Parenting Older Children

They love candy as much as the next girl!

I ran into a friend whose children had been sneaking around and growing up, just like mine had. One of us commented that parenting older children is a lot different than younger.

The older they get, the harder it seems sometimes. Their problems matter, they can get into trouble that matters, their decisions matter and they matter longer.

She said, "it's no longer easy to just steer them away from the candy aisle." I agreed.

But we aren't steering them away from the world. We are trying to teach them to navigate through, with a biblical worldview.

I am convinced that guiding the "big kids" through life has to begin when they're small. I know the days of avoiding the candy aisle, I've done it too. But if all of our parenting is about "avoiding" then we have missed some important lessons.

You cannot avoid for the rest of their lives. Children must learn to deal with the world and their own sinful hearts at a young age, while you are with them. They have to know that there is a whole world filled with candy, but they cannot always have it when they want it. If a two year old doesn't learn this lesson, she will have a hard time for the rest of her life. As they grow the temptations are endless, some things may not be bad in moderation (like candy,) and some things that should be forbidden completely (drugs, premarital sex.)

So, my thinking is, with my small children, avoid the candy aisle sometimes. Sometimes go down it and say no, completely no, and don't give in. Then, every once in a while say sure to a request. Then teach them, as you go, that there will be some things in their lives that they are never to look at or consider.

I know parents who are "avoiding" situations right now that don't make sense to me. Their children haven't learned to turn their heads or close heir eyes to certain sins. So, at great inconvenience to their family and others, they "avoid" situations that could be real learning tools.

By no means am I suggesting, laying sin in front of a child and then punishing them for it. That's entrapment and just plain mean.

Guiding children through the normal course of life will give plenty of teachable opportunities to help you teach them how to learn self-control over their own bodies. In the end, there are no guarantees that they still will not fall into heinous sin, but they need to start learning how to turn away from it early.