Parental Influence

I think many parents fully underestimate their ability to guide/teach their children. I'm not just talking homeschooling here.

Our pastor has been heavily convicted that parents are the key to the best spiritual teaching of their children. He explains that there is a connect that happens when it's the parent teaching that is absent when the teacher is not the parent. Our church leadership is looking at spending resources on equipping parents to do this instead of keeping all the plates spinning for a Sunday School program.

At the conference I went to this week, the speakers all said over and over that the best way to impart the purity message to children is to have the parents do it.

As a homeschooling mother, I do wish everyone would take these ideas one step further. If parents are the best to impart both spiritual & sexual values, then why not academics as well? I'm not saying everyone should homeschool, I'm just asking for some credibility for homeschoolers and more involvement in the schools for public schooled kids. There's nothing different from teaching social studies than teaching Bible stories.

Our culture has adopted some faulty ideas. We've exalted our experts to too high a pedestal. We don't take much ownership of our health care since, after all the doctor is the expert. Same thing with our children's education. Many parents blindly hand their children to the school system at the ripe age of 4 and go about their days fully trusting that whatever the school system does must be okay since they are the experts at education, after all.

The Bible says marriage was meant to create godly offspring. It doesn't say the church and school were created to make godly offspring. If God trusted parents with the most important education of all (a spiritual one) than why do parents buy into the lie that they can't do it?

Parents, not only can you teach your children the most important things in life, but you (we) have to! Look at our culture-do you want the culture to teach your children?

Be involved, be educated about the issues, trust your instincts! Don't feel like homeschooling is for your family? Fine, but be like my friends and get involved in the school you child is in. Don't just leave it up to the overworked and underpaid teacher. She's part of your tool chest of resources, but it's not her job alone. Need help teaching your children spiritual truths? Resources abound on great sites like Focus on the Family and CBD.com. Feel your child needs more help? Get good people around you to strategize and find solutions, don't just shrug and expect the teacher/doctor/youth leader to fix it.

How's that for a soap box? You can tell it's a huge issue for me when parents stick their heads in the sand on the issues I discussed above. Our kids deserve to have informed and involved parents. Don't you think so?