Back To School

I did not post last week, my parents were in town and we were out and about doing the activities of summer and visiting loved ones. It was a very busy time, one of those times when it seems like there is a collision of schedules into a very short time frame. One of the significant events was sending our youngest son away to University.

This past Monday was the beginning of school for our public schools. I read many entries on Facebook of parents taking their children to school either for the first time and of course many to a new grade. It begins again. Some have high school seniors, some are sending their children to kindergarten, it is a day of excitement, sadness and emotions.

As JoLynn and I are again, "empty nesters", let me impart some perspective to parents who are somewhere in the middle years of raising children. I know you have heard it before, but do treasure these early years of raising your kids. These are the years they are most dependent upon you for everything and the years they are most impressionable. If in general we raise our children for 18 years before they begin to leave home for school or careers (it does stretch out past 18...) then we have to realize by the time they turn 9 years old, our job is half way done! But it isn't just a math realization. The second half is not equal to the first. Things significantly change after age 9. Our children grow more decidedly indepentdent, they want to make more and more of their own decisions, especially about spending their money and fashions being worn to school. In the second half they begin to develop friends that generally take more of their time, activities that take more of their time and then there comes their ability to drive. Before we are aware enough to catch it, our time with our children slips away and we feel like our home is only where they sleep, eat and shower before they are off again.

I write to share my thoughts with you on this matter so that you can take steps now, set priorities now to help you not fall prey to the tyranny of your children being swept up and away from you before the time is right. Other than the basic dependecies of where they live and eat, it seems like our children are in a functional way leaving home earlier and earlier. A wise parent will see this and help preserve the integrity of the family.

I encourage families to continue to go to church together, to not allow extra-curricular activities interfere with family or church ministries. It is a natural thing for children to begin to want to do other things than go to church as they grow (they also want Snickers candy bars for dinner instead of meat and potatoes) but I encourage parents to hold the line, set the priorities and the agenda and lead your children instead of the other way around.

These child raising years will be the minority years of your life eventually, even though they may represent half your life at this point. Make these years count for your family and for God. Do whatever you can to help shape your child's spiritual future by keeping them close and on track.