I am sitting here watching Joshua and his friends playing. He has some REALLY good friends. We are blessed with that. They are playing football, basketball and later will make smores and some hot dogs. I have a 12 year old boy....a young man. I'm finding myself having more and more teachable moments with my son. I'm also finding it hard knowing when to protect him and when to let him just learn things the hard way. (have you seen that commercial where the mom protects her son during a dodge ball game....that's me:) ). Maybe I have wrong thinking here, but sometimes I feel that we as Christians think that we can live in a little bubble and protect our kids from the outside sources. Let me give you to instances.
1) We played a charter school last night. Since there were varsity teams playing after the middle school and they also had media there, a big cancer campaign going on, there was a lot of people. A lot of black people. Now there were things that I did not like....rap music during breaks....things of that nature, but it was a learning experience for the entire team. ( I don't think our school knew it would be that bad and I know we will NEVER do this again) While I don't want Joshua involved in rap and things like that, it truly was the real world..... a mission field. If I sent him to Mexico, China, India, or wherever on a missions trip, he would see the real world.....he just happened to go to Durham!! I tried to talk to him about how we don't want to live like that, however this was a "mission field" night. I've always wanted to shelter my kids, but in fact one day they are going to be faced with people who are not Christians.
2) At school there has been a boy that Joshua is not fond of. He's been calling Joshua and others some names and teasing him a little. As a mom I want to go into the school and demand he gets kicked out....but where is the mercy? What if this was Joshua....would I want him to be kicked out? My teachable moment for Josh is that there will always be someone we are not fond of......a difficult boss, a pesky co-worker....what do we do? We pray for them!! We try to love the unlovable (and I still can't get that lesson). We also realize this kid, though he is in a Christian school probably does not know Christ. I also told him to be thankful for the Godly friends he does have in his life. So when and how to you start exposing them to what the world is really like? How much is too much? I certainly don't want to keep him in a bubble, but I want so desperately to protect him too. Am I the only one that thinks this way?
2 comments:
I think you handled the second situation perfectly. Teach your kids to LOVE others!! At the same time, it is OK to pull back from relationships that aren't godly or are hurtful. You can teach your kids how to recognize when to do that. It is something even adults have to do. Even with other Christians:(
As for the first situation- I would simply ask my kids how they felt about the music or any situation that seemed ungodly and then grow the discussion from there. Teaching your kids to practice discernment is a great thing! Let THEM tell you what they discerned. You will be able to tell so much about their spiritual maturity from these talks! As we are learning on Sunday nights, even we adults need to cultivate discernment. It's something I want to work on in myself and my kids.
You are a good mom and I love seeing the relationship you have with your kids!
I don't think you're alone in these thoughts. And I do think now is great for him to be slightly exposed to things, while he is still under the guidance of you and Jack, when you can do the "teachable moments" like you're doing. I've seen so many kids from Christian homes go "hog wild" when they leave home because they've never had the real world portrayed to them realistically. They're told it's all bad so when they face it they're overwhelmed or see the seductive side they've not been exposed to. I've also listened to a lot of teens from our church who've attended driver's Ed classes and faced absolute culture shock by their classmates and the criticism of the teacher. They've not been exposed to either and have a hard time dealing with both. As for the kid calling Josh names, you might want to remind him of how he treated Desmon. There's a strong possibility this kid is simply trying to fit in and doing what he sees the others doing, not realizing they're not accepting it from an "outsider". We've both been the new kid at school, and we both know how hard that is. I'm sure like every other kids his age, he wants a friend. You might try talking to Denise Younge, Candace Anderson, or Ann Strickland. That would give you a variety of answers and suggestions. Praying as you make decisions; I don't envy you!
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