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<\/a>My youth director made some similar observations when I interviewed him about youth during worship one weekend. \u00a0One of his comments was particularly insightful: Kids are yearning for more time with mom and dad and are feeling stressed out by over-programming parents and over-programmed lives.<\/p>\nAs is true for every generation of parents, it\u2019s good to step back and ask, \u201cTo what end?\u201d\u00a0 To what end am I involving my child in 5-6 extra-curricular activities?\u00a0 To what end am I working extra hours in order to maybe have money for when the kids are older?\u00a0 To what end am I skipping worship yet again?<\/p>\n
Every \u201cpriority\u201d has a counter \u201cnon-priority.\u201d\u00a0 No one can do everything.\u00a0 Making \u201cthis\u201d a priority means that \u201cthat\u201d can\u2019t be.\u00a0 What are the trade offs?\u00a0 What are the unintended consequences?<\/p>\n
From time to time a parent of a teenager will come to me in tears wondering why his\/her son has dropped out of church.\u00a0 These are parents who attend worship sporadically, once a month or less because their son\u2019s activities always conflicted with worship.\u00a0 Why did their teenager drop out of church? Because he was taught all of his young life that everything is more important than church.<\/p>\n
What does it profit parents to over-program their kids\u2026only for their kids to lose their souls in the process?<\/p>\n
Few calls in life are more sacred, significant, compelling, and daunting than parenting.\u00a0 But what a ride it is.<\/p>\n
But to state the obvious, parenting is the call to Parent!\u00a0 <\/em>To take the lead in the lives of our kids and set priorities that will instill in them faith and character.<\/p>\nWhat opportunities will empower you to forge faith and character in your son?\u00a0 Your daughter?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the end of a seminar I led on boys a man in his 70\u2019s pulled me aside to ask a few questions.\u00a0 In doing so he made some interesting observations.\u00a0 He noted that, in his opinion: Far too many parents today over-program their children often at the expense of building character in them.\u00a0 Rather […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1621,"featured_media":1054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,3,13,7],"tags":[2,84,277,5,278,279,280,9,23],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boys","category-church","category-girls","category-parents-2","tag-boys","tag-faith","tag-families","tag-girls-2","tag-helicopter-parents","tag-over-programed-kids","tag-priorities","tag-searching-for-tom-sawyer","tag-tim-wright"],"yoast_head":"\n
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