It can also help keep kids safe.

Healthy Fear

When prompting our kids to good behavior, it’s been said that fear isn’t the best motivator. However, like shame, it can still be a motivator.

The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and the beginning of wisdom. Fear is just the beginning of these things. It’s not the whole and it is certainly not the end.

Of course, our kids need love, training, encouragement, a secure environment to foster emotional health. But to say that they shouldn’t have a healthy fear of us is to claim a higher ideal than God’s when it comes to parent/child relationships.

A healthy fear of us may be just the thing that keeps our kids from a dangerous or evil deed that could keep them from enjoying our love and relationship another day.

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