Am I Parenting Biblically?
by Luke McConnell
Breaking news: parenting is tough!
As the father of three-year-old twin boys, I understand this principle extremely well. In the midst of it all, I’m wondering if I’m doing it right or possibly dooming my children to a life of struggle because of my own ineptitude. It’s really quite an interesting journey!
As a fairly new parent, I have been thinking on several things since becoming a dad. For instance, how do Mary and I biblically raise our boys, and what is actually best for our boys?
The following is not a how-to, but rather some general musings, with the end goal being to think more about these things.
From my own experience and observation, it appears as Christians we have a good idea of what biblical parenting looks like. But I think sometimes we can lose focus, particularly when it comes to protecting our kids from the things of the world.
Rigidly sheltering our kids is a great theory, but I’ve seen too many kids who were sheltered at a younger age—even through high school—fall to pieces in the real world because they couldn’t handle it. The point being, I don’t think a sheltering approach to parenting is automatically biblical.
I’m also not advocating for third graders to get an Instagram account or your middle schooler to go to an R-rated movie with you. That’s common sense. What I’m saying is sometimes as parents, we try to make sure every situation is controlled by us, or every mature topic is discussed only in the highly-controlled environments of our own homes.
This is not a realistic approach to life in 2020. Kids are going to be exposed to many things for the first time, both good and bad, from people other than their parents. I believe our role as parents is not to insulate them from ever hearing something from someone else, but to build a relationship of trust with our children. That way, when your fourth grader comes home from school having heard about sex for the first time, you can have an edifying conversation about it, rather than freaking out and bemoaning the fact you have to deal with it now.
A specific example is how we help our kids develop a good view of race. While I’m still doing a lot of learning, I am so grateful for the experiences I had at a young age. All of my pre-high school education took place in Clover, South Carolina, and I was exposed to a healthy diversity in my classes, rubbing shoulders with black students, teachers and staff.
When I moved to Waco, Texas, for high school, I could count on one hand the number of black kids in the school of 600, and there was just a single black person on staff. Looking back, it’s clear the way my fellow classmates spoke and joked about race was a product of never being around people of color.
If we want our kids to grow up with healthy views of race, we need them to be around people who are different. I think a way we as Christians can fail in this area is how we approach education. We’re quick to judge schools as “good” or “bad” based on student test scores. We don’t consider the terrible home situations or how getting enough to eat is a much higher priority for those students than being ready for a standardized test. Most of the time, the kids who are in the “bad” schools are kids who don’t look like our own. It’s not just about our kids, either. When we send our kids to a certain school, we determine who we’re rubbing shoulders with as parents. And just like that, we’ve cut out so many opportunities for growth in how to view race and relate to those who don’t look like us.
That brings me the second question of what is truly best for our kids. Most of us would be quick to say the best teachers, the best school and the most opportunities for our kids to find their passions would encompass a lot of our definition. As a Christian adult, if I told you I was looking for the best house, the best car, the most comfortable job and the most influential circle of friends, you’d probably tell me my priorities were a little out of line. Why is it different with our children?
All those things we want for our children are GOOD things, but they’re not the best. The best is raising our children to love God and to love others like Jesus (Matthew 22:37-40). Are we exposing our children to opportunities to do that?
As we read on Sunday in our reading plan, Proverbs 22:6 says, “Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it.” Our children will probably not thank us for keeping them from being exposed to certain things in this world, but they will be thankful for the conversations on how to deal with those things, and why they do or don’t honor God.
Let us be wise in our parenting and seek God daily to make sure the way we are raising our children is truly biblical and not just our idea of what biblical parenting looks like. Let us strive to build relationships with our children defined by love and trust and not by restriction and insulation.
I don’t have the answers. But this is something I invite you to think about with me so together, we can better serve our children and each other.
Author Bio
Luke serves as the Cube Director at Council Road. He previously worked at Channel 9 as a sports writer and an account executive. He also serves as the play-by-play voice for Southern Nazarene athletics. Luke graduated from OU in 2011. Luke and his wife, Mary, have been members at Council Road since 2012. They have two-year-old twin boys, Jackson and Cameron. Mary teaches third grade at Wiley Post Elementary. They also serve in the Student Ministry and help lead a home group.