Parenting Models

These six graphics visually unpack different parenting approaches using the biblical concepts of admonition (structure) and nurture (support), drawn from Ephesians 6:4. The vertical axis represents structure—rules, discipline, and authority—while the horizontal axis represents time, teaching, encouragement while tracking a child’s age from 0 to 20. The support side increases as the child matures and the parental role transitions from authoritative to advisory.

1. Biblical Parenting Model

This model displays a diagonal trajectory. In the early years (ages 0–5), the child receives heavy structure due to their dependence and lack of internal categories for reasoning. Structure gradually decreases, while support—conversation, counsel, and guidance—increases. By adulthood, the goal is for the child to step out from under the parent’s direct authority into God’s authority. This trajectory aims at equipping the child to walk in wisdom and faith, not merely to comply with rules.

2. Legalist Parenting Model

This model maintains high structure from beginning to end. The child never transitions into thoughtful independence. Instead, they remain under rigid controls, with little development of decision-making, personal responsibility, or critical thinking. Parents in this model command obedience but fail to nurture. As a result, children often leave the home ignorant of grace and resentful of truth.

3. Licentious Parenting Model

Here, structure is absent. Children grow up with heavy “support” but little to no restraint. Parents in this model confuse love with permissiveness, offering encouragement and freedom but no discipline. The result is often entitlement, spiritual confusion, or a pursuit of autonomy that disrespects all forms of authority—including God’s.

4. Licentious to Legalist Parenting Model

In this model, parents start off lenient, allowing children to live with minimal structure. When chaos or rebellion erupts (often around adolescence), the parent reacts in fear and overcorrects with harsh legalism. The sudden transition damages trust and teaches the child that authority is inconsistent and reactionary, not rooted in love or wisdom.

5. Legalist to Licentious Parenting Model

This pattern is common when parents realize their heavy-handedness was misguided. Overcome with guilt or discouragement, they swing to the other extreme—offering minimal structure in a bid to “make up for” past failures. Unfortunately, this replaces structure with sentimentality and undermines both the parent’s leadership and the child’s growth in obedience.

6. Double-minded Parenting Model

This final model is governed by inconsistency. One day the parent is strict and punitive, the next day lenient and indifferent. The child receives mixed messages about authority, love, and expectations, often developing manipulation tactics or mental instability as a result. It is emotionally chaotic and spiritually disorienting.

Case Study: From Legalist to Licentious

Biff’s Story: A Cautionary Shift

Biff was a father of three who prided himself on maintaining order in the home. He demanded instant obedience, enforced rigid routines, and made little room for discussion. His parenting motto was, “As long as you’re under my roof, you’ll follow my rules.” For years, his children complied outwardly but grew distant in spirit.

His oldest daughter, Biffina, began pushing back in her teenage years. She questioned rules, challenged his authority, and eventually rebelled—leaving home at 17. When she later confessed through tears that she never felt safe sharing her heart, Biff was devastated.

Struck with guilt, Biff underwent a dramatic shift. He swung the pendulum from strict structure to unchecked freedom. His remaining children, now in middle school, suddenly had no curfews, no chores, and few expectations. Biff began saying yes to everything—sleepovers, spending money, even letting his teenage son skip church.

“I don’t want to lose them like I lost Biffina,” he explained.

But what felt like grace to Biff was actually self-protection masked as compassion. His parenting was no longer shaped by God’s authority but by his own internal panic. What his children needed was not an abandonment of structure, but a loving recalibration—biblical nurture married to consistent admonition.

Biff’s reaction illustrates the problem with self-reliant parenting: it moves between extremes rather than resting in God’s wisdom. The biblical model calls parents to raise children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, not in the fear and regret of man.

To dive deeper into this topic, I recommend scrolling through our parenting articles, and studying those that might help you or those within your sphere of care.

Find all our graphics here.

Peace,
Rick