Admit it. When you read the title of this post, your first thought was probably about teaching kids to “be good” or “do good”. Christianity is much more than being and doing good though. At it’s core is the story of God who lovingly created a world, but more importantly, us.
It’s about how God created not only a good, but a perfect world for us to inhabit. It’s about how even when Satan tempted Adam and Eve to sin – destroying the perfect world – God still allowed good things in the Fallen World. It’s about how His love sent His son to die on the cross so we can spend eternity in a perfect world – Heaven.
If you are a woman who attends church on a regular basis, you have probably heard discussions about the roles women can and can’t play in God’s Kingdom. Those of us raised in the feminist era have been trained to begin feeling angry whenever we are denied something a man is given – period. We have been told life must be fair – which to the world means equal.
If you have ever homeschooled your child, I am sure you have had this conversation many times. You mention you homeschool and the other parent very quickly says “I could never do that. It’s too hard. (Fill in excuse.).” Now most parents aren’t quite that brave about admitting 100% Christian parenting is too hard, but you can tell they are thinking it. Or that’s it really not that necessary to “try so hard” or “do so much”.
In Atlanta, summer breaks begin in about a month from now. Summer is not what it used to be. With more parents working, many school systems are going to an almost year around calendar. Your children’s summer break may only be six to eight weeks compared to the three months we had as kids. Yet, those six to eight weeks are a special gift to your family.
Young children are concrete thinkers. Until the early elementary school years (the age range for moving to the next stage varies from 7 – 11 years old), your children are basically unable to think in abstract or hypothetical ways. Even beyond that age, there may be bits and pieces of information which are still incorrectly processed in concrete ways. So when you say “It’s hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.”, they think it is literally true.