If you have ever posted a comment and it never showed up, please email me at sgtswife03@yahoo.com and let me know. My blog dashboard does this weird thing when I go to my personal page. Sometimes it will say "you have 2 comments waiting to be moderated" and then I will click on it and it will say " you have no comments awaiting moderation". Then its gone. Then sometime later, like when I write the next post, it will say "you have one comment waiting to be moderated" then I click and it will say again that I have none. So I do not know if this is a glitch or something that is "eating" my comments from friends and family. I have had one person so far tell me they have commented and nothing ever happened. So I am curious to see if there's more, because I have never ever rejected a comment. So let me know will ya!
Viewing children as plants.
About a year and a half ago, I came across an article in HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association) magazine. I was fairly new to homeschooling but knew in my heart that at the core of my homeschooling decision was to protect my kids. Although I did not believe that all children, in all schools were in danger(emotionally, physically)but I knew that this was something I felt greatly about for my own children. I knew people were thinking I was "sheltering" my kids. I knew the argument in the secular world for keeping kids in school. I even knew the argument from the Christian world for keeping kids in school. Either way, I hated the thought of people accusing me of that dreaded word......SHELTERING. When you add to it the fact we let our children watch little to no TV, well we were just plain weird.
Then I read the article. I wish so badly I had the magazine still, for I know that the Author worded it much better than I ever could. But none the less I will try.
Is sheltering BAD? What does sheltering mean? What are we sheltering them from?
To answer some of the questions the Author compared children to garden plants. Let's say you want to grow your very own fruits, vegetables, and beautiful flowers. Unlike me when I first started gardening, you probably know the basics of what to do. But we are going to look at a type of gardening that gives plants THE BEST chance of survival and fruit bearing. Of course we all know that we can hoe up a piece of ground, scatter some seed and hope for the best. After about 80 percent or more of those seeds are dead, you may have a plant or two pop up and possibly thrive.....possibly. But as I said, lets look at gardening with the plants in mind, not ease.
You start some time towards the end of winter with dirt, seeds, and little containers in which to grow them in. You plant them indoors or preferably in a greenhouse, where they will be safe from the freezing temperatures that would quickly destroy the young plant. You also keep them indoors for a time to better their odds of surviving the seed loving birds. You then watch the weather, and as it seems to warm up just a bit, you take the plants and give them some time outside. Not too much time, but just enough to strengthen them a bit, and help them get used to a harsher climate. Then they are brought back indoors and away from the long cold night. Do this again, and again. Gradually you leave them for longer and longer periods until they are ready to be planted. Even then however, you check the soil for correct chemical balance and make sure its soft and and ready. You again check the weather to be sure you are not in for an overly rainy week, which could drown out your precious plants. Then make sure the place you plant it has direct sunlight and is hopefully free of pests and pets that could make a snack out of it. After all that, the work has now only just begun. There is watering, weeding, and trimming the plant back to be sure that all the life giving nutrients are going to the fruit and not just a bunch of extra leaves. As it grows stronger, and larger it begins to bear fruit in its season. It is then that you have the great pleasure of just "checking in on it" from time to time. You stop by just to make sure no weed, bug, or disease is killing it, but mostly just to grab some luscious fruit or nutritious veggie. You reap the rewards of all your labor, care, and concern.
Sooo, lets now look at sheltering children in light of what we know about plants. Are children completely ready for what happens and is taught in "modern schools"? Or taught on TV or in other forms of modern media?
The age a child starts school completely varies country to country. In our country the average age to start school is 5. However, the average child is in enrolled in preschool by the age of 3. So if we think briefly about these "plants" (children) do we honestly feel they are strengthened, prepared, and ready for 8 hours of all that school can be? School can be fun, and a learning experience. HOWEVER school for a lot of children can also be a scary and confusing place. I will go into some of the vast differences between old school houses and our modern government schools later, but for now, I really want to look at the point of sheltering.
Just as the gardener took special care of her plant to see it to its full potential, so we as parents are called to do the same. I believe we have forgotten what it means to "raise" children. We say we are raising our children, but truly, are we? The very definition of Raise is to Grow, Cultivate, to bring to maturity.
Who are they with the majority of the day? Who are they learning from? What are they watching?
I have to say, that 3, 4, and 5 year olds are not mature. They are not grown. They are not ready to be gone eight hours a day without showing the scars of it. Let's leave homeschooling aside and look at all kids whether they be homeschooled, private schooled or public.
* Are we taking into consideration, what they are doing eight hours of the day?
* Are they with friends who consistently tempt them to do wrong? (I say consistently because all kids have the potential to do wrong and lead others to do the same)
* Do they watch TV or music videos that shows violence and sexuality?
* Are we protecting them from having to grow up too early.
I could go on and on with the questions I must ask myself and I believe all parents should ask. But it boils down to, how am I helping them "turn from evil and do good"? What am I teaching them with the time I have with them? Am I helping them "think on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute" as the bible commands in Philippians 4:8? How am I doing this? WHEN am I doing this. Parenting is action. Parenting is proactive. And often, parenting means sheltering and protecting your little plants.
When to stop sheltering?
I honestly cannot say an age. It is when that child has been taught and shown all we can teach them for life and godliness. When they can be trusted to make good decisions. I truly think it's odd that we sometimes think children are suddenly adults when they turn 18. Even in completely "uncultured" or "barbaric" (as they are sometimes falsely called) cultures the children have a coming of age time and it usually revolves around a time in a young man or young woman's life when they are able to accomplish something. Able to climb a mountain, able to run a farm, able to hunt and kill and animal, able to take a wife and care for her. I may not agree with all those models as a way to tell of a child's maturity, but I have to say its a much better model then what we have in America. We say, sit through some of the most dumbed down curriculum in the world for twelve years, party it up, go to FIVE dances a year, don't hold down a job, and now that your 18, your a fully matured adult, ready for life.
When I think of the plant scenario, I no longer see sheltering as a bad thing. It is thrown around as such a dirty bad word. Like if you shelter your children you somehow make then unprepared, when in fact the opposite is true. We know that children who have not come to maturity and are not yet grown, need guidance...hourly guidance. They need our wisdom, our discipline, our boundaries. But the position of "raising" and teaching our children, has been taken out of our hands. And we let it. We are told, children need to make their own choices when it comes to style, music, shows, and friends. We are told we cannot possible educate our children(even though most American parents have more education by the time their children are born than does the average person in this world).
I say to all of this.....NO. Simply NO. We can raise our children, we can educate our children. We can choose for them what is good and bad in eating, and dress, and music and friends. We not only can, but it is OUR JOB. We only have a few short years in their life to be influential. They will soon be on their own making their own decisions, as they well should. But wouldn't it be a waste if we let them have that total freedom way too soon? When they are not yet prepared for it? Let's take those years and make the best of them. Protect them while you can, for it will not last long at all in the scheme of life.
In the meantime...
They also need to be taught. Taught right and wrong. Taught what God says about things. Taught that not all "facts" presented in Science class are facts. Taught how to treat other children, their parents, their neighbors, and the elderly. They need to be taught to question the society in which it lives to see if it lines up with they know to be true and good.
Children also need discipline. Lots of it. They need daily, sometimes minute by minute instruction on how not to be selfish, or hurtful, and bitter, how not to steal, bite, scream, slap, or spit (or is that just my kids ;)
This is all part of the raising process. The balance of protecting the plants from the harsh environment while they are yet young and unable to handle it, and then also preparing them for the time in which they will have to go it alone without parents. The two go hand in hand.
We cannot discipline only but not shelter. I know a lot of people who had rules on "not having sex before marriage" but were allowed access to Internet and became sex addicts through pornography. Or had unlimited dates with boyfriends and were unable to turn away from such freedom and temptation. We can tell children not to "be this or that", or "DO this or that", but if we do not provide an environment that is most conducive for that outcome, then we truly are not helping them at all.
However if all we ever do is shelter, and never prepare them for their freedom to come then we have also failed. If we do not discuss sexuality in some child and age appropriate form at some point, the world will. And the worlds answers will sound a whole lot better than no answer at all. The same goes for drugs, assumptions in the Theory of Evolution, male and female roles, appropriate dress, marriage, children, and doctrine.
To close I say this. Sheltering is now no longer an insult to me, but a blessing, knowing I am doing my job to "raise", protect, teach, and guide the children that have been entrusted to me.
So are you Sheltering your kids?
Whats new here.
OK here are some stuff on my mental "thought list"
*Husband is being deployed to Iraq AGAIN!
*Crap, where should I live when he leaves?
*How many trips can I squeeze in for California in one year?
*Oh wow, what if I get pregnant before he leaves?
*What if I DON'T get pregnant before he leaves?
*What about the adoption process?
also less dramatic stuff like....
*Do I really like the bangs I just got cut?
*How should I celebrate my husbands graduation form college next month?
*Should I really sign back up to flylady just to learn to clean my kitchen?
So there you have it. This is my life lately. Filled with thoughts, thoughts, and wouldn't you know it....MORE THOUGHTS!
God has been so good to me lately though. Every time I want to loose it, God pulls me through. I literally feel Him, like I would feel a hand, grip me and pull me out. Out of my tantrums, my pity, my anger,my tears, my pity, my fear, my worry, my....did I mention pity??
Just when I think that I cannot think anymore, He fills me with His peace and I get almost giddy with Joy. He did it to me this morning again and it reminds me just how cool I think God is.
Anyhow, as I am sure you have caught, Jake is probably going to Iraq in January. I know it may seem like a HUGE relief that it is so far away (last time we only got 28 days notice) but it poses it's own problems knowing this far in advance. There is planning and worrying, and that big looming clock that hangs over you. I'm just sayin.
I am going to try my best not to complain, gripe, whine, or do any of those other annoying things I tend to do when things don't go my way. But there are no guarantees :)
And yes, we will continue on the previous series soon. Take care and have a great night!
comments section
Hello beautiful people! Just wanted to let you know something really quick about the layout of my blog. MOST blogs have a comment button on the bottom of their post. My blog however, has the "comment" button on the top right hand side of my post directly under my title....do you see it? Anyhow, I have had some family ask who were confused, and some sweet friends of mine were leaving comments in posts which I believed belonged to the post above it. Just something I thought I would point out. So if you would like to leave a comment, just click on the comment button on the upper right side of the post directly below the title. :)
Have a super blessed day!
p.s. I am torn between two posts. I want to continue my "modesty" posts, which I am so passionate about. However we have had some changes in my home lately, so I think I may post about that once. Then I will get back in to the post I promised about, "Kids are....plants".
Modesty and ....Beyonce?
I wanted to write about this video, but decided I would not, given how angry and sad I would get. I probably would not make very much sense in my ramblings of "where this world has gone wrong". A woman named Vicki Courtney did blog about it however and I am sending you there to read more about this horrific video (if you have not seen the video, I feel I cannot post it, but I originally saw it on CNN). Please visit this blog to read about it and to discover YET another reason, why we need to draw the line somewhere in MODESTY.
Modesty and our boys.
OK this post is MUCHO delayed. I am so sorry for that. For one, I have had a lot going on, for two (for two?? that makes no sense, but get used to that on this blog)I have been enjoying getting back into the swing of being very productive in my home. I go in cycles of having a clean organized home with a homeschooing schedule to boot, and rotate that with lack of motivation and total chaos. Anyone else have that problem? Just bein' real.
Anyhow....
Boys. Boys. Boys. Gotta love them, but there are so many needs there. Raising them through the teenage years I am sure will come with ten times the issues I am going to address here. For the time being however, my little guy is only six, so I will speak of what I know from him and from watching others.
This series will continue on in future posts because I am certain I will not fit it all in tonight. But to give you an idea of some things to come, here are two major topics that will be discussed throughout the next few days (or weeks, depending on my life, or lack there of:)
*How to help boys have pure eyes in a visually lust saturated world
*What role do we as mothers play, in our son's view on marriage, dating, and girls in general?
First lets tackle the immodesty all around us. Now sometimes when I say "immodesty" we will tend to think of some scabby infectious disease that we want to stay away from. However, as we dug deeper into it with the "Girls and modesty" posts, we can easily realize two things about Modesty....
1~ Most of have struggled (and do still struggle) with truly being modest whether we are aware of it or not
2~ Being unloving towards immodest people does not bring them to repentance. God's heart, His word, and a good friends loving advice will though.
So with this in mind, we start in the home.
Mom's and our modesty
To be completely honest, my brother was nine years older than me and gone most of my life. So it was primarily my mom, my sister, and me in the house. With three girls around each other so often, modesty was NOT practiced. Nor do I think it was a big deal that it wasn't. We often changed in front of one another, showered together if the hot water was to run out, and even went to the bathroom while the other was also in the bathroom doing hair. I know I know, wayyyyyy too much info there. But I said it was going to get honest.
Needless to say, as I became a mom and had a girl first, I wasn't all that concerned about her seeing my nakedness. I often changed in front of my little one and showered with her on days when we were in a big hurry. But then I had my boy.
As a young baby and toddler, I still thought very little about modesty with him. I barely covered more with him than I did with my daughter. As he got older however (around 5) I began to teach him about the immodesty we saw on TV. At that time we had TV in our home and lots of it. I was just opening my eyes to all the content it was bringing into our home, but wasn't quite ready to let it go. So one day something was on and I was having a conversation with my daughter about a commercial that played. We were discussing that it was not proper to dress like the girls on screen because God honors our bodies, and when we dress like that, we do NOT. I noticed my little guy was listening. To make a very long story short, I started to include him in on those conversations I was having with his big sister.
We started using a code word that we "stole" from a Duggars episode. The word was "Nike". Anytime we saw something that was too explicit for my little guys eyes, his sister or I would say "Nike" and he was to look at his shoes so he could avoid seeing it, until it was out of our line of vision. Well one day I got out of bed to make him breakfast and he basically looked me over and said "Mom, your dressed Nike". I knew then two things..
1~That boy caught on quicker than I thought.
2~I better find myself some new pajamas.
It really got me thinking about the representation that even myself and his sister set. For if I was truly passionate about what my son was forced to see, then certainly I wanted to pave the way in my own home, with myself and my daughter.
So we started in the home. We threw out the T.V.'s.....well most of them. We kept one for movie watching. But even that was not often used. But no more cable, no more pointless shows, no more violent, immodest, corrupt commercials were going to invade the eyes of my children, when I had the choice. We can complain about TV and Hollywood all day long in our Christian circles but we must remember, they are INVITED GUESTS into most Christian homes. TV does not force itself in and turn itself on. Hollywood is not in business because it is unpopular.
We also changed some of the clothes myself and my daughter had in our closets, and employed the NIKE code word, when at all necessary.
More on the code word.
Well the word "Nike" has become more than a word in our house. It has taken on the meaning of Psalm 101:3a "I will set NO vile thing before my eyes..." and also Proverbs 4:14-15 "Do not enter the path of the wicked And do not proceed in the way of evil men. Avoid it, do not pass by it; Turn away from it and pass on."
There is such wisdom in simply turning AWAY from sin and temptation. Not looking, glaring, and thinking upon it. Especially when we are young. For how do we expect to train ourselves to do something in adulthood that was NEVER practiced from youth?
We have only been using the word "Nike" for a little over a year now, but it has been miraculous in the changes it has made. We went from a family who paid little mind to what was around (so desensitized to it because of our own exposure to it at a young age) to seeing things turly for what they are. My son will now look down without any reminding or prompting. The only time we have to use the word is so that he will not get caught off guard. For instance when we are in the grocery store in the checkout line, my son knows the magazines on the racks are very "Nike" so he looks down. I have no need to say "don't look at those! those are half dressed women!" (not that I would say it that way anyhow). If we walk through target or the mall, and I am busy doing something and I glance over and see his head down I look around and sure enough, we are passing Victoria's Secret or the underwear aisle in a store. He makes me so proud that at age six, he still has not a clue, all that those images will do to him one day when his hormones and interests change. But all he knows now is that it does not honor His God therefore, he wants no part in it. How cool is that? (and by the way, if you think he looks away because he is afraid of being punished if he is caught looking, that is not true. We have NEVER punished for not looking away. We simply explained the meaning of the term, why we are using it, what God says about it, and that was it. With the exception of the first couple of months, he has always looked away when the word was said)
Now, one day when he is older, the temptation to stare and no longer turn away will be much stronger. He will have to fight that battle without me, but I will have at least stated the Truth of what it is (a trap to sin), and how to escape (to turn away). I will have prepared him for a battle. We cannot send our sons out unprepared for battle and expect victory. That is why God gave them to us as small helpless babes......to train them.
Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go,and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Deuteronomy 6:7
You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up.
I love those verses. Every time I am tired and want to give up, they give me hope. But it is work. It will always be work. And we may not always see the fruit of it. But it is commanded none the less. We MUST train our children.
OK my arms hurt, I am done for the night.
Next post will be on the topic of "kids are......plants??"
You'll see. It ties in, I swear.
coming soon.
coming soon to a theater near you.....
okay, for real, my next post will be about modesty, and how it effects boys. What can we do, when it is EVERYWHERE?
