely passive and we're very permissive right we don't discipline
our kids run the home our kids run the home yeah they're just walking all over us all day
Yeah.
And what I've wondered, because it's always, I always think of like just about everything in terms of like a pendulum where there's always unhealthy extremes on both sides.
Right.
It doesn't really discipline.
Like you said, the kids are running the home.
On the far other side, you have the total opposite.
Mom and dad are controlling.
They're angry.
They're very demanding.
It's high expectation, low warmth.
Mm-hmm.
And for people who assume that fear and yelling and threats and all of that is the proper way to go about raising kids, if they think that they're in the middle, then anything to the side of that they'll probably assume is extreme, which I think is why a lot of people accuse us of being the permissive passive side, not realizing that there is actually a healthy balance between the two.
And some of the ways we've defined that in the past are It can be the balance between kindness and being firm.
Like you can be firm and kind as a parent.
We've talked about it as the balance between having boundaries and freedom.
Kids are born into freedom.
They have a will of their own.
They're designed to make their own choices.
But we are required or maybe we have a responsibility to put boundaries around their freedom to help them learn how to navigate that.
Absolutely.
So all that to say, we are actively trying to find the right balance in the middle.
Yep.
And there's a couple Bible verses I want to look at that will help us understand how to navigate thinking about the role of fear in a relationship.
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