Confronting children concerning sin

It should not come as a shock to anyone that our children sin. They do. And they do regularly. One of the delicate balancing acts that we have to achieve as parents is making sure that we hold out the entire Gospel to them when we confront them concerning it. It would be easy for us to focus on the "bad news" that they sinned or the "good news" that they have been forgiven. It's tough for me especially because I always want to run to the forgiveness part right away. But this cheapens the forgiveness as the weight of the infraction is not recognized. Of course focusing on the sin itself without forgiveness in sight has its own issues as it doesn't hold out God's mercy and grace to the fullest extent possible and could easily sap their hope. When I think about it the bad news and the good news need to be held in such perfect tension that they are both diminished without the other.
All that to say that I am sure we mess this up. A lot. I am sure that even with the two of us discussing it together, with our different orientations, we do not do it the way that it should be done.
However, when it is all said and done, we want to imitate God and make sure that we do not treat our children as their sins deserve. And we beg the same thing from them.

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