My
wife and I are in the throes of parenting and are surrounded, in our
church and among friends, with other parents in the throes of parenting.
So my parenting radar is hot. I’m learning, growing, repenting everyday
as I ask the Lord to make me a faithful dad.
It’s often easier to learn how to get better at parenting by
observing and owning our mistakes. So here is a list of five tendencies
Christian parents have. I hope it helps you think through this journey:
1) We overexpose our kids to the culture. The Bible
doesn’t use the term, “culture”, but there is a very similar word,
“world.” This is a loose definition of the prevailing thinking in a
given society. Typically the values of the culture run counter to the
way of Christ. Not always. Sometimes a culture is shaped by Christian
influence. Today, we parents should be cautious in what we allow our
kids to imbibe. We can be passive in allowing them to form ungodly
convictions based on what everyone else is thinking and saying. What’s
more, there are corrosive images that can hurt their souls. This is why
we have to be wise to monitor the media they consume, how much time they
spend online, and the amount of time they spend with friends.
2) We underexpose our kids to the culture. This is
an equal and and opposite danger to overexposure. It is easy to adopt a
fortress mentality as parents, sheltering our kids so much from the
world that they have no ability to discern truth from error, ugliness
from beauty. There is a tendency to overprotect our kids so much so that
we fail to prepare them for their mission in this world. Our kids will
one day live as adults and will require the requisite skills, both
spiritual and social, to make wise choices. If our only parenting mode
is protection, we fail to teach them how to apply the Scriptures to the
reality of life in a sinful world. What’s more we rob them of the
God-glorifying act of enjoying, consuming, and creating the best of
culture: art, beauty, and grace as expressed by artists whose talent
points to a masterful Creator. Daniel Darling
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