I have been thinking about this a lot. No, really. I mean A LOT! I remember in one of my many drives between home and Riley hospital listening to Moody radio and hearing an interview about how the Church (notice the capitol C) is losing the 16-28 (forgot specific ages but you get the idea) year old age group. They are disappearing from the church "never to be seen again". Some thought regarding the reason to this is that we as parents are not teaching our children apologetics - WHY we believe WHAT we believe.
This was after I had been pointed to the book "Parenting by the Book" by John Rosemond (coined the term "helicopter parenting). This is a fabulous book to challenge our parenting do's and don'ts. Parents have become concerned about their child's self esteem - which is not biblical. Self worth - yes. Self-esteem - no way. Parents teach that the child is to be respected over all other people (if only by action) and there is little respect for other adults. Parents are not teaching their children responsibility. We defend our children to everyone instead of letting them experience failure or life lessons. I find myself falling into these pits and am fighting to get out of that pit.
I believe that there is a correlation to kids leaving the church and the way parents are "parenting". I am really questioning if we as Christians are doing anything differently in how we parent than our non-Christian counterpart. Doesn't the Bible say that we should "look" different? I've talked to many moms and we all do parenting a little differently : from the food we fix for our family to what movies we let our kids watch to whether our children watch tv at all. I have found that there are things that Rod and I do that not many other parents do (and probably visa versa). If we aren't doing anything different than non-Christians then how will our children grow up to be any different than a statistic of one who leaves the church?
As parents, we are all afraid that we are not doing the right thing for our kids. My question is: Does the Bible really make it that difficult or is it our culture? I want to raise children the way God intended and I am not thinking that the way we are parenting in today's culture is going to give that outcome.
How do you stand out in your parenting? What are your thoughts?
" Parents teach that the child is to be respected over all other people (if only by action) and there is little respect for other adults. Parents are not teaching their children responsibility. We defend our children to everyone instead of letting them experience failure or life lessons. I find myself falling into these pits and am fighting to get out of that pit. "
ReplyDeleteI agree... what should one do with their kid all day? Just a question... I spend a ton of time with my kid... but I'm afraid do much of it is me on the computer and him watching a cartoon... we're cuddling, so it's not totally in vain... but seriously, there's probably more i should be doing with him. any ideas? maybe you could blog on what kids need in a day... or something like that :)
I'm not sure that there is a specific activity or if it is a bunch of little things. Parents used to do a lot less with their kids decades ago than they do now (craft time, game time etc etc) and these problems weren't so prevalent.
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