Raising Wonderful Children

Proverbs 9:1-6; Psalm 126, 127; Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:51-58; Matthew 18; Hebrews 2:14-15.

As the children go back to school this week, parents and grandparents relax and pick up the living rooms of their homes and collapse onto the couch to take a day off and recover from two months of constant children, it is probably time for us to think about those children and why we have them around.

I mean, after all, children can be quite a nuisance, can’t they? They require food and drink, make messes, are loud and whiny at times, listen as much to us as your neighbor’s cat does, and generally don’t make very good pets. Their medical bills dwarf what most people will pay for a veterinarian bill and they don’t learn nearly as quickly as puppies do. You have to be careful what you watch on television and you have to be ready to break up their fights. And just when you are ready to take a nap, they walk into the room and announce, “I’m hungry! Is there anything to eat?”

So why do we raise children at all? And if we are going to raise children, why can’t they all be wonderful?

Well, today I’m NOT going to answer the question of why we raise children, but I’ll try to give you some Biblical tips on what constitutes wonderful children and how to get wonderful children. Today’s readings tell us to learn wisdom. I hope to pass onto you today some of the wisdom found in Scripture and in Christ’s teachings which will help you raise your children. I will also pass onto some tips that we learned raising our five children, who aren't perfect, but after five you learn some things.

Generally speaking, most parents want children who are kind, well-behaved, considerate, have compassion toward others, interact well with other people, and grow up to be self-supporting. Christian parents also desire that their children follow Christ so that one day the entire family will be reunited in front of God. And these characteristics are what we consider “wonderful” children.

To begin with, the easiest and best way to get wonderful children is to order them that way from the Creator. It sounds like a silly thing, but when you are thinking about having children or during those long nine months, did you pray for wonderful children? God does listen to prayers – but I’ll give you a clue – don’t be too specific about the children you pray for. Do NOT pray for height and weight, for IQ’s, for the color of their eyes, their love for Mountaineer football. Simply pray for them to be wonderful people, a blessing to you and to others, and then see what God gives you. Opening the present is part of the fun, isn’t it? But do ASK God for your children to be wonderful and to be a blessing. Praying parents and grandparents really do make a difference.

Of course, Biblically speaking, almost every time that the Bible says some woman conceived, it uses this form: “And the Lord blessed Sarah, and she gave birth to a child.” Biblically speaking, children are blessings and this is something very important to remember as your children grow up and test you through a long summer day. Just keep telling yourself “She is God’s blessing! He is God’s blessing!” It helps, really!

And be glad that you have multiple children. In Psalm 127, we find:

Children are a heritage from the Lord,
offspring a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.

The Chinese are mostly limited to one child by law and it distorts the order of things, for many children in China grow up with far too much adult attention. Because this is the 2nd and even 3rd generation of the “one-child” policy, these children do not have brothers or sisters, or even first cousins. Their two parents spoil them, their four grandparents spoil them, and perhaps even eight great-grandparents spoil them! And spoiled they become. “Little Emperors” is what the Chinese call them. And when these spoiled children marry another spoiled child and marry – you have two people used to being the center of all attention, and it isn’t pretty.

On the other hand, in America several generations ago large families were considered normal. Three, four, five, even seven or eight children were not unusual. And the vast majority of those children grew up to be productive, happy, functioning members of society even without the help of modern psychology. It was only after we began reducing the families to one or two kids that most of the problems occurred.

The very fact that we can focus so much on one or two children seems to cause many of the issues we deal with – our great-grandparents did not have the luxury to focus upon one or two children – as soon as that third child arrives, you have to move from man-to-man defense to more of a zone defense, and that means that the older children must learn some responsibility at an early age, as they become the sergeants of the family.

So what were the tricks of Christian parents throughout the centuries before the Pill reduced family sizes? What Biblical lessons were followed?

First of all, it is worth realizing that the root cause of almost all anger, almost all misbehavior, and the root of almost all crime is fear. Speaking of Jesus, the writer of Hebrews wrote in Chapter 2:

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Fear of death holds people in sin, and fear leads people to do things they should not do, and therefore the single best way to prevent a host of problems is to keep the demon of fear out of a child’s life. So how do we keep fear out of a child’s life?

We begin by looking at what can create fear. The words “fear”, ‘control”, “faith”, and “security” are all tied up together. A child – or an adult – fears when they cannot control events, nor have faith that another whom they trust will control things for the child’s security. Lack of control without faith leads to fear. And there are many things outside of a child’s control – most cannot feed themselves – especially infants – have you ever seen a hungry infant who is completely certain that they are going to DIE if they are not fed within the next five seconds?

Most children cannot feed themselves and they cannot defend themselves. And so they have a perfectly rational fear of dying, and so they look to an adult or older child to solve these two basic security problems for them. The older child or adult feeds the younger child and the bigger person defends the smaller person. And therefore, the child develops faith in the adult or older child who feeds and defends them. And it is a big, scary, frightening moment for a child when they discover that their protector might not be able to handle all the problems of the Universe.

It is scary if Mommy says, “I’m afraid we’ll run out of food if we don’t get some money.” It is frightening if big brother is attacked and injured by the neighbor’s dog. It is particularly frightening if someone beats up Mommy, such as a boyfriend or worse …Daddy.

So the first rule is that Mom’s and Dad’s need to be aware that young children are easily frightened by worrisome talk and by violence. So hold any scary budget discussions until after the children are asleep. And do your best to keep them from seeing you in weakness. For a young child’s security, it is important that Mommy is big and strong and confidant and that Daddy could beat up Superman if needed. As far as television and movie violence is concerned, simply don’t give them the chance to see it – we lived without broadcast or cable television for fifteen years.

But you will notice that I have not told you to protect your children against all injuries. We don’t want them to be fearful, but it is ok if they have minor injuries. No, you are to keep them from seeing you weak and injured. As long as you are strong, they will feel secure. But there is nothing wrong with a young child getting the occasional bumps and bruises. In fact, it is actually good for them – depending upon how you react. If you run to them in fear, they will learn to fear. If, on the other hand your child falls down and you say, “Oops. Bumped the floor!”, then they will learn that these bumps happen and grow tougher because of it. They will not fear. If the cat scratches them, they will become more polite toward the cat if you react calmly. Of course, you should keep them out of the yard with the pit bull.

At pre-school ages, it is fear we are trying to avoid. If the child does not have fear, they will react appropriately. But if they are fearful, they will begin to act inappropriately.

What if my child is already scared to death of, perhaps, cattle? Our oldest son was. For some reason, he had a dream one night when he was about four years old where cattle were attacking him. A slow process of showing him that cattle were not so dangerous seemed to work. And where he is now, in a Chinese city of over 20 million people, he doesn’t have to worry about cattle much.

A key part of this is keeping the child from scary movies. It may seen to many people like common sense, but I know of adults who are so scared by horror movies that they have children watch those movies with them, and that can mess with those children for decades. We were particularly careful to avoid even some G-rated movies until we knew our kids were ready for the tense scenes. For example, in “The Little Mermaid”, there is a particularly scary scene near the end of the movie, and so we waited until our children were about eleven before they could watch that movie. And we have taught our children that there are some movies that have images you simply do not want to see, at any age.

So as the child is very young, remember that you need to be strong and calm in all situations for the child, and they will realize that when ever you are there, nothing really bad can happen to them, and because of that they will not need to throw many temper tantrums, nor scream for food, nor run yelling for help when a Chihuahua runs into the yard. They have faith in you, and that is where their security comes from.

But as a child moves toward school age, you can’t always be there. So this is where we want to begin to help them have faith in the God that is always there. Teaching faith early is important. As Jesus said in Matthew 18:10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. 14 In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.”

Starting at an early age, let your children see that you simply take your fears and ask God to handle them. Whenever they catch you worried about something, let that be your cue to turn those worries over in prayer to Christ right in front of the children. Teach them through example and coaching how to pray their own prayers, and then they will not have fear anywhere. Memorizing the 23rd Psalm is helpful. And as they come to realize that even death does not need to be feared by a Christian believer, they will develop their faith also.

Have you ever noticed that the best way to get your child’s attention is to begin to weep? If you weep at a movie, you can surely count on a child saying, “Mommy, what’s wrong?” For you see, if you are weeping, then something really bad must be going on. Explain to them why you are weeping – perhaps not because of your pain or fears, but because you understand how the character’s must feel. And in this way, you will teach your children empathy and compassion.

As your children move into the school-age years, there are four other sources that compete with you to guide and form the hearts and minds of your children.

First, there are the teachers, books, and curriculum at school. Decades ago, you could look around and be sure that Rosemary Stromberg or Cleo Rollins was teaching your child, and that Christian values were being taught to those children. Today, you have a mix – some teachers are Christian men and women who attend church regularly, and others have a totally different system of values which they will teach to your children.

Second, you have the other children at school, both those who are your children’s ages, and those who are a couple years older. And they will be teaching your children every bit as much as the teachers, and may have more influence. And thus you’ll need to provide your children with strong character weapons to stand up against the worst of the other children.

Third, you have television shows and the Internet. We found that although most televisions let us block certain shows, the commercials were often even worse than the shows, much more persuasive, and could not be blocked. And so our solution was to simply not have ANY cable television for more than a decade. Instead, we brought DVD’s into the house from Netflix and the library. This way, we eliminated the commercials and controlled the shows. Of course, we were both too busy to watch much TV, and if the Mountaineers made it to a bowl game, I simply went to a restaurant to watch the game, and got my news and weather from the radio and the Internet. And our children spent a lot more time reading that the average child.

Fourth, there are the extracurricular activities. And let me be very honest and straight-forward here. You can let your daughter go to dance class where the other girls will make fun of her figure, where she will learn how to be manipulative and catty, and where she will be taught sexy moves as a ten-year-old – or you can bring her to Pioneer Clubs and to the Youth Group where she will learn Biblical lessons.

You can take your son to Little League, where he will be taught very interesting expressions by the other boys, made fun of for his swing, and watch the coach make a jerk out of himself during the games – or you can bring him to Pioneer Clubs and to the Youth Group where he will learn to serve those less fortunate them him.

You can let them join the basketball teams in middle school, traveling on the road until midnight with the possibility of getting a basketball scholarship to Fairmont State, or you can encourage them to read, play chess, and earn an academic scholarship to an elite private school.

You should remember – you always have three options for your children. Public school, private school, or home school. Public school is simplest, I graduated from public school, but those negative influences will be the highest. Private school costs money, not as much as you might think because scholarships are available, but you will at least have the influence of God in the classroom, which I found out when I taught at a private school. And home school, the choice we choose, requires the time and dedication of someone who can spend about half the day on homeschooling, someone who has a high school diploma.

“Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6

This was the basis for our choice of home schooling. A child’s philosophy is like a groove that you want to place on a piece of steel. You take a stylus and scratch the groove into the steel. Then you do it again and again and again. After you have worked on the steel for a couple of hours, you may have a groove an inch deep and then you can stop. It is the same with children. You need to put them on their life path when they are young and repeat certain basics over and over and over again until they are worn into their mind like that inch-deep groove in the steel. The longer and the deeper you make the groove, the less likely it is to be polished out by someone else.

When we were living in Atlanta, soon after the Columbine shootings, we decided to home school so we could wear certain grooves into them that would not get polished out by others. We decided that we would provide our children with a very safe environment, uninfluenced by other children, random adults, and television while they were young. The only outside media we allowed were strictly controlled by Saundra and I. We determined which books would be read, which movies would be watched, and which television shows we’d bring in on DVD.

Lest you think we over-controlled our children, though, we ensured that our children went to church at least twice a week, participating completely in Sunday schools, children’s choirs, mid-week groups. They gradually moved into positions of responsibility – Ian began at age 5 by putting the salt and pepper shakers on the tables at the Wednesday night suppers. Andy and Jessie began as greeters at ages 6 and 8.

We trusted our church family to be a good influence. And they were a good influence, teaching our children how to live and speak around adults rather than just children who are within 6 months of their own age.

When our children began to reach the teen years, we began to open up more, because we then knew that most of the grooves were worn deep enough that our children would always return to those grooves, even if others tried to polish out those grooves. And so our children joined a swim team where they met and interacted with many other children from a host of different backgrounds, and so they began to move into the world.

As the children grew, just as God taught the Israelites that they were a special people, we taught our children that they were in a special family. Our standard answer when a child pointed to an inappropriate behavior allowed in another family was “I know they do that, but Boleys don’t do that.” Complaints about long study hours were met with “That’s one of the things that makes us different”. And soon, the children began to notice that they knew things that other children didn’t know. They began to notice that there were differences in their behavior compared to other children. They began to feel pretty good and confident about themselves.

That was when we let the other shoe fall, for it is very easy to move from feeling confident about yourself to becoming arrogant. That was when we pointed out, that just as in Spiderman, with ability comes responsibility. As Jesus said, “To those who have been given much, much will be required.” And through this all, the idea of a family mission was developed and grew.

Our children have known for many, many years that our mission as a family is to bring people to the love and knowledge of Jesus Christ. That’s who we are. Some families are born to politics, such as the Bushes, the Kennedys and others. Other families are born to be soldiers over five generations. Still other families have apparently decided that they are destined to be thieves, as family member after family member is arrested for the same crimes. And other families have a history of being sales people. Our family mission is to bring Jesus Christ to people. What is your family’s mission? Let your children know who you are and what you are about. Teach them this regularly by sharing stories.

Another key part of our parenting worked to foster creativity. A friend of ours once remarked that the Boley family was always laughing. And why not? As the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 126

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
2 Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The Lord has done great things for them.”
3 The Lord has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.

The Lord HAS done great things for us, and so we are filled with joy. And that laughter and joy turned out to be a large part of why our children are creative, happy, and successful. And the Lord has done great things for you and your family, also.

Many of you may know who John Cleese is – an original member of the British Monty Python comedy group, and a very successful comedian on his own. What you may NOT know is that during the 1980’s, John Cleese made a hugely successful set of corporate training videos which used his wacky brand of humor to get across important points. Cleese has made a study of creativity, and discovered that play – games, laughter, humor, speculative mind games – all open up the mind to creative thinking, because when you play, there is no fear!

Think about it – our boys played a game of Jedi Knights versus Darth Vader with plastic light sabres, or fought battles with Nerf guns. No one dies or gets seriously injured! When our daughter Jessie played, she loved to take old clothes, cut them up and make them into doll clothes. She learned a fashion sense, she learned how to sew – and there was no financial loss? The children and I would play and argue about spaceship design – all the while, they were learning physics and mathematics and astronomy.

We’d play pun games where each person takes turns making up a pun on a particular subject, such as trees, and we’d “leaf” each other behind as we “ash’ed” each other questions. It was a nutty game! But they expanded their vocabulary. Later, we began to make up parody songs – ask Andy about the 12 Days of Middle-earth Christmas!

And so I say to you – play with your children! It will make them creative and it will be fun for you!

Finally, I urge you to establish the “hug, kiss, and a prayer.” Every bedtime, every time we left our children anywhere, we gave them a “hug, a kiss, and a prayer.” The hug meant they knew that they were secure in our arms, the kiss meant that they knew that they were loved in our hearts, and the prayer reminded them that Jesus loves them too and God is protecting them. No fear.