The Tragic Truth on Passive Parenting

By Justin Pratt,

Clear Springs Baptist Church Senior Pastor

There is a haunting tragedy that echoes through history: it is possible to win in the world and lose at home. A pastor friend recently shared with me the story of a father in his church who provided his son with every opportunity to succeed in football. He had the best training, resources, and support that ultimately led him from NCAA college championships to the NFL. Yet in all his efforts to prepare his son for success on the field, he neglected to prepare him for life off the field. Without a moral compass, the young man’s career unraveled. In a moment of painful honesty, the father admitted, “I spent my entire life giving my son everything he needed to climb the ladder of success, only to find when he got there, the ladder I helped him climb was leaning on the wrong wall.”

King David understood the all-too-common tragedy of winning in public while losing in private. Sometimes, Christian parents make the path too easy for their children, while others are guilty of unintentional neglect. While the Christian world often praises everything that David built, we frequently forget the price he paid in doing so. The shepherd who became a king established one of the most expansive kingdoms in history. He enhanced Israel’s economy, empowered its military, and expanded its borders, yet he somehow completely neglected his family. Although we continue to preach and teach from the songs that David wrote, the giants he defeated, and the kingdom he built, we rarely, if ever, hear about his success as a father or the influence he had on his children.

To provide some context, David had multiple children from different wives. In an already complicated family dynamic and during a very dark season in his life, we see an instance in 2 Samuel 13 where everything David loved began to spiral out of control. Sometimes, when we delve deeply into the Bible, we encounter stories that can make even the most vile among us blush, stories that never make it into Veggie Tales cartoons or coloring books.

Here is a brief overview of the scene: David’s son Amnon violates his half-sister, Tamar. David does nothing. Two years later, another son, Absalom, takes matters into his own hands and kills his brother, Amnon. Again, David takes no action. Absalom becomes a murderer, an arsonist, an insurrectionist, an adulterer, and engages in many other destructive behaviors. Still, David does nothing. Eventually, David welcomes Absalom back and continues to nurture him without imposing any corrective punishment.

David serves as a stark lesson on parenting for us; it is both okay and biblical to set boundaries and instructively discipline our children.

Parenting was never meant to be a spectator sport. Yet too many moms and dads today have slipped into the trap of passive parenting, just sitting in the bleachers while culture, peers and screens become the loudest voices shaping their children. What may feel like keeping the peace or giving kids “freedom to figure it out” often plants the seeds of confusion, insecurity and rebellion. The truth is, passivity in parenting is not neutral; it is dangerous. When parents fail to actively lead, guide and correct, the vacuum is always filled, usually by influences far less loving and far less trustworthy than a father’s wisdom or a mother’s care. In us, as it was in David, our silence often speaks louder than our words. Parental decisions today set the stage for generational actions tomorrow. It should haunt us that our children will often live out what we refuse to confront, and when we abdicate our responsibility, our children absorb the consequences. Parents, it’s a great risk when we always say yes to all their wants, and we never say no to the dangers. If we don’t learn from the mistakes of David, we may build financial and material kingdoms, but when we lose our children, we will be left to live in the ruins of regret.