Parenting Classes at Church

Is your church offering parenting classes? If your answer is. "No," be alarmed. All too often, churches today preach that the answer to every question is found in the "Word of God." As true as that may be, unfortunately, if you've not attended seminary school, it is not so simple a task to extract wisdom from the Bible to know how to guide your children today. Perhaps that's because there's nothing in the Bible about using the internet, watching television, playing video games, visiting chat rooms, or communicating via text, email, instant message, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter and the like.

Most church leadership tends to err on the side of caution and advise their members to "shield their children from the world." But, how practical is that approach? Will that prepare your children adequately to be wise in the world that awaits them? We raised our son in a Christian home, but faith alone was not enough to enable our son to feel confident enough to leave home at 15 to attend a special school on the other side of the country that would inevitably get him into the college he wants to attend. That courage and self-assurance came from additional training we implemented in addition to our religious convictions.

I'm not encouraging people to disregard their religious leaders. I am advocating that people be proactive in honing and sharpening their parenting skills. Think about it. The amount of time we were in the care of parents is minute in comparison to how many years we live as adults dealing with the results or consequences of our own choices. So, isn't it crucial to use those first 15-18 years to train our children how to make good choices? Do we want to coddle and shelter children - "protecting their childhood," which is such a short time on this earth? Or do we want to nurture and love our children; raising them to be responsible adults with character and strong convictions?

-Ruth, Keeping It Real