As a parent, there are moments that shake you a little.

You watch your child make decisions you never saw coming. Attitudes shift, choices slip, and for a moment, you wonder, Is this who she’s becoming?

I’ve felt that with my own daughter, in seasons where her behavior didn’t look anything like the values we raised her with. It’s easy to react, correct, tighten the rules, and hope something lands.

But the Lord pointed me to this verse:
“Therefore, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh.”
2 Corinthians 5:16

The word regard here in the Greek οἶδα (oida) means “to perceive, to understand.”
It’s God’s way of saying: Don’t define your child by what you see in the moment. But by how He sees.

Because right after that, Paul writes:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”
2 Corinthians 5:17

So instead of calling out the behavior, I began calling out identity.

I told her, “This isn’t who you are. You are righteous in Christ. You are loved. You are set apart.” I did not say it to flatter her or deny reality, but to remind her of what Jesus already spoke over her.

At first, it felt like planting seeds in dry ground. There was no instant turnaround and no dramatic breakthrough.

But seeds sown into the kingdom are guaranteed a harvest.

Little by little, I watched her navigate obstacles differently. Her decisions matured, and she faced new seasons with a deeper sense of who she was in Jesus, not who she felt like on a bad day.

Children don’t grow from correction alone.
They grow from identity.

Behavior changes for a moment.
Identity changes a life.

When you speak to the Christ in them, even in their lowest moment, you help them rise from glory to glory through truth rather than pressure.

Parents shape the future when they speak to who their children are in Christ, not who they are struggling to be today.