After our eldest daughter’s relatively sheltered elementary school life, my husband and I decided it was time for the “Great Equipping.” Our philosophy throughout her first decade of life had been focused on filtering out damaging ideas about worldview, gender, sex, etc. We strove to saturate her in truth and beauty during the phase wherein kids unquestioningly absorb everything they see and hear.
We limited her exposure to distorted depictions of sex, violence, and competing worldviews whether from media or agenda-driven adults. We encouraged scripture memorization, modeled imperfect-but-healthy relationships, and emphasized the purpose and inherent goodness of sex within marriage. But the time for sheltering was at an end because she was about to enter the ultimate worldview battleground — a woke Seattle public school.
The Great Equipping is the time in a child’s development when critical thinking begins, accompanied by questions like, “How do we know that’s true?” “But what if you’re wrong?” It’s easy for children to catch their parents off guard when they begin challenging core theological concepts that, only a month before, they were happily regurgitating. But fear not, these questions are an indication your kid is ready for more. They are ready to be experts.
We tell every one of our kids upon entering middle school, “We want you to know more about controversial topics than all your friends.” Yes, the Great Equipping means talking about difficult and uncomfortable subjects with our kids way before we’d like to.
But we really don’t have a choice, because the world is messaging to our kids nonstop about sex and transgenderism and every other topic that may make us squeamish. To the world, our discomfort is irrelevant. Having conversations with our kids about abortion or pornography may be discomforting, but choosing not to have them doesn’t protect our kids. It dooms them to leftist assimilation.
Uncomfortable as it is, the goal of parenting is not to keep kids safe or happy. The goal is training.
1. You Are the Primary Educators
2. Include Your Kids in What You’re Already Doing
3. Balance Protection and Exposure
4. Stay Connected
. . .
Have my husband and I achieved the right balance of modeling and exposing, sheltering and training? I hope so. But we are only at the virtual half-time in this parenting game. I’ll tell you what the scoreboard says in another decade when the game is over.
What I can say is that my kids can hold their own. They can spot a lie when they hear one. They know that answers to the hardest questions do exist, even if they don’t yet know what those answers are. They know their parents are in the fight with them. And they know that while they may lose friends if they speak up, they earn the respect of their friends who remain.
4 Ways To Help Your Kids Fight Assimilation Into Cultural Leftism
KATY FAUST: CHILDREN, MARRIAGE, AND DIVORCE