Mary sent me this interview of Randy Alcorn from Eternal Perspectives Ministries.
Here’s the problem:
What is the greatest challenge parents of young people face?
I would say balance. Parents have to balance their responsibility to govern their children’s lives with their teenagers’ need to develop independence and freedom. Parents have to maintain that tension.
And here’s a snapshot of the solution:
So, what does that mean in terms of parenting? The ideal is prevention. Parents need to develop their relationship with their child and build the level of intimacy that gives them the right to come down hard in certain areas. Too often the relationship is typified by Mt. Olympus. Parents come down like lightning bolts to their kids, then return to the top of their mountain. The relationship is confrontational, when what they need is a consistent, loving relationship in which 90 percent of what is done is affirming. Criticism should be the exception instead of the rule. Jesus came down to us in the incarnation and we need to come down from our adult world and enter our children’s lives. Only then can we help pull them up into maturity.
You raised two daughters. What patterns did you establish with them?
We talked a lot. When the girls were young, we sat down and read Bible stories and talked about principles, trying to plug those into their current situation—whether it be kindergarten or sixth grade or high school, the principle is the same. We tried to spend the time with them that allowed us to see their lives as they happened. That was a big thing to us.
You sound like you’ve thought this through.
If we don’t think strategically about parenting, then we’ve made a statement: our children aren’t important, or parenting comes so naturally that it happens without our attention. If we’re going to influence our children, we need to strategize—regrouping and reevaluating along the way.
Anyone else in agreement with Randy? The idea that what really matters is QUANTITY of time spent talking about the lives of the children and injecting the Christian worldview into the lives of the children every day – instead of waiting until things blow up – sounds plausible. But that requires parents with lots of time for parenting.
So, if you’re a man looking for a woman who can take this kind of challenge on, you’d better find someone with a lot of time for parenting and a track record of effective nurturing. The ideal woman would be someone who dumps everything else whenever she sees an opportunity to influence a person’s worldview, especially in spiritual areas, and take action. If she is able to build up her friends to be world-changers, and has achieved a lot herself, (an investment portfolio, a career prior to becoming a mother, graduate school degree, apologetics and theology capabilities, running a business, reading research papers, etc.), then that would be the best-case scenario – because then she’ll be teaching them from experience of been a Christian herself and succeeded.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
I’ve got to say, when I spend time with my kids, they get into a lot less trouble than when I sit in another room and do my own thing and let them do theirs. When I can find ways to work in lessons from scripture, they are much more apt to listen than if I just come down hard on them.
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Most parents’ method is the “leave me alone until I feel like punishing you” method. Remember that parental behavior influences a child’s view of what God is like. Our thoughts about God are often scaffolded onto our thoughts about our parents. Christian parents have a responsibility to be an appropriate foundation upon their children’s understanding of who God is.
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I have seen parents neglect their children’s education for year after year after year, as the child falls further and further behind, except for a shouting rant on report card day of every year. They call that parenting. And they tell me that it’s the child’s job to learn, and the teachers are paid to make sure he learns. These parents blame the children for not learning even today, and yet never once did they ever make sure that the child completed their home work, even ONCE.
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That’s the exact opposite of what my mom did. She was extremely strict with our home work and made sure we studied hard for exams. But then, when the report card came and if one of us didn’t perform as expected, neither she nor my dad yelled at us. Sure, they would tell us how disappointed they were and they expected us to do better next time. But it would be all very anti-climactic, if you know what I mean! :) My mom explained to us that being a little hard on before the exams would help us perform better. But yelling at us after the results came made no difference ’cause what’s done was done. She was a teacher before she got married, so she knew what she was doing. Oh and though she was the one who helped us with our school work, we were always expected to show our report card to our dad first. Dad wasn’t involved with that part of our lives not because he didn’t want to. His busy schedule didn’t allow him to but he was the one who attended the PTA meetings and spoke about our grades to teachers. It’s like they assigned the jobs among themselves. I think they were awesome! :)
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I AGREE!!! I agree with you and Randy. The only thing I would add to Randy’s comment is that awareness on the part of the parent is key. Prevention is only possible if the parent is well aware of the agenda. A must read for Parents is Who Stole Our Culture http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55833 by William Lind from a book by Ted Baehr and Pat Boone. As parents our children are being exposed to a culture that we ourselves have been exposed to for many years. We need to be able to realize that some of the thoughts and opinions we hold will end up leading our children away from the very truths we are trying to instill in our children. My 10 year old for example can already identify many social justice code words, so she can defend herself from the culture she is exposed to daily.
As for who makes a great wife, I’d just like to say that staying home and raising my kids is what has allowed me to build a 1.2 million dollar business (as a woman – my husbands a welder). I didn’t have any net-worth to speak of before getting married and I had a baby right away. I certainly didn’t have the time to focus on applying apologetics in a meaningful way, or read the research papers (I was studying Plato yesterday) until after I was a stay-at-home mom. I think putting money before family, and using degrees to define intelligence, are some of those cultural ideas we’ve let slip in. Life comes before the pursuit of happiness. Children create opportunities for a woman to develop her innate nurturing abilities. The ideal woman is the proverbs 31 woman. Find a woman willing to model herself after that.
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“Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.”
John Locke
The quote seemed relevant. :)
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