Children's Choices and Parent's Responses

Like most people, I watched a lot of the coverage of the bombings in Boston when I wasn't at work.  I had friends running in the marathon and thankfully they were ok. I felt the same sadness others felt over the ones who died and were injured. I was encouraged by the outpouring of support by people there who helped displaced runners and all the events and things going on around the country that I have even been able to partake in. Shortly after the shock of what happened wore off I got to thinking about our view of ourselves, other and our children, as what was reflected in the media coverage brought to mind many instances of denial to draw from. I'm mostly referring to the comment from the suspect's parents and friends.

Why is it that we're often shocked that someone we know can do such terrible things?

Sure, there are times when people sense something doesn't feel right about a certain person, but there are so many times when family and friends refuse to believe the suspect could do such a thing. I can only speculate as to reasons why based on what I think I might feel in a similar situation. We don't like to feel deceived. To think that people can fool us hurts our pride. We would rather believe in a person's goodness then face the fact that seemingly good people can do bad things. Conservative Christians believe that we all have sin in us and are capable of hurting ourselves and others because the Bible says that we are prone to sin. Yet there are times when even we choose to believe the best about people instead of seeing reality. As a parent, I can see this belief being stronger when viewing my kids. We certainly know children are not saints. Yet we tend to view them as "not too bad." This view is actually dangerous, because it prevents us from seeing the potential for serious problems that certain current behaviors or words can lead to.

I watched interviews with some of the suspect's family and friends where they expressed denial that their family and friends could do such a harmful thing. There are many examples I've seen and heard of parents not believing their children could engage in criminal acts. This saddens me, because our job as parents is to help our kids grow up and be functioning members of society. Our job as Christians goes farther - we are to help our children recognize their struggle with sin and learn to turn to God for help. If we turn a blind eye and pretend our children don't have any serious struggles then we could be headed for a rude awakening in the future.

My hope as a parent is that I will see my children's faults and struggles far enough in advance to be able to work with them to overcome these struggles. I know that looking for these struggles doesn't guarantee their freedom from them as I recognize areas where I still struggle. Helping children learn the  importance of developing methods and skills to combat struggles is one of the best things parents can do for their children. At the same time we must keep in mind that in the future our time of regular instruction in their lives will be over and we will be on the outside watching our children live their lives. We can only hope the lessons we taught them will prepared them with tools to prevent them from hurting others or partaking in criminal acts. In the end we know must entrust them to God to lead them down the right path. I already feel nervousness at not being able to keep my children from pain caused by others or that they bring on themselves!  Yet I realize that even the best parents have children that make mistakes. We need to keep in mind that our children's actions don't necessarily reflect bad on our parenting of them. I think that plays some into people's denials of their children's capability to steal or kill and so on. It can be tempting to think that a child's actions are the parents fault. Yet James says each person sins when enticed by their own lusts and desires. We can't make other people do bad things and we certainly can't always prevent them from doing bad things either. All we can do is try to help them understand the what and why of what's going on, what should change and how they can find the help they need.

It's my hope that my children don't turn away from God and don't participate in serious crimes. Yet I hope my eyes are always open to signs that can alert me to the need of having a conversation with my kids about a particular issue. I don't want to be a parent in denial and potentially allow my children to continue farther down a path of poor choices that can make it harder for them to turn away from those choices later! My hope is to be proactive and talk with my children at the first sign of something concerning so they have more of a chance of fleeing from bad choices.


Soon I hope to come back and write again. We've had a lot of change going on that has prevented me from being able to write more frequently.