| Reb Bradley
v Family Ministries FM
NEWSLETTER ISSUE #6 – June-July 2006 800-545-1729 www.familyministries.com
______________________________________________________________________
Hello
friends,
It’s good to be in touch
again. It has been hot here in northern
California, over a hundred degrees most of the time. Fortunately, the heat is dry, and I am
blessed to spend most of my time inside my air-conditioned office working on my
new book. As I mentioned in last month’s newsletter, I am I am hoping to have it
done before the end of summer. It is my prayer that God will use this book,
directed to a secular audience, to reach people far outside my normal circle of
ministry. The publisher I am working with has published more than few
bestsellers and is greatly enthused about this one. Those of you who take time
for intercession, I would appreciate your prayers for clarity of thought.
Although I am an experienced writer, I am not like some that can whip out the
pages – writing comes slow to me. On the
home front... Last
newsletter I told you about some homeless neighbor children that came to live
us. I had mentioned that CPS had taken them and we were praying they would be
placed with a Christian aunt and uncle. Well, the Lord heard our prayers and the
aunt and uncle have guardianship, and the kids are excited to have a home and
family.
Coming
up... Convention season is mostly over.
Our trips to Hawaii and South Carolina were tremendously fruitful. This month I
will be presenting a child training seminar for a church in Lancaster,
California on the weekend of July 21-23. If you know someone in that area who
might be interested in attending, it will be at Berean Fellowship (661)
942-2520. Bev and I will both be speaking at the Valley Home
Educators convention in Modesto, California on the weekend of
July 28-29. Remember that I am available to speak at churches. Consider talking
to your homeschool support group or church leaders about sponsoring a
child-training seminar. I have openings in the fall. Needs... We are thankful for those who have
been able to help us with financial gifts. Our needs continue, so we welcome all
new supporters who would like to partner with us in this ministry. Thank you in
advance for your love!!! Once again,
many thanks for thinking of us and praying for us. Our efforts are useless
without the hand of God moved by your prayers. Please continue to call upon Him
so that our labor will be most fruitful. Please stay
in touch,
Reb
___________________________________________________________________ June/July
Article of the Month Solving the Crisis in Homeschooling
Part 6 If you missed the first five
installments of this ongoing article, you can read them on our website. To get
there click here
or go to the Family Ministries home page and click on the link for
Monthly Email Newsletters. Over the last several years my wife
and I have heard from many in the homeschool community who have watched
their wonderful homeschooled children grow up and make choices contrary to their
parents’ values. After several
years of examining what went wrong in our own home and in the homes of so many
conscientious parents, God has opened our eyes to a number of critical blind
spots common to homeschoolers and other family-minded people. Bev and I still
stand behind what we have taught on parenting in the past. However, we urgently
add to it the following insights. (For a complete audio presentation,
order the new series “What I Wish I Knew
When My Children were Young.”) CONTRIBUTING
FACTORS
1. Dreams for the children are
really about the parents (November
Newsletter)
4. Tendency to judge
(December
Newsletter) 5. Over-dependence on authority and
control (January
Newsletter) 6. Over-reliance upon sheltering
An over-dependence on control in a
family is often accompanied by an over-reliance on sheltering of children. It is
not uncommon for homeschool parents to feel that since they filter whatever
their children see and hear, they will control the results in their lives. That
was me for many years. I remember saying to people, “I am controlling
the influences in my children’s lives, so I am going to control the
outcome.” I was absolutely
certain that my children would be exempted from significant temptation and from
developing particular bad habits because I was controlling what touched their
lives. I took nothing for granted and
evaluated the effects of everything that had contact with my family. I got rid
of the TV antennae when my older children were little and allowed them to watch
only approved videos, ie: ones with no boy/girl relationships or occult powers
-- Popeye and Mary Poppins were therefore out. They would attend birthday
parties for children from church, but I would instruct them that if the birthday
boy or girl’s mother tried to show a video on my “no-watch” list, they were to
go to a back bedroom and entertain themselves until the video was over. We
carefully screened the music they heard and watched them cautiously when they
were with friends. My children could not play with most
children in the neighborhood and were even kept away from some children in
“like-minded” families. They were sheltered from secular publications, let alone
any Christian books or magazines that promoted values that didn’t match our own.
Youth groups or Scouting were unheard of. Santa Claus, Halloween, and Harvest
parties, as well as Superheroes and Barbies, were anathema. I hardly wanted them
to go into Wal-Mart or grocery stores lest they be exposed to images of
immodestly dressed women. If the family’s driving route was going to take us
past a striptease club I would sternly admonish my sons to not even look
slightly in the direction of the building. My standards were not as radical as
others’ I have known, but I was extremely selective about what my family was
exposed to. I wanted to be absolutely certain my children were protected from
any corrupting influences. Little did I know that it would take a lot more than
my great emphasis on sheltering to achieve the results I desired.
In the last five years I have heard
countless reports of highly sheltered homeschool children who grew up and
abandoned their parents’ values. Some of these children were never allowed out
of their parents’ sight and were not permitted to be in any kind of group
setting, even with other “like-minded” kids, yet they still managed to develop
an appetite for the world’s pleasures. While I’ve seen sheltered children grow
up and turn away from their parents’ standards, conversely, I’ve known some
Christian young people who went to public school, watched TV, attended youth
groups, and dated, yet they walk in purity, have respectful, loving
relationships with their parents, and now enjoy good marriages. Their parents
broke the all the “rules of sheltering,” yet these kids grew up close to their
families and resilient in their walks with Christ. Super-strict sheltering was
obviously not the ultimate answer for them. Protecting from temptations and
corrupting influences is part of raising children. Every parent shelters to one
degree or another. We all set standards for diet, for relationships, for reading
and entertainment. One permits the children to watch network television, but
prohibits cable movie stations; another forbids network TV, but allows
parent-approved videos; still another tolerates only parent-approved
Christian videos; and another permits only books. All parents shelter –
they just draw their lines in different places. Protecting our children is not only
a natural response of paternal love, but fulfills the commands of God. The
Scriptures are clear that we are to make no provision for our flesh (Rom 13:14)
and are to avoid all corrupting influences (2 Cor 6:17-7:1). It warns us that
bad company corrupts good morals (1 Cor 15:33) and that those who spend too much
time with bad people may learn their ways (Prov 22:24-25) and suffer for it
(Prov 13:20). Just as our Father in heaven will not allow us to be tempted
beyond what we can bear (1 Cor 10:13), we rightly keep our children out of
situations they will lack the moral strength to handle. Young children are weak
and we are to protect the weak (1 Thes 5:12). God understood the vulnerability of
human nature when he gave the Israelites instructions before they entered the
Promised Land. He told them to chase out the idol-worshipping Pagans in the
land, lest His people associate with them and be drawn into idolatry (Ex
23:32-33; Num 33:51-56; Josh 23:7-13). The Israelites disregarded God’s
protective warning and allowed some Pagans to remain in the land. Subsequently,
each successive generation of young people was lost to idolatry. God instructed
them to shelter their families, but their neglect of His warnings brought pain
to their children and to their grandchildren for many generations.
Sheltering our families from bad
influences is critical for their safety, but it is possible to become imbalanced
and rely too heavily upon sheltering. We do this in a couple of ways.
1. We are imbalanced when
sheltering from harm is the predominant expression of our parenting. Are
we more concerned with protecting our kids from that which is bad or
with putting into them that which is good? I want to ask that again: Are we more
concerned with protecting our kids from that which is bad or with
putting into them that which is good? Consider that rearing children is like
creating a family menu. If we keep them away from all junk food and feed them
only prunes, their bodies will respond negatively. Protection from too much junk
food is obviously a good idea, but their bodies need balanced nutrition.
Physical health is achieved by both avoiding what is harmful and taking in a
balance of what is good. To raise spiritually and morally healthy children we
need to do the same. We must certainly protect them from harmful influences, but
more than that, we must give them that which strengthens them
spiritually and morally. In my case I protected my oldest
children from harm more than I invested into them health. I
certainly taught my children a great deal about God and Kingdom living – we
saturated them with the Word and Kingdom stories. Their lives were full of
outreach and ministry, but comparatively, I was most intense about sheltering. I
was continually analyzing the effects of every aspect of life, and my children
never knew what thing Dad would declare off-limits next. Those parents who
aren’t analyzers like me just wait for their favorite teacher to expose for them
the next unseen danger to their family. In imbalanced homes parents are
most passionate about protecting children from harmful influences, and
the children see that passion, then come to view Christianity as mostly about
“avoiding bad stuff.” When
protection from the world becomes the defining characteristic of
Christianity, we shouldn’t be surprised if our kids grow up and forsake
the lifeless “religion of avoidance” they learned from us. As I stated in the
December issue, point c of section 4, that is not a faith most children are
drawn to; in fact, it is one that will likely repel them. (For further
discussion on this topic I refer you to my book, Child Training Tips,
pages 171-172.) Please note that the operative word
in my assessment is passion. Our children learn what’s important to us
not by what we verbally emphasize, but by what they see us passionate
about. It is the intensity of our reaction to potential corruption that elevates
to our children our priorities. If they see a greater intensity in us for their
sheltering than they do for their equipping, we shouldn’t be
surprised if they come to view Christianity negatively as a “religion of
avoidance.” (In fact, our intensity may actually create a mystique and raise
curiosity toward that which is forbidden.) Let’s ask ourselves, if the kids
hear Uncle Bill say a swear word at the family reunion, do they see us “freak
out,” yet in contrast, whenever we are offended do they see us allow ourselves
to hold the offense a long time? If they happen to look at an immodestly dressed
woman on a magazine cover at the store, do we “lose it” and lecture them, yet in
contrast, do they see us, without repentance, grumble against those who are over
us in the Lord? The intensity of our emotions on an issue is what impacts our
children most. In fact, I once heard it said that our children learn what is
important not from what we say, but from what they see us “stress out”
over. Yes, it is right to value and
protect our children’s moral innocence, and it is natural for us to react with
intensity or anger to anyone or anything that might rob them of that innocence.
However, when we treat every minor issue as a threat deserving of our outrage,
it is possible we are defining Christianity for our children in a negative way.
After watching multitudes of highly
sheltered children grow up and chase after the very things from which their
parents sought to keep them, and seeing less-sheltered children grow up and walk
strong, I am more selective about which hill I want to die on. I now pick my
battles more carefully. I have concluded that fruitful parenting is more about
what we put into our children than what we protect them from.
2. Sheltering is a critical part of
parenting, but if parents keep it their primary focus, the children will grow up
ill equipped to handle the temptations in the world. When we enter the world as infants
we arrive with immune systems still in development. Because we have had no
contact with germs or disease while in the womb, our bodies need to come in
contact with them, so that we can develop immunities. Babies who are isolated
and kept in germfree environments fail to develop sufficient resistance, so
succumb more easily to diseases when they grow older and encounter them. Medical
inoculations only succeed because God has designed the body with the capacity to
develop antibodies against disease. A child isolated from disease may appear to
be of the greatest health to his parents, but the health of the human body is
only proven by how it withstands an attack. A weak constitution succumbs to
every germ and virus – a strong one fights them off. Our spiritual and moral
health is developed and proved in the same way. If we isolate our kids from the
world until they are adults they may appear to us to be spiritually minded and
strong in character. However, it is how they ultimately engage the world that
proves their spiritual resilience. This is because sheltering does not
transform the human heart – it merely preserves it, temporarily. Sheltering
is nothing more than keeping something flammable away from a fire.
It is true that a boxer trains
without an opponent until his coach decides he is ready for an actual fight. And
it is true that a farmer might raise plants in a greenhouse until they are
mature enough to be transplanted and face the various elements of nature. So
also, we keep our children away from bad influences when they are young and need
to grow unhindered in character and spiritual wisdom. The problem is that
sheltering without significant preparation to engage the world fails to equip
them. In fact, it may insure that they will fall in their first solo encounters.
Growing up isolated from temptation
can develop a child who appears spiritually strong, but the appearance is not
reality. When I was in college in 1974 I moved to northern California to live
for a summer in a Christian commune. I was somewhat isolated from the world and
surrounded by an amazing support system of my fellow “Jesus people.” I remember
feeling so full of faith, so committed to holiness, and so in love with God that
summer. However, the “spirituality“ I felt and the level of holiness I achieved
was not real and could not endure testing. At the end of summer I returned to
college in Southern California and discovered that I had not developed true
spiritual muscles – when faced with temptation I fell flat on my face every
time. The communal environment, isolated from significant temptation, had not
prepared me for the battle I would face in the world. Valid spiritual growth
required that I face temptation and develop the capacity to resist
it, which eventually I did. My isolation from temptation had left me like a
boxer who had shadow boxed, trained rigorously, and looked good in his trunks,
but had never faced a sparring partner, let alone a true
opponent. Many sincere Christians return from
retreats and church camps the same way. Over several days they are isolated from
the world, surrounded with fellowship, and saturated with the Word of God. They
come home feeling deeply spiritual. However, within a few days after returning
they discover their “mountain top high” has faded away. So also, the
spirituality our sheltered children achieve may only be spiritual fluff. If we
want to prepare them to thrive in the world we must take them into it and teach
them how to engage it. As part of that preparation I have several
recommendations:
a. Take time to teach them about
God and living in His kingdom. I emphasize this particularly for dads who
are careful to shelter, but rarely get around to actually instructing their
children in the faith. Too many fathers (and some moms) are quick to forbid all
TV and youth groups, but never take the time to sit down and acquaint their
children with the Word and how it points us to God. Preparing children to face
the world requires more than keeping them away from its corruptions – parents
must put into them Truth that will draw them to God. It is those children who
have found God irresistible who will be faithful to Him. It is important at this point to
emphasize that true Christianity is not merely a system of religious beliefs
that can be embraced or forsaken – it is a relationship between individuals and
God. Therefore, Christians are not strengthened simply by massive doses of
indoctrination. Our faith is strengthened as we discover God in the Word, and as
we walk with Him we find Him to be trustworthy. If we want our children to
remain faithful to God we must do all we can to lead them to Him, not just to a
“system of faith.” Keep in mind that Bible instruction
by itself is not some magic ingredient in a “parenting formula.” Many homeschool
prodigals were heavily groomed in the Scriptures. We do best when we faithfully
use the Scriptures to reveal to children the Lord himself. Remember
Jesus’ words in John 5:39, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you
think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that
testify about me.” It is faith
in Christ that carries us – not faith in
Christianity. b. Pass on a pure faith. It
has been said that faith is caught and not taught, and I would
agree. As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, I have seen young
married people who grew up in the public schools, but who walked in purity and
close to Christ through their teen years, and are still close to their parents.
What their parents gave them was not the gift of extreme sheltering, but the
gift of a sincere faith in Christ. Homeschool parents must give the same gift to
their children (1 Tim 1:5; 2 Tim 1:5). The problem is that we cannot give what
we do not have. If we want to give our children a lasting and sincere faith in
Christ, then we must first have it ourselves. What is the faith in us that our
children see? As I have sought to show in the first six points of this series of
articles, the purity of our faith is degraded by our missteps in
parenting: 1. If the dreams we have for our
children are really about us, might not they feel undue pressure to make
us a success? In other words, is the faith they see in us a self-centered
one? 2. If we have regarded them as a
trophy, do they feel our intensity about not making the family look bad in
public? In other words, is the simplicity of our faith polluted by our pride?
3. If we have emphasized outward
form to our children, might not they equate holiness with external appearances?
In other words, has the grace of our relationship with Christ been slowly traded
for a phariseeistic concern for externals? 4. If they hear us pronounce
judgments of others, might they not learn from us self-righteousness or fear of
judgment? In other words, is it possible they see in us a faith that is both
shallow and proud?
5. If our homes are controlled
chiefly by intimidation and fear, might not our children feel like they are
inconsequential, non-persons? In other words, are we losing the very
relationship with our teens required to attract them to our
Lord? 6. If we over-elevate sheltering as
an ingredient in our parenting formula, is it possible our children might come
to believe that Christianity is mostly about avoiding bad stuff? In other words,
although our Lord never told people to shelter themselves from anything except
self-righteous religious leaders, do we present an inaccurate (and unattractive)
picture of him? The apostle Paul told the Galatian
church that he was concerned for their faith. They had started off with a simple
faith in Christ, but had polluted it by seeking to make themselves acceptable to
God, with what they did or didn’t do: “Are you so foolish? After beginning
with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?”
(Gal 3:3). In the same way, we may have started off years ago with a simple,
undefiled faith, but the more we got caught up in all the “works” of intense
parenting, the more we moved away from a simple faith contagious to our
children. It is critical for our sake, let alone for our children, that we enjoy
a life-giving faith in Christ with no religious trappings added to it. I don’t
believe that I can adequately explain this concept in a few paragraphs, so
please be encouraged that I will be addressing it in detail in a future series
of articles. c. Expose them to the world a
little at a time, so that they will not be overwhelmed by its attraction
when they finally face it. Just as babies raised in germfree environments more
easily contract diseases, so also do Christians who have not encountered the
world. After the Iron Curtain fell in the
Soviet Union, our church developed a ministry to help Russian and Ukrainian
immigrants assimilate into the U.S. Over the years my wife and I got to know
many immigrant families and we marveled at what it was like to raise a family
under Communism. Back in the Soviet Union homeschooling and private Christian
schools had not been legal, and parents were forced to send their children to
Communist schools where one of the instructors’ goals was to indoctrinate the
students in atheism. From the testimonies we heard, parents equipped their
children at home and the children’s faith typically remained intact.
It was our observation however, that
within a year after being in the U.S. these same children started to go morally
astray. They were like the proverbial germfree baby – in the Soviet Union they
had never encountered the level of moral corruption found here. They had
developed no resistance to temptation and were not morally prepared to handle
American entertainment, vulgar playmates, and values of “tolerance” at school.
Soviet parents, who had prepared their children to handle the pressures of
godless atheism, had lacked the opportunity to equip their children to handle
moral pressures. They found themselves here in America thrilled with their new
freedom, but distressed by the way Americans exercised their
liberty. When my 12-year-old son was 8 years
old, he asked me why we took him into Wal-Mart when we shopped. He was
distressed because he found himself noticing women’s underwear advertisements
hanging around the store. I acknowledged his distress and encouraged him to pray
for the models, that they would value modesty and come to faith in Christ.
Knowing he would face harder tests in life than Wal-Mart ads, I wanted him, by
occasional exposure, to become desensitized to such images, and I wanted him to
develop a wholesome, prayerful response to those who tempt him.
In a society like ours, so full of
immodest fashions, desensitization eventually will happen, but our children’s
greatest need is to have compassion for those who tempt them. The root of lust
is self-centeredness, so the more selfless and loving our children are, the less
they will be impacted by lust. I therefore encourage parents to concentrate on
raising children who selflessly love others. I have found that praying for those
who tempt us accomplishes two things – the recipient receives prayer and we see
them through the eyes of God. Those who see others from God’s perspective will
tend to have compassion on them as lost souls. (Want help on raising loving
children? I suggest the tape set “Beyond Obedience: Raising
Children Who Love God and Others.” Also consider the study on 1 Corinthians
13 “The Power of
Love.”) d. Take them into the world on
the offense, not defense. A major reason many parents choose
to homeschool their children is that they are concerned about negative
socialization in the classroom setting. They want control over when and
how their children are faced with outside influences. When the children
are confronted by the world the parents want to be there as guides. I understand
this perspective, but such a view is inadequate. I want to be with my children
when they encounter the world, but not merely so that they will survive it.
Survival has to do with self-preservation, and is concerned with self, not
others. Like a good captain I want to be with my children, so that I can lead
them offensively into battle. We and our children are warriors in God’s kingdom,
and we must take them into the world for the purpose of advancing that
kingdom. My 12-year-old son has been playing
little league baseball every spring for the last 4 years, and I help out as an
assistant coach. On occasion, when word of my son’s involvement leaks out, I
will be approached by a concerned homeschool parent and questioned about the
risks of such contact with unbelievers. They remind me that my son may hear bad
words, vulgar jokes, and bad attitudes. Boys may even swear at him. I tell them
that that is exactly what I was anticipating. I want my son to know how to respond
when unkind people express themselves (Luke 6:27-28), and I want to be with him
when it happens. I want him to know he can survive quite well when others
verbally abuse him, but more importantly, I want to witness it so I can coach
him through it. I especially want to be there so I can help him see the world
through eyes of compassion – not fear. I believe that those homeschoolers, who
don’t just survive but thrive in the world, do so because they
have a “kingdom” view of it. They see it as the place inhabited by the blind (2
Cor 4:4) who are potential members of God’s kingdom. A major problem for us may be that
we do not have what we need to give. We lack a kingdom view, so
cannot give it to our kids. The sheltering mindset common to homeschoolers
sometimes creates inward-focused families. We get so used to cutting ourselves
off from everything that might threaten us that we end up separating ourselves
not just from the world, but even from most Christians. God’s goal for us is not
that we raise strong family-minded children who grow up and meet other strong
family-minded children, who then marry and raise more strong family-minded
children, who grow up and do the same. That line of thinking is totally
self-centered and renders God’s people impotent as warriors for His kingdom.
God’s goal for all His warriors is to continually reach out to the lost in the
world. That is why we are here. When we lack this perspective we
will run from those who need our gospel. As an example, let’s say we are eating
lunch with our family at McDonald’s. During the meal the children notice a woman
scrounging through the trashcans inside the restaurant looking for food scraps.
How do we respond? When we notice her outfit is greatly immodest by our
standards, do we focus our children’s attention elsewhere or gather them quickly
and leave? Do we use her predicament as a teaching opportunity for our children,
and explain that we can’t give her any help since she is apparently too lazy to
work? Or do we buy her some lunch and invite her to join us at our table? How
our children see us respond to the lost will do more to influence them than all
the books and stories we read to them. I cannot spiritually impart a
“kingdom view” to you, but God can. I therefore admonish all readers to
beseech God that the eyes of their hearts be opened, that they would see the
world through kingdom eyes. e. Cultivate a loving
relationship with them, which will allow you to speak into their lives and
influence their values. I will deal with this issue at length later in this
series of articles, so suffice it to say that it is the key area of need I have
discovered among my own and many other homeschool families. It has been my
observation that in “control-oriented” homes, relationships between parents and
teens are often weakest. For us to have influence over our teen’s hearts,
especially when they are engaging the world, our love relationships with them
must be strong. In the Bible we see that people
obeyed God for two reas+ons – fear and love. King David sang of
his love for God (Ps 18:1; 116:1; 119:159) and he also sang of the fear of God
(Ps 2:11; 22:25; 33:8). God wants His followers to be drawn to Him out of love
(Jer 31:3), and that’s why it is His kindness that leads us to repentance (Rom
2:4). But He also wants us to be kept on the path by fear of His authority (Luke
12:5; 1 Pet 2:17). That’s why He told the Israelites He wanted both their
fear and their love; “And now, O Israel, what does the LORD
your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his
ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and
with all your soul” (Deut 10:12). With our children, it should be the same.
If our children grow up motivated
only by fear of consequence, they will eventually get away with what they can
whenever we are not around (Eph 6:6). If we have their hearts they will seek to
honor us whether we are present or not, and their hearts will remain open to our
influence. I refer you to the apostle Paul who modeled this approach to
leadership perfectly, “Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and
order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I appeal to you on the basis
of love...” (Phile 1:8-9a). Paul’s pattern with the churches suggests he
understood that appeals to love were more powerful than commands
and threats. As an apostle, he could have issued personal commands many
times, yet in his letters to the churches he plead with them 25 different
times to do what was right, while he personally commanded them only twice
(2 Th 3:6,12). Many intense parents mistakenly
think they have their children’s hearts, and therefore do not seek to cultivate
better relationships. Beverly and I were such parents. We were certain that
because we shared so much affection with our children that we had their hearts.
However, when we gave them instructions, it was never our children’s love for us
that we appealed to, it was their fear of our authority. This meant that our
first three children were far more vulnerable to outside influences than they
needed to be. As intensely sheltered children grow
into adolescence, and become aware of the different standards between families,
some are attracted to others’ standards. They do not understand why the clothes
you forbid them to wear, are worn by other Christians. They may not be able to
grasp why you do not allow movies that many of their friends are permitted to
see. If your relationship with your children is strong and based in love, they
will honor your standards, and try to grasp your reasoning. But if their heart
connection to you is weak, they will care little of your reasoning and look more
to their friends for relationship and identity. f. Help them find security in
their relationship with you. When my oldest son was almost 16 we let him get
his first job washing dishes at a restaurant managed by a Christian friend of
ours. As diehard shelterers we wrestled with whether or not our son was ready to
enter the world’s workforce. We knew we couldn’t shelter him forever, and so
finally concluded that he should be old enough to send into the world two nights
a week. What we didn’t realize was that he would be working with drug-using,
tattooed, partiers, and our Christian friend was never scheduled to work our
son’s shift. Within a month it became apparent
that our son’s new work associates were having an effect on him. He came home
one evening and asked, “Dad, can I dye my hair blue?” After my wife was
finally able to peal me off the ceiling, I laid into him, reminding him whose
son he was, and that I would not have people at church telling their children
not to be like the pastor’s son. I explained that just because he wanted to use
washable dye, it didn’t make me any happier. (Note that my intense reaction had
to do with “outward appearances” and the impact on me.)
Of course, my wife and I immediately
began to evaluate whether we had made a mistake by letting him take the job.
After an intense discussion we decided to coach him more carefully and let him
keep his job.
Two months later he came home from
work and asked me if he could pierce his ear. Again, my wife had to peal me off
the ceiling. He thought it might be okay since he wanted a cross earring
-- like I was supposed to be happy, because it would be a “sanctified” piercing.
If that wasn’t enough, he also wanted to get a tattoo! But it was going to be
okay, because it would be a Christian tattoo! Needless to say, my mind was
absolutely blown! I thought I had raised him better than this. I imaged that
some day we might deal with a questionable haircut or some unacceptable music,
but I would never have guessed that his values could change so quickly or so
severely. What took me over the edge was not just that he suddenly had
outrageous values, but that he thought I might go along with him! It immediately
became obvious that he was not ready to handle the world. To our relief, he
volunteered to quit the job. One day, several years later, I was
looking back and evaluating our approach to sheltering. Something my son said
shortly after he started his job kept coming back to me. When I picked him up
the second night of work, he got in the car with a big smile on his face and
said “They like me!” As I
dwelt on that comment, it suddenly came clear to me – my son had finally met
someone who liked him for who he was. Few others in his entire life had shown
him much acceptance, especially not his mother and I. It is no exaggeration – in
our efforts to shape and improve him, all we did was find fault with everything
he did. We loved him dearly, but he constantly heard from us that what he did
(who he was) wasn’t good enough. He craved our approval, but we couldn’t be
pleased. Years later, I realized he had given up trying to please us when he was
14, and from then on he was just patronizing us. The reason our son wanted to adorn
himself like his work associates, was because they accepted him for who he was.
He wanted to fit in with those who made him feel significant. He wanted to be
like those who gave him a sense of identity. The problem wasn’t one that could
be solved by extended sheltering – he could have been sheltered until he was 30
and he still would have been vulnerable. The problem was that we had sent our
son into the world insecure in who he was. He went into the world with a hole in
his heart that God had wanted to fill through his parents. I have since observed that what best
equips children to handle the pressures of the world is security in who they
are. Whether believer or unbeliever, those young people who are least tempted to
follow the crowd are those who are secure in themselves and don’t need the
approval of others. The Bible calls insecurity the fear of man – it is
allowing other’s opinions of us to affect our values and choices. At the very
least, if we want to prepare our children to stand tall in the world we need to
help them find security in their relationship with us, and more importantly,
with God. In a future article I will share how
we can be God’s means of helping our children find security. Those who don’t
want to wait for the article can order the CD set What I REALLY Wish I
Knew When My Children Were Young.
I believe that a primary reason we
can over-rely on sheltering is because it is the easiest part of parenting to
do. It requires no planning, little preparation, or expenditure of energy. It
takes minimal immediate brainpower. We simply assess something might be harmful
and say to our children, “NO.” It’s
an aspect of parenting that is effortless to do, yet seems to promise an extreme
impact. I don’t know if I would go so far as to call it lazy parenting,
but I will say that investing into our children does take a lot more work and
much more time. Before we leave this topic, we must
consider the possibility that we are drawn to an over-dependence on sheltering
because it appeals to the Pharisee in us. Maintaining a righteous appearance and
avoiding uncleanness characterized the most religious people of Christ’s day,
and he didn’t tolerate it (Luke 7:39-47; 15:2; Mark 7:15; Mat 15:17-20).
Avoiding anything that seemed to defile made them feel “holy” and it does the
same for us. The more we fixate on keeping our families away from corruption the
prouder we can become of our higher standards. It may even get to the place that
we can’t wait for opportunities to boast or “share” with others the standards we
hold, ie: an invitation for our children to watch a movie, attend a Bible club,
or accept a questionable gift, etc.). Pride is a dangerous sin because it blinds
us to itself – it is the filter through which we see. Spiritual pride is
even more dangerous because it involves what we think is righteousness (Luke
18:11-12). May God open our eyes that we might see why we are so prone to
imbalance in this area. Since you died with Christ to the
basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you
submit to its rules: 21 "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? 22 These
are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands
and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with
their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of
the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. Col 2:20-23 Lest this article be taken wrong,
and some readers misinterpret my intentions, I want to emphasize that I am still
a strong proponent of sheltering our children. My goal has been to alert parents
to the problem of over‑reliance on sheltering. If you have finished this
lengthy article, and are under the impression that I no longer believe in it, I
would encourage you to go back and reread it. Next issue: Point 7. Formulaic
parenting breaks down relationship ______________________________________________________________________ Featured
Materials
Multitudes
of homeschool parents around the country, including leaders, have graduated
their first batch of kids, only to watch their graduates go wayward. Many were
model homeschoolers while growing up, but sometime after their 18th
birthday they began to reveal that they didn’t hold to their parents’ values. In
this 4-CD set Reb exposes blind spots in parenting that contribute to the
breakdown of relationship between parents and children, and thereby increase
prodigal tendencies. Every homeschooler and every family-minded parent needs to
hear these messages. Session
titles include: 1. Solving the Crisis
in Homeschooling 4. The Power of a Strong Family
______________________________________________________________________ Ministry
Needs Finances: The convention
season has helped us stay afloat, but without many events scheduled for the
fall, we are looking at a coming season of leanness. We GREATLY appreciate those
of you who have been able to help. Please prayerfully consider being a ministry
partner with us. (We are a
tax-exempt 501-C3). Even more
important than help with finances, we covet your prayers.
Website help:
We
need to install some kind of shopping cart on the FM website. If you have any
suggestions, drop us an email.
Seminars: Reb still has many open slots to present
seminars for the rest of 2006. Consider arranging a seminar for your fellowship
or school group.
We’d love for you to
partner with us in providing help to families. ______________________________________________________________________
Testimonies
from ministry friends “Please send me your
newsletters...Thanks!! Your message about the "homeschooling crisis" is nothing
short of beautiful. It articulates perfectly the way I have felt for
years.” “Please add me to your monthly
e-mail newsletter. My wife and I have recently been reading your "Child Training
Tips" book and it has already made tremendous difference in our 3 and 1 year
olds! Thank you so much for your straightforward and practical
approach.” “Please sign me up for the monthly newsletter and thanks for your messages. We heard you speak 15 years ago and were encouraged then. We are glad you are speaking to our hearts on what we are all facing today - as we see our children moving into adulthood and are facing issues that we all helped to create! Thanks” ______________________________________________________________________ Ministry
Prayer Needs -- Reb is working 12 hours a day for
the entire month of July to complete his new book. Pray that his thoughts are
clear and he communicates the Lord’s heart. -- Financial stability for the
ministry. Pray for God’s provision, so that we can continue unimpaired.
-- Opportunities to minister in
churches and at Home School Conventions. ______________________________________________________________________ www.FamilyMinistries.com 800-545-1729 PO Box 266 Sheridan, CA 95681 |
Summer
Greetings from Reb