Raising Children as Christian Parents

Live from the Mecca of Mormonism – Salt Lake City, Utah. This is HEART OF THE MATTER, where we are looking at all sorts of things relative to living in the age of Fulfillment. And I’m your host Shawn McCraney.

Show 14A: Family Administration

Taped Tuesday, March 17th, 2020. Aired Monday, March 23rd, 2020.

So our Christian Parents have had a child, who has been sent off to school, and as time has passed they have had another child, or two, or five or ten – it's all up to them, the couple and God, and what they can manage emotionally, financially, and relative to a number of other factors. And again – some couples may choose or may not be able to have children. It’s okay. But if a couple has one child or twenty, the next decision, now that they have looked at Christian Education and decided which way to go on that, is they sort of have to decide the general approach to raising these kids up – again, AS Christian parents raising children in this world.

Key Decisions for Christian Parenting

What are the house rules? What do they focus on? How do they discipline? How do they deal with each of their children’s needs and wants and personalities? Do you force them to do things? Like go to church, clean their rooms, and the like? How do you handle school and grades? Do you get involved with parental politicking, the PTA and managing sports teams? Should they assign children chores? Should teens get jobs? What do they do if a child expresses some unique desires or proclivities? How do they respond?

Of course, all of this is up to each family irrespective of what anyone says about it – especially me – but I would like to throw my hat in the ring (for whatever it's worth) when it comes to raising children up in a home with believing parents. We’ve touched on some of these things over the past two weeks with our shows titled: “Baby in da house” and “Baby goes to school.” But let me get just a bit more detailed on what I am calling family Administration. And the best I can do is pass along to you what has worked for Mary and me, what has failed to work for us, and what we see as failing in other families relative to bringing up children.

The Unique Experience of Raising Children

I really believe that raising up children is unique to each home, and so what I suggest is just that – suggestions – as I have seen a number of people raise up their families in very different ways and be very successful at it. In the end, it really comes down to how people define success. I personally define success as people doing what they were made to do AND more importantly, people loving God and proving that love through their lives. So, remember we are talking about raising children as Christian parents in this age of fulfillment.

Also, and this is really important to the show tonight, I have zero experience raising sons. Watching the challenges of that through my daughter and her two boys has been a real eye opener, and so my advice tonight comes from a Man who was blessed with raising all daughters. And I do think that there are some BIG differences in raising the two – even though the world disagrees with me. However, I do think that some of what I will say has universal application – but again, take it for what it’s worth and let the spirit guide. Finally, what I will say will sound very old school to some of you, and some of it may even sound flat out sexist. I’m just saying what I think and have observed so please cut me some grace – I'm closing in on sixty. So first let me make some general statements that I think have merit when it comes to raising children.

Fundamental Principles for Children's Well-being

NUMBER . . .
#1 Children love to see their parents in love and getting along. Yes, they will go “yuck” and stuff when parents kiss and hug, and they will even try to physically stop it, but in the end, they feel and sense a great deal of comfort when mom and dad outwardly express affection, kind words, respect, charity and grace toward each other. And they also love it when parents support each other's decisions on matters, and don’t let the little ones divide the house. These things are foundational to the well-being of children from a very early age and remain important.

Promoting Stability in Family Environments

Conversely, children are therefore troubled and become greatly upset when their parents are not kind to each other, not demonstrative, and not loving. And for this reason, I would suggest parents keep the vast majority of their differences out of sight and sound from the kids. Yes, they can see you differ and then work things out – that has merit in and of itself and lets the children see that parents must overcome their differences in a loving way too – but if you are a couple that has a tendency to fight verbally and often, love your little ones enough to keep their eyes and ears from the uproar. Wait until they are not home. And then work it out in their absence. There are some parents who cannot overcome their need to rip into their spouse in front of the kids, or to get louder and louder in an argument knowing full well that the children can hear them. There are even parents who will drag their children into the warfare.

Don’t do it – in the name of love for God and your children, don’t do it. Put those little ones needs ahead of your own. It can be difficult, but it will lend so much to their sense of stability and well-being. I know this from my own sad experience.

Impact of Parental Conflict

When I was young my parents fought almost daily – and it would be a miracle if I did not wake up to them both screaming over some odd thing or another. My parents were extremely young when they got married and so they learned to relate to each other through verbal abuse and anger. This had some very bad repercussions on the children down the road – but I don’t blame them – they tried their best and did what the could do all things considered. But I know the inner turmoil caused by parents fighting in front of the kids – and that includes giving one another the silent treatment. This is where being Christian ought to help as the fruit of the Spirit will work with you to overcome your fleshly drives.

The Second General Principle (that goes hand in hand with the first) and that is

Children love and thrive in very stable environments. They do very well with ritual – which is why so many children really appreciate the stability religion offers them. Much of this stability from ritual comes through well-established family traditions.

Importance of Family Traditions

This is why Mormon families can be so strong is because they operate in and through repeated daily, weekly, monthly traditions. Daily the family will study scripture together and will pray together. Sunday is for church attendance. Monday is for what they call family home evening. Tuesday is for activity night for the teens. Friday is date night for parents. Saturday is for dances for the youth. Once a month is temple night. Twice a year is general conference. And on and on and on. These things are wonderful in raising children up and helping them feel secure and stable, but they do NOT make them Christian nor do they ensure that it will produce normal adults. But when it comes to raising kids, all that ritual works pretty well.

The good thing is you don’t have to be a Mormon (or part of some other religious establishment) to establish your own traditions in your family – and once they get rolling the kids learn to expect and even rely upon them to happen. From my perspective “dinner time”, “bath time” and “bed time” are important rituals for children – with each of them affording the children time with their parents which is opportune for teaching moments (as I mentioned last week). Morning breakfast is also a wonderful time. As the family gets a little older, the traditions start to orbit around the activities and the lifestyles of the kids.

The good thing about these traditions is that the kids can also incorporate their friends into them when appropriate and this helps the children feel some inner pride in what their family is all about. In our family, we had a number of established traditions that were not religiously held but were more often than not happening in our weekly lives. Many of you I’m sure have the same things going on in your families too. When the girls were younger our traditions included story-telling, something called Mean Dog Nice Dog, lots of swimming – ocean and pool, lots of beach going,

Family Traditions and Rules

Lots of walking at night on the pier, many trips to Dairy Queen, attending every school and sport event humanly possible, a number of TV show traditions (Full House, the X Files, and American Funniest Home Videos are some I can remember) and always being willing to drive them (and their friends) whenever possible to wherever possible.

Our family was also huge on exploring all kinds of music together, all sorts of films, and going out to eat often (nothing huge – usually some form of Mexican) as the table was key to family unity for us.

Guidelines and Boundaries

Other traditions included things our family did not do ever. They were as constant as the things we would do. In other words, in my estimation, it is just as important for family stability to establish some rules that are adamantly maintained – I’ll explain why in a minute.

These never things include that:

• Mary and I never drank alcohol nor had alcohol in the house as we believed that “the licence of the parents becomes the liberty of the children.”
• We did not socialize with other parents very often, we did not go to parent parties when the kids were having their own get togethers. We would support the kids completely but did not join the parent’s need to continue to act like they are still in high school.

Additional Family Rules

• We were adamantly against certain adult cartoon shows to be viewed (The Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead). My reasoning was there were too many other great things in this world to fill their minds with than that junk. Additionally, we forbade them from watching music videos, as I maintained that they were too powerful of a medium for their minds to know how to interpret them. I’m sure they went to their friends’ house and broke the rule but that’s not the point.
• The only other mandated family tradition we repeatedly discussed were no tattoos – which I even abided by until the girls were older.
• And while we encouraged all the arts we tried to instill in them to “love the music” but not to “become the music,” as so many people do.
• We also strongly encouraged them to be respectful and loving to family and friends.

Those were our overall house rules. Like them or not but they were important to us in helping keep these girls from the world.

Flexible Parenting Approaches

HOWEVER . . .

What we did not enforce, emphasize or demand might surprise you. For instance, we let them eat what they wanted, when they wanted, to wear what they wanted, to stay up as late as they wanted, read any book they wanted, watch any well-crafted movie that they wanted – so long as it was not above their ability to manage the content. We did not have curfews – just asked them when they would be home and if they said not until the next day we supported them.

We did not refuse to let them go to parties of any kind if they wanted to go. We did not tell them not to drink at parties, we told them to make good choices and trusted that they would.

Support and Unconditional Love

When it came to school if they wanted to go we let them – honestly, that was our approach – and guess what? They almost always wanted to go. Sometimes they would get stressed over a class or an assignment or test and when they came to me and I’d say: “Fagettabout it. There’s far more important things in the world. Take the day off.” This would ease their stress and then they would generally go to Mary who would support them by helping them prepare – if they wanted.

Also, and this was important, if there was EVER a situation WITH anyone who threatened, shamed, mocked, teased, or EMBARRASSED our girls we were on it – I was on it – addressing the situation straight up. In this, they knew that they could always look to us for back-up – and backup was required a time or two with some really stupid adults – you know, the kind who feel they have to make comments to kids about their appearance or performance in a sport.

And if there was EVER a time when they failed, broke the rules, messed up, sinned or fell short, we would try to show them uncritical, unconditional LOVE like God shows us the same.

Our daughters did not grow up perfect – especially, as I’ve said, our oldest who

Raising Daughters: Insights and Observations

My approach to raising daughters involved more rules and demands than others, and although I feel bad about it, this blend of liberty with non-negotiables seemed to work with my daughters. It was unnerving for their friends to learn that our girls didn't have a curfew or mandatory school days but were forbidden from watching MTV.

I want to offer some insights that might seem old school. These are meant to help parents with daughters navigate their young lives. I've read books like "Reviving Ophelia" and "Return to Modesty" and observed females for a long time.

The first suggestion is for parents not to force their daughters, especially socially active ones, to babysit siblings. Many young women feel used and might escape these demands prematurely. Mary and I believed it was our responsibility to care for our children. Some girls love caring for siblings, but making them stay home while friends have fun is a mistake.

Avoiding Forced Activities and Jobs

I would also avoid pushing daughters into unwanted sports or jobs. This might sound sexist, but there's a link between girls working to make ends meet and promiscuous relations, especially in certain industries. It's better for girls to learn skills or get introduced to professions that support future goals rather than working minimum wage jobs.

In contrast, putting boys to work in manual labor seems valuable during their rebellious teens. Despite the world claiming no gender differences, I believe there are differences that should be reflected in how we raise them.

Importance of Socialization and Enjoyment

Overall, it's important for parents to allow children to engage with socialization, school, and family traditions, embracing art, films, and reading while they can. Life will eventually require them to work hard.

I will pause here for tonight and next week discuss what to do when a child confesses they have a problem, are in trouble, or are sexually active. Please leave comments below as they help everyone, and we'll cover them tomorrow night on the LIVE HEART OF THE MATTER FOLLOW-UP SHOW!