Teaching Our Kids Standards

I remember an argument I had with my best friend in elementary school.  Her dad had said that lightning came from the ground, and I was pretty sure my dad said it came from the sky.  On and on we argued the afternoon away.  Her dad was smarter because he was an engineer for Goodyear.  Actually, my dad was smarter because he was an engineer for the City of Akron.  Her dad was smarter because he was older.  But that meant my dad was smarter because he would likely live longer.  A few years ago, while teaching 4^th grade homeschool, that silly argument came back out of nowhere when my kids and I studied lightning.  Turns out, my haughty little 8-year-old self had a few more things to learn about lightning:  Both arguments were partially right.   One more wasted afternoon from 1979. 

 

Sometimes it’s not about lightning.  There are many important issues of right and wrong that really do matter beyond winning an immediate debate—issues of discernment that I want to pass on to my children, and issues where not everyone can be right.  While any eight-year-old can argue about the source of lightning (especially if her dad is an engineer . . .), just what is the right attitude I need for teaching my children standards of right and wrong?   

 

How can I use legitimate methods for teaching holiness instead of making my standards sound like a meaningless argument about lightning, where everyone is just telling half of the story in order to win the debate? 

 

1.  Teach charitably. 

 

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass . . .”

 

Remember “The Gong Show”?  Even modern entertainers recognized the humiliation of  “sounding brass.” It just sounds foolish.  I wonder how many times I have become my own “gong show” by speaking the truth “with the tongues of angels” but lacking genuine love toward my audience!  God loves the people who disagree with me.  The sooner I catch up and love them too, the happier we all will be. 

 

This week at Goodwill, my kids and I stood in line behind a couple of individuals who were deliberately advertising a behavior that runs contrary to the Bible.  Jesus died for those people.  My children and I do not have the right to make fun of them or mimic them uncharitably.  Although I cannot compromise the truth, those individuals still need to see the love of Jesus in every one of my interactions with them.  

 

2.  Teach humbly.

 

“Only by pride cometh contention.” 

 

Those of us who were wired with the “Combat Code” have to face something:  Contentious disagreements are always about pride.  That little word “only” is telling.  A humble person can convey spiritual truth in a gracious way that edifies the listener instead of igniting him.  We squander the truth when we use it as a weapon rather than an instrument of love.  I am afraid I sometimes relate more to Moses when he murdered the Egyptian than when he was “slow of speech” so many years later.  

 

Do I teach my kids standards with a combative attitude, condemning others who are “on the outside,” or arguing so passionately with my family that my own children cannot be honest about their own struggles with certain rules and standards?  Do I bully weaker people into complying with my standards instead of patiently teaching them?  Intimidation is not a legitimate form of discipleship.

 

3.  Teach compassionately.

 

Our attitude toward others hinges on this summarizing statement of Romans 14:  “Destroy not thy brother with meat, for whom Christ died.” 

 

One of the purposes for standards is compassion.  If a weaker person is offended (literally “caused to stumble into sin”) because of something I am doing, I need to stop.  Not because that behavior is sinful (and it might not be!), but because someone else’s walk with the Lord matters more than whatever “rights” I am protecting.  Compassion doesn’t just lecture the weaker brother to stop sinning.  It lends a hand. 

 

If I have a friend who is trying to overcome a gripping addiction to alcohol, suddenly my awareness of alcohol is heightened.  Do she and I really need to cut through the beer garden at the fair on our way to the tractor pull?  Do we want to lunch at Pizza Hut (my favorite pizza place!)—or should we just do a family restaurant, where there aren’t bottles of beer plunked down on the table next to us? What was once innocent for me has now become off-limits when I am with her, because I am accepting the confines of my friend’s weakness. 

 

Lest anyone is tempted to cry “legalism,” let’s make an important distinction:  Legalism puts rules before people.  Compassion imposes rules on self because of people.   The label “ . . . for whom Christ died” is a price tag.  This person has value that is much greater than meat—or restaurants, or clothes, or DVD’s, or whatever rights we are tempted to hang onto.  We need to teach our kids that standards aren’t just about us.  The weaker Christian matters too.

 

 

4.  Teach Biblically.

Someone else has wisely observed that the Bible is a collection of both principles and rules.  So where does the Bible say, “Thou shalt not take heroin”?  Good question!  It’s found in the same place where the Bible says not to drive off a cliff going 120 mph, or not to shoot a police officer.  It’s in the principles.  If the Bible contained only rules, it would be longer than the Affordable Healthcare Act—and equally unread. 

 

Our fundamental job as moms is to teach our children the principles in the Bible.  Secondarily, we find methods for practicing those principles.  When we focus entirely on the methods and miss the principles, it’s usually only a matter of time before the methods are lost as well.  Let me illustrate in a personal way: 

 

As most of you know, our family is quite conservative in our dress.  It’s a choice we have made, and since today’s post isn’t about dress, I won’t spend too much time here explaining our dress standards.  But to be honest with you, it can be easy for us to focus on the “methods” of achieving godly dress and to entirely miss the principle at stake:  raising up modest, godly, feminine girls!  Letting our daughters show up for church in sloppy tee-shirts, matched up with ill-fitting culottes or over-washed, under-sized skirts, is not what I Peter 3 is talking about!  The principle has been buried under the method. 

 

Any area of separation that we teach our children—whether it’s about music, relationships, activities, substances, etc.—needs to be pointed back to its founding principle in every method we practice.  Otherwise we end up with strange dichotomies in our standards:  Parents who eschew strong drink but rely on sleeping pills for the exact same effects; and homeschoolers who don’t have any “bad” friends but follow Kardashians and rock stars on their Twitter feed.  Leaning exclusively on methods while ignoring Biblical principles is a recipe for scorning and hypocrisy. 

 

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Our kids were created for Christ’s glory.  Raising up holy kids is all about delivering back to God the precious gifts He entrusted us, in a package He can use for His praise. 

 

“ . .  not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.”  (I Corinthians 10:33)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To My Younger Self

My year of reflection has begun.  We now have two seniors in high school (twins), and it seems that every day the last 17 and a half years of my life flash past me.  As I watch Jonathan and Jessica getting ready for the commencement of their adult years—signing up for their final year of homeschool with classes like Physics and Government, preparing for their SAT and ACT, and beginning to apply for college and consider their majors, I can’t help but review the last two decades with wonderment at how quickly it went by as well as hope that we have indeed done what God commissioned us to do on that chilly fall day, when we rode gingerly home for the first time and watched for the whole ride to make sure those two little heads were still upright and secure in their backwards-facing car seats.  I now have photo albums and plastic totes bulging with the memories that have filled up our days since that significant moment in 1996.   

           

This review process inevitably exposes the influences that shaped this past season of our lives—many good, some not so good, all of them significant.   A step back from my memory bank allows me to see a trend—a sort of graph that shows my tendency to pull back and forth, like a pendulum, from permissive to harsh, and then back again.  If I could go back to that car ride in 1996 and tell my younger self a word or two . . . it would be about that pendulum.  Beware the pendulum. 

 

Beware of parenting by “books” rather than by “The Book.”  Measure new methods against Scripture.  I remember reading a book once by an author who was later accused of formulating his ideas and then “baptizing them with Scripture.”  No one has the right to take Scripture out of context, no matter how noble their goal may be.  The trend of parenting books in the 1990’s tended to encourage a sort of antagonistic relationship between parent and child, as though our only mission this side of heaven was to establish authority and to win at any cost.  Current trends are reacting to this and seem to be angled toward more permissive, child-led parenting—which is just as unhealthy and dangerous.  Get the Book. 

 

Beware of the pressures that stretch a family apart.  Those early years are priceless.  Be together.  Beware of ministries, friends, jobs, and hobbies that constantly pull you apart as a family.   Your kids will not naturally become just like you.  They will naturally become like those they are with the most.   Fill up those memory banks and give your kids lots of reasons to believe they are loved.   

 

Beware of spoiling.  You love your child more than anyone else does, so don’t leave the difficult work of character refinement up to the bus driver, the principal, or the manager at Moto Mart.  Spoiled children have harder lives than strong children because they are not as prepared for the realities of life.  The Bible offers this singular criticism of King David’s parenting of Absalom:  “And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?”  (I Kings 1:6).   Absalom died by getting stabbed with lethal darts while hanging by his hair from a tree.  Whatever small displeasure David had spared Absalom by not disturbing him with accountability certainly came back with manifold vengeance! 

 

And finally, beware of pride.  We are not perfect parents.  Beware of defensiveness that doesn’t want to hear what anyone else sees us doing wrong.  Beware of arrogance that can’t apologize to a child for an unjust accusation or a harsh response.  Beware of conceit that wants a child to meet outward expectations and earn public praise rather than focusing on the “hidden man of the heart.” 

 

Young moms,  I know you get tired of hearing us glibly tell you to “enjoy every second” with your little one, as you wipe formula off your sweater and wearily brace yourself for another long night of colic.  Maybe don’t enjoy those difficult times.  But appreciate them.   Someday you will stumble across those tiny pink snuggly pajamas—the ones with the little feet and the formula stain on the front, and you will be thankful that you didn’t give in to the frustration and weariness of those long nights.  You will be glad that you stopped for a second kiss goodnight when she finally drifted asleep, just as the sun was starting to thin the darkness, and that you let your eyes snap a picture of  that still form one more time before you went to bed. 

 

Because when you wake up, she will be grown.  I know.