Here is a very helpful article for parents. It has a good perspective on helping children make healthy emotional adjustments in today’s world.
Reasons Today’s Kids Are Bored, Entitled, Impatient with Few Real Friends
Tag: raising children
My wife found this excellent article with five very wise observations and parenting tips for families in today’s world. All of the five are excellent. I recommend it.
http://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/kids/5-ways-you-are-ruining-your-child-s-life.html
The first one about the effect of the priority of amusements for children today is also a reflection of how families think about getting through the moment rather than thinking about the long-term effect of what is happening. This is also the case with the lack of putting priority on practicing our faith and with not putting priority on time for our marriages. Perhaps it is up to the older generation who have more time perspective to remind in tactful ways of the long-term view. But taking the longer-term perspective also needs to become more of a cultural habit of our society than it currently is whether the issue is family finances, raising of children, considering divorce, or professional growth.
Research has repeatedly shown that children of same sex relationships are at much greater risk in so many ways. Here is one of the more recent and largest studies to come up with that result. As a corollary, helping Mom and Dad keep together and do well as a couple needs to be one of the goals of the church’s ministry. If heterosexual marriage were doing better as an institution,there would be much less gender confusion in our culture.
“A new study published in the February 2015 issue of the British Journal of Education, Society, and Behavioural Science appears to be the largest yet on the matter of same-sex households and children’s emotional outcomes. It analyzed 512 children of same-sex parents, drawn from a pool of over 207,000 respondents who participated in the (US) National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) at some point between 1997 and 2013.
Results reveal that, on eight out of twelve psychometric measures, the risk of clinical emotional problems, developmental problems, or use of mental health treatment services is nearly double among those with same-sex parents when contrasted with children of opposite-sex parents. The estimate of serious child emotional problems in children with same-sex parents is 17 percent, compared with 7 percent among opposite-sex parents, after adjusting for age, race, gender, and parent’s education and income. Rates of ADHD were higher as well—15.5 compared to 7.1 percent. The same is true for learning disabilities: 14.1 vs. 8 percent.” from http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/02/14417/
Many years ago JoAnne and I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Tim Elmore who is being interviewed for this article. He makes excellent points about how many parents are trying to protect their children or do what is easy for themselves but in the process are not doing what is strongest for their children’s growth in leadership. It is so important for parents to take the long term perspective.
Here’s an interesting and excellent post by another pastor encouraging parents to be proactive in the spiritual training of their children. It will make one think.
http://www.nathanrouse.org/2013/12/04/the-crime-happening-in-your-church/