If your children can speak, you probably realize they consider you and anyone else close to your age “old”. I laugh now, because I will talk to friends from home and they will mention someone is “getting older”. In my memory, that person had to be at least in their 60’s or 70’s when I was a child. Inevitably, I will ask “What?! Isn’t she over 100 by now?” Usually, I realize the “old” person had actually been only in their 30’s or 40’s when I was little!
There is something about being young that makes it seem as if anyone older than your peer group is ancient. An arrogance develops as children age. By the time they reach college, many young people have dismissed anyone over the age of 30 as out-of-touch and unable to teach them anything valuable.
If your children appear to be developing that attitude or you find yourself thinking the same things about people ten or more years older than you, it’s time to be proactive in changing those attitudes.
Want your kids to learn some godly money and stewardship skills? Looking for a family service project? Wish you could have fun teaching your kids about the Bible? There are several great service projects you can do with your kids or teens that will cover all of those goals.
If you are trying to dedicate your children to God, they need to read the Bible. If you want your children to become mighty men and women of God, they need to have the scriptures imprinted on their hearts. If you want your children to make wise choices, they need to learn from God’s Word what those wise choices are. In short, if you are Christian parenting, you must find ways to teach your children the Bible and get them to love and value it in the process.
A few years ago, it became clear my husband’s parents (who were almost as old as my grandparents) would no longer be able to live in their home out-of-state. That was the beginning of a couple of extremely difficult years trying to homeschool our daughter, while my husband tried to work a demanding job – all while caring for his parents who we had moved into a nearby assisted living facility.
I’m not sure when it happened, but over the last several decades parenting has changed drastically. Not all of these changes are bad. Unfortunately though, some parenting “experts” are ignoring basic truths that also undermine Christian parenting. The church has changed too. Sin is rarely mentioned. Consequences are almost never discussed. The focus is only on celebrating God’s love for us.