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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Tim Kimmel 
 
 
Question: 
 
Do kids raised in a Christian home rebel less or about the same as kids 
raised in a non-Christian environment? 
 
Answer: 
 
Children and rebellion go together. That’s part of childhood. Children 
are born with a disposition that is antagonistic to the standards of God 
and the standards of their parents. So rebellion is rebellion.  
 
I don’t think kids in a Christian home rebel any more or less than kids 
in an unbelieving home. But there are some things that we can do in 
our Christians homes that set our kids up to rebel, and do some things 
that are really quite frightening. 
 
You see, our homes should be bathed in grace. If we are a Christian 
home we should emulate the love of God day to day. They should 
breathe the air of grace.  
 
But if they don’t, it’s really easy to have some things seep into the 
climate of our homes that bring the worst out of our kids, like fear. 
Fear-based parenting is a great way to set a kid up to rebel.  
 
Anger. A lot of anger in the home misrepresents the love of God, and 
you’ll get rebellion out of that. 
 
Shame. Shame-based parenting, once again, sets kids up to really 
react to everything we say we believe.  
 
 
 
And then we can find ourselves tipping on these two sides of the 
spectrum when it comes to raising kids. We can either go on the 
legalistic side, where we just distill our parenting plan down to a bunch 
of rules: “This is what a nice Christian kid does, this is what they look 
like, this is how they fix their hair, this is how they dress, this is how 
they talk, and this is the music they listen to.” That lends a great way 
to set the kids up to rebel.  
 
Or the other side, what I call “toxic grace.” You go to the other side 
which is license, where you really don’t have clear standards. And this 
can build a lot of resentment in a child, because they need direction. 
 
Jesus nailed it for us in His life. In John chapter 1 it says that Jesus 
was filled with grace and truth. You see, grace and truth are not “a 
little bit of grace and some truth.” He put them together and they are 
two parts of the same thing. 
 
So if you’re a grace-based home but you don’t hold for the truth, 
you’re not a grace-based home and it’s not grace.  
 
If you hold for truth but it’s not bathed in grace, it’s not really truth. 
It’s deformed truth. It’s undermined truth. You want to put them 
together. 
 
And when you put those together and you live a life without anger and 
shame and fear, you’re not in that legalistic or license side. You watch 
what happens.  
 
You’re going to get your kids through this, and so much of what a lot 
of people contend with and rebellion just dissipates. Your kids will love 
being in your home, they’ll find it easy to obey you, and they’ll respect 
you. They’ll go a lot better.  
 
God bless you as you raise those kids for God’s glory.  
Kimmel -2- 
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