How to Land Your Kid in Therapy - The Atlantic

Parenting in the modern age is a hugely difficult thing to do. There are no perfect answers or perfect parents. Whilst we might not make the same mistakes our parents made, we'll make our own and our children as adults will make theirs. One of the concerning things that parenting is moving towards is how we make our children the centre of the universe. In many households in our area children are the focus of the majority of the families activities. We believe that we're teaching our kids to be successful and happy with well developed self esteems and bright futures. But I am concerned that we're teaching our children to be prideful and arrogant and in many families I am concerned that the 'god' of the house is the child, because everything revolves around their needs.

In the last two weeks here are three of the conservations I've heard or had:

"why is your kid not tied into their car seat" "because she does not like having the seatbelt on" - this from one of our mothers who arrives a a local shop with her kid standing on the front seat.

"Why don't you get your kid involved in KidsChurch and worshipping Jesus?" "He does not want to go, he'd rather stay at home and watch Cartoon Network, so that is why we don't often come to church either"

"Why don;t you come join our home group, you'll really grow in your faith and love for Jesus" "We can't, our kids wont sleep in other peoples beds and we really don't want to upset their routine"

What concerns me is that the parents are not parenting and the kids are in the controlling position. What concerns me most is that people's children are defining how they live their faith and not the other way round! Deuteronomy calls us to lead our children in faith and yet we're allowing children to rather watch TV or be comfortable in their beds to the detriment of their faith life - and our own! Where are the godly parents! I believe it's time we stood up and regained the rightful place in the home, to be God's representatives for our children teaching them to love Jesus, showering them in his life-changing grace and helping them to follow him.

But there may also be more to it than just their faith (and ours) in the example I mentioned above we've even allowed our toddlers to make decisions about their safety, surely we're the ones who are supposed to be protecting our kids! In a recent article How to Land Your Kid in Therapy - The Atlantic Lori Gottlieb, mother and psychologist makes a convincing argument that all our attempts at making our kids happy are making them more prone to depression, less able to deal with real world things like hardship and failure and as a rule, making them less happy and secure than ever before. The article is fairly long but she makes some compelling arguments that ring true for me. It seems that on many fronts modern parenting is not all it is cut out to be.

Perhaps it is time we started asking ourselves what is Jesus calling us to do as parents?

I'd like to make just one suggestion: our primary aim is to encourage our kids to grow up as disciples of Jesus who are salt and light in the world. Everything else that undermines that goal needs to be chucked! It's not about creating religious nutters who hate everything and are judgemental and hypocritical. Instead what we need to prayerfully and biblical reflect on what it would mean for our children to integrate their faith into their school work, their classroom environment, the sports field and their friendships. May God in his grace help us to be great parents who bring up godly children above all else!