Four Principles Every Parent Must Know About Your Growing Child

What if your children are carrying guilt and shame for things that have absolutely nothing to do with them? What if every loss, trauma, or family disruption they've experienced has been processed through a lens of self-blame that you never intended to create?

Meet Eileen Noyes, host of The Unsidelined Life podcast and mother of eight who spent seven years facilitating Life Skills International - a program founded by Paul Hegstrom that addresses abuse, trauma, and family dysfunction. Through this training, Eileen learned principles about childhood development and the subconscious mind that not only prepared her to help others but unknowingly equipped her for the devastating divorce and near-cult involvement she would later face.

The insights she gained from Life Skills International became the foundation for helping her children process their father's abandonment, understand complex family dynamics, and maintain their faith despite circumstances that typically destroy children's trust in God and authority figures. These aren't just theoretical concepts - they're proven principles that explain why children respond the way they do to trauma and how parents can intervene with truth before lies take permanent root.

Understanding these four principles can transform how you parent through both everyday challenges and major life disruptions, giving you tools to address what's happening in your children's subconscious minds rather than just managing surface behaviors.

Principle 1: Kids Take On More Than You Think

This is perhaps the most important principle every parent needs to understand: children naturally assume they are responsible for any loss or negative event in their lives. When parents divorce, children believe it's their fault. When a family member dies, children think they caused it somehow. When abuse occurs, children assume they did something to deserve it.

This isn't rational thinking - it's how the developing brain processes traumatic events. Without the cognitive tools to understand complex situations, children default to the only explanation that makes sense to their limited worldview: they must have caused the problem.

Eileen shares the example of sexual abuse to illustrate how this principle works. When a child experiences inappropriate touch, they innately know something is wrong. It hurts, it feels uncomfortable, and every internal alarm is sounding. However, when the perpetrator says "it's okay" and "don't tell anyone or I'll get in trouble," the child is left processing conflicting messages without the reasoning skills to sort through them.

The result? The child concludes they must have done something to cause this situation. They carry guilt and shame that doesn't belong to them, and without intervention, this false responsibility can shape their identity and relationships for decades.

How This Principle Shows Up:

• Children of divorce believing they caused their parents to split

• Kids thinking a grandparent's death happened because of something they did or didn't do

• Abuse victims carrying shame as if they were responsible for what happened to them

• Children feeling guilty when parents fight or when family dynamics are strained

• Kids taking on emotional responsibility for keeping peace in dysfunctional homes

The solution isn't just telling children "it's not your fault" - it requires actively speaking truth into their subconscious minds and helping them process what really happened versus what they've concluded on their own.

Principle 2: Life Commandments Mold Behavior and Character

Life commandments are statements, messages, or conclusions that become permanent programming in a person's subconscious mind. They can be explicitly stated ("you're stupid," "you'll never amount to anything"), inferred from situations, or concluded based on traumatic experiences without any words being spoken.

Eileen shares her own life commandment that developed from overhearing her father tell her mother to "put lipstick on because you look dead." That single comment, not even directed at her, created a life commandment about appearance that followed her into adulthood. She found herself never leaving the house without something on her lips, driven by an unconscious belief that she needed makeup to look acceptable.

The power of life commandments lies in their ability to operate beneath conscious awareness while driving behavior and shaping identity. A child repeatedly called "stupid" doesn't just hear an insult - they internalize it as truth about who they are. An adult who was told "eat everything on your plate" as a child may struggle with portion control and healthy eating patterns decades later, unable to stop eating when full because the life commandment overrides their body's signals.

Common Life Commandments and Their Effects:

• "You're stupid" leads to fear of trying new things or defensive reactions to feedback

• "Bad boy/girl" creates identity around misbehavior rather than specific actions needing correction

• "Eat everything on your plate" prevents a healthy relationship with food and hunger cues

• "Don't be selfish" can lead to inability to set boundaries or care for personal needs

• Unspoken messages from trauma: "I'm damaged," "I'm unworthy of love," and "I caused this"

Breaking life commandments requires recognizing them, replacing them with truth, and consistently speaking new messages that align with God's Word and healthy identity formation.

Principle 3: Early Words Build Lasting Character

Classical education identifies three stages of learning: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The grammar stage, which corresponds with early childhood, is characterized by repetition, memorization, and absorption without critical analysis. During this stage, children's brains are wired to receive and retain information without questioning it.

This reality has both dangers and opportunities. The danger is that children will absorb whatever messages they hear - both true and false - without filtering. The opportunity is that parents can intentionally plant biblical truth, healthy identity messages, and life-giving principles during this receptive stage.

Eileen emphasizes using music, songs, and repetition to embed scripture and truth into children's subconscious minds. She mentions God Rocks, a music group that sets scripture to song, allowing children to memorize God's Word without even realizing they're learning. Years later, when these now-adult children hear those scriptures in church, they automatically start singing the songs they learned as kids.

This principle explains why what you put into your children's ears during their early years matters tremendously. They're not yet equipped to evaluate messages critically, so they accept whatever they hear as truth. This is why speaking life, declaring their identity in Christ, and surrounding them with biblically sound input during these formative years creates a foundation that serves them for life.

Principle 4: Guide Them by Their Gifts, Not Your Ideas

Proverbs 22:6 instructs parents to "train up a child in the way he should go," which many interpret simply as raising children in Christian values. While that's certainly part of it, the deeper meaning involves training children according to their unique bent - their natural gifting, talents, and God-given design.

Eileen illustrates this with her daughter's creativity. While Eileen sees trash when looking at boxes, foam pieces, and toilet paper rolls, her daughter sees building materials for dollhouse furniture. Eileen could easily squash this creativity by insisting everything be thrown away and the house kept perfectly clean. Instead, she recognizes this creative bent as something to nurture rather than eliminate.

Many parents unconsciously pressure children to follow in their footsteps - the athlete dad who's disappointed when his son prefers music, the academic mother frustrated by her child's hands-on learning style, or the businessperson who can't understand their child's artistic pursuits. This pressure doesn't just create tension - it communicates that the child's natural design is wrong or disappointing.

Nurturing Children in Their Bent Requires:

• Observing what naturally engages and energizes each child

• Asking God to reveal each child's unique gifting and calling

• Resisting the urge to replicate your own interests or accomplishments through your children

• Providing opportunities for children to explore and develop their natural strengths

• Celebrating differences rather than creating uniformity among siblings

When parents train children in their bent, they help them discover and develop the unique purposes God has for their lives rather than forcing them into molds that don't fit.

Transform Your Parenting Through Understanding  

These four principles provide a framework for understanding what's happening beneath the surface of your children's behaviors and beliefs. When you recognize that your child is carrying false responsibility for family problems, you can actively speak truth that releases them from that burden. When you identify life commandments operating in your own life or your children's lives, you can begin the process of replacing lies with truth.

Start by asking God for wisdom about what your children are processing internally. Look for signs that they're carrying guilt or shame that doesn't belong to them. Listen to the messages you're speaking - both explicitly and implicitly - and evaluate whether they're creating life-giving commandments or destructive ones.

Use the grammar stage wisely by intentionally planting scripture, truth, and healthy identity messages through songs, repetition, and consistent declaration. And take time to observe each child's unique bent, asking God to show you how He designed them so you can nurture rather than redirect their natural gifting.

Most importantly, remember that you're not alone in this process. God freely gives wisdom to those who ask, and He loves your children even more than you do. When you don't know what to say or how to help your children process difficult situations, simply ask Him - and trust that He will provide the insight you need.

Ready to understand what's really happening in your children's subconscious minds? Follow The Unsidelined Life podcast for deeper insights into biblical parenting that addresses root issues, not just surface behaviors.

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