Five Common Mistakes Christian Parents Make

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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Raising Bubble Babies

The fascinating case of young David Vetter, makes for a vivid illustration. Vetter was born in 1971 with a condition ominiously called Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. What that meant was that his little body had no natural ability to fight off any disease. The mildest form of any germ could result in his death. Doctors attempted to protect him by placing him in a sterile plastic environment. The media, with uncharacteristic discreetness, never revealed his name while he was alive, but dubbed him affectionately as “The Bubble Boy.”

Vetter’s medical team sought to provide him with as normal a life as possible. The boy was educated, watched TV, and had a playroom area—but all within the confines of the sterile bubble.

In an attempt at curing the child, a bone marrow transplant was done from his sister through intravenous tubes running into the bubble. What pre-screening tests could not reveal was that the donor’s blood contained dormant traces of a virus. With no immune system, the virus rapidly spread and killed David Vetter at age twelve.

That sad story has a parallel in the spiritual world. 

Many parents treat the souls of their children as if they possessed an incurable immune deficiency. Anxious about infecting their young ones with worldly philosophy, they keep them in a sterile environment. Some parents never allow their children to play with other kids, or venture outside the home. All their education and entertainment comes directly from their parents. This certainly does preserve the children from worldly, unbiblical influences, and is highly appropriate in the very young years [emphasis added after some commenters missed my support of protecting little kids.] But at some point, if the child has any hope of surviving independently outside the home, he or she will need to have been educated about what is out there. In other words, temptation is not only conquered by avoidance, but also by pre-emptive education of how to identify the lure and consequences of the temptation, as in what the father does for his son in Prov 7.    Continue at Clint Archer

Raising Children in a Pervasive Culture of Pornography

Rod Dreher’s post on the inconsistencies of “Lifestyle Liberalism” is a must-read. It is hitting at some pretty fundamental issues, and it does so from a number of different angles. First, it’s wrestling with how to raise kids (especially sons) in an age in which pornography is so pervasive and available. Second, it exposes the moral listlessness of liberalism, which in the wake of the sexual revolution has destroyed all boundaries around sexual behavior. Third, it exposes the fact that there are so few institutions left standing today that will support parents in resisting the sexual lasciviousness of our culture. 

I would make some observations on this last point. But first, take a look at Dreher’s conclusion:

The kinds of institutions and customs that parents used to be able to count on to push back against corrupting things like pornography have either evaporated or become so enervated that parents are left by themselves to try to hold the line. Your kids’ school is not going to help you, and may not be able to even if it wanted to.

Your church, lacking an awareness of the seriousness of the cultural situation, and perhaps having lost confidence in its message, is probably not going to help you. Your community is probably not going to help you either, because people either choose not to see what’s happening, or understandably feel so powerless against technology and the deeper cultural forces it carries with it that they tell themselves it’s not as bad as all that.

 

It’s just you. What now?    Continue at Denny Burk

How to Raise a Pharisee in 12 Easy Steps

Carey Hardy offers some practical advice for Christians seeking to be biblical parents. Brief excerpts of his 12 steps for raising a Pharisee are provided here, but you can read the full length article by following the link at the end of this summary.

Here’s 12 easy steps for raising your children to become Pharisees:

1. Major on external instead of internal issues.

See the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–6).  This is majoring on controlling the child’s behavior without using Scripture and prayer to deal with his heart.

2. Exercise excessive control.

This is not balancing discipline with instruction.  This is manifested by the creation of TOO MANY rules and restrictions, rules that are POINTLESS, or rules that are HARSH AND TOO STRICT.

3. Overreact to failure.

This includes not allowing the freedom to fail. It’s treating failure as the end of the world. You must see failure as an opportunity for instruction. But many parents live in FEAR of failure—and thus they become excessive controllers. This may be manifested in calling attention to every mistake. It’s a performance-based love…expecting perfection.

4. Be unforgiving and impatient.

A grouchy/irritable parent, frustrated over everything that goes wrong.  Instead of a home that is filled with joy, there is an oppressive, negative atmosphere. Sinful choices by your children definitely need to be dealt with. But make sure there is a visible end to the consequences, with the home thus returning to a pleasant atmosphere of peace and tranquility.

5. Elevate preference over biblical principle.

Some parents are prone to emphasize rules that really don’t reflect the Bible at all. Instead, the rules reflect personal preferences.   Continue at Jared Moore

In the Danger Zone: Raising Our Children in the Age of the Screen

We are now the people of the screen. We are surrounded by screens, monitors, and other flickering devices, and each demands our attention. What began with the television has now spread to a host of other technologies. Our minds are increasingly shaped, entertained, informed, stimulated, and perhaps even altered by the Age of the Screen — and so are the minds of our children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, meeting this week in Boston, has been concerned about the effects of exposure to screens on children. Over a decade ago, the academy proposed that pediatricians should ask questions about screen exposure when conducting routine medical exams and evaluations. This just week, the groups adopted a new set of guidelines, calling upon parents to put severe limits on the exposure of young children to television.

Parents should pay close attention to the group’s statement, released as “Media Use by Children Younger than Two Years.” According to the AAP, 90 percent of parents reported that their children under the age of two “watch some form of electronic media.” These children watch, parents reported, an average of one to two hours of television a day. A considerable number of parents indicated their belief that television is “very important for healthy development,” and leave the television on virtually all waking hours.     Keep Reading>>>

Five Hints For Raising Godly Children