A couple of weekends ago I took my oldest son away, so that he and I could complete the Passport 2 Purity curriculum. Almost two years ago, Kathy purchased the CDs and workbooks, but they gathered dust on a shelf in our mud room, waiting on my convenience.

I wish I hadn’t waited so long. At 14, my son is mature and knowledgeable, but the Passport 2 Purity materials were designed for a younger, less mature audience. Even worse, in the past year Joshua has really begun to exercise a greater level of sovereignty in his life, and is becoming more and more reluctant to talk about certain subjects. I understand it is a natural (and possibly unavoidable) process, but it still makes me sad to see it happen, and it made for some awkward silences during the time that we had.

Still, we did have some good discussions.

We had a great weekend. As recommended by authors Dennis and Barbara Rainey, we organized the time around a recreational event, which I wrote about in an earlier post, Travels with Faramir. We completed all five of the sessions, with time to spare for questions and general discussion.

… and Faramir didn’t even push me in the lake!

The choice of theme verse seemed a bit unrelated to the study. On reflection, though, it provides a common thread that permeates the discussion in a very satisfying way. Christ should be the head of every aspect of your life - relationships, purity, studies, and so on.

And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Colossians 1:18

I’m not going to say a lot about the content of the Passport 2 Purity sessions, since there is some element of surprise to it, and I don’t want to ruin the event for any of my younger readers and their parents. Suffice it to say, that the material is an excellent way for a parent to begin to discuss the topics of sexuality, purity and dating relationships with a child on the brink of their transition to adulthood.

Naturally, we had technical difficulties, and had to scramble for a backup CD player.

One of the things I really liked about the weekend course is that it covers the basics without being too heavy-handed. The tone is light and informative, and Rainey repeatedly circles back around to emphasizing the importance of the child-parent relationship.

Perhaps the most surprising part of the material was the fourth session, in which the Raineys talk about purity. He quickly gets your attention: “I’m not going to tell you that the standard for Christians before marriage, is virginity.” Instead, he teaches that the Biblical notion of purity extends well beyond that ‘line in the sand’ which so many well-intentioned folks have drawn. Using the metaphor of a cliff-edge, Rainey walks both parent and child through an exercise of arranging various levels of physical contact in order, from ‘least dangerous’ to ‘most dangerous’. He talks about the tendency to progress through levels of physical intimacy, as a relationship extends in duration. “Where will you draw the line?” he challenges. “How much of your purity will you give away before your wedding day?”

These are sobering questions. Many parents of my generation are in the unenviable position of having to tell their children: “Don’t do what I did.”

Were we ever that young?

Parents today cannot assume that their children will remain pure by default. Our culture bombards children with sexual innuendo and explicit images, through TV, movies, magazines and the internet. As one of my friends recently joked, a parent dare not assume that his children are innocents in this area:

Dad: Well, son, now that you’re a freshman in high school; it’s time that we had a talk about sex.
Son: Sure, Dad. What do you want to know?

Rainey works hard to bring the listener (both adult and child) to the understanding that a decision about purity must be made in advance, in order to hold to any kind of a moral standard. He warns that if you wait to decide what you will do when you are already in a relationship, you are practically guaranteeing that you will bow the knee to temptation.

I wish my parents had walked me through a curriculum of this nature, while I was still in their home. Although Kathy and I stood at the altar as virgins on our wedding day, there are lines of intimacy that we crossed, before we were married, which I regret.

Ultimately, an unmarried young man may find it helpful to think of himself as guarding his own purity and that of anyone he dates, in trust for their future spouses. I think this is a teaching that would have resonated with me, as a man who highly values honor and integrity. I think young Christian men are entirely capable of restraining their lusts, especially if they see themselves as honor-bound to guard and preserve the purity of the young lady they accompany. For some reason, this concept never took root in my mind, though it seems blindingly obvious, in hindsight.

The course included lots of interesting secret projects

Parents with eleven- or twelve-year-old children should rush out and purchase the Passport 2 Purity package, and start making plans to get away with your son our daughter for a weekend as soon as you are able. I strongly recommend this curriculum to your immediate attention. Kathy and Rachel are already scheming about their weekend away together.

Tim

It can be rather difficult (at least over the long haul) to be a parent to five children. In spite of their shared genetic and environmental heritage, each of my children has been very stubborn about asserting their individuality. Just when I find a parenting technique that ‘works’ with one child, along comes another, totally different. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Fortunately, I’m blessed with a wife who assiduously devours parenting resources of all kinds. She reads books about child-rearing. She listens to parenting CDs and watches parenting DVDs. She reads magazine articles about child psychology. She even (gasp!) reads blogs about training and nurturing our offspring. Then she likes to bounce the various philosophies off me.

“I read the neatest parenting blog today,” she’ll enthuse. “They have some really good ideas … I’d like to talk with you about it some time this evening.”

“Um, OK … great!” I temporize. Rapidly, I switch into Supportive Homeschool Dad™ mode, which requires a cape, but fortunately, no spandex tights. (My apologies to those who are wincing at the image conjured up by my use of the phrase, ’spandex tights’.) Mentally, I brace myself, because it usually takes a couple of hours to wring the maximum benefit out of each new discovery. As a homeschooling mother of five, Kathy is pretty immersed in parenting, and she takes it very seriously (in a fun way, of course).

One interesting concept we’ve encountered along the way, is the idea of ‘tomato staking’, as discussed in L. Elizabeth Kruger’s recently published book. (Actually, we haven’t read the book; Kathy gleaned this information off her website and discussion forum, known whimsically as The Woodshed.)

Daniel was very excited to be appointed Keeper of the Peat.

The basic idea is that as a parent, you should keep your children close to you, training them and correcting them as necessary, building them into godly young men and women. One problem Kathy and I encounter is that when a child comes to our negative attention, we tend to punish-and-isolate — that is, we send the offending child away as a result of their sin. “They need time to pray and ask God for forgiveness,” we rationalize. “Or at least if they’re going to sulk, they should do it where no one else has to pay the price.” But the truth is sometimes more sinister: we’re still angry at the child’s conduct (or they’re mad at us) and we’d rather not be around them.

Kruger suggests (and my sweet Kathy agrees) that it might be better to keep an offending child under close supervision (within a few feet) rather than sending them off to wreak more havoc. Some children, when corrected by Mom or Dad, will take out their anger and frustration on a sibling, if left to their own devices. Others will sulk in their rooms like Achilles in his tent, which rarely produces repentance or a positive change in behavior.

I’m afraid I’m over-simplifying, but another facet is a bit more proactive. “Why wait ’til your child gets in trouble,” proponents of this philosophy would ask. “Keep ‘em close and train ‘em up right, while they are still young.” Tomato staking has to do with spending lots of time in close proximity to children, teaching them in those more tractable moments, rather than abdicating their training to other influences, however worthy.

Painstakingly, we planted each of the peat disks with two seeds …

On Saturday, Daniel and I took Kathy’s van to Wal-Mart to get its oil changed, long overdue. While we were there, we browsed the garden center, since Daniel and I are full of money-making and money-saving schemes that have to do with growing things. We happened upon a cool seed-starter kit, and decided to grow our own tomato plants this year, instead of buying them from the local hardware store at $4 a pot. For about $10, we acquired enough seeds and little peat disks to start 72 seedlings.

We had a great time, when we got home, preparing the peat (it’s amazing how they soak up the water!) and planting the seeds. Now they’re under Daniel’s bed waiting ’til they sprout — we’re hoping to have enough surviving plants to generate a good, healthy crop this year. Kathy and I eat a lot of tomatoes, and they are not particularly cheap, even in season. Last year we garnered a decent crop, in spite of the cursed deer who ate the tops of most of my plants.

Not our actual tomato harvest … sigh.

If you’ve ever grown tomatoes, you know that one of the main problems is keeping the vines up off the ground long enough for the fruit to ripen. Left to its own devices, a tomato plant will refuse to stand up tall, but will rather allow its branches to sprawl untidily across the ground. As the tomatoes grow on the vine, they are prone to rot and damage because of their contact with the ground. Small children who are sent out to water the plants routinely step on the fruit, and insects seem to delight in more convenient access to the crop. Sometimes the plants will start out with good upright posture, but when the weight of the tomatoes increases, the vines are bent and even broken. This seems especially likely in times of drought, when the branches weak and prone to be brittle.

Sarah and David could hardly stand being left out of this project.

Some gardeners put wooden stakes alongside their plants, and use plastic ties to affix the branches to the stake. Others surround their plants with metal mesh towers, training and supporting the vines as they grow upward. Either way, the intent is to guide and protect the vines, holding them to an upright standard. Kruger argues that parents who share their lives with their children perform a similar moral and spiritual function, fulfilling the instruction in Deuteronomy 6:6-9:

These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

A basic tomato stake.

It was a good day. When my children are filled-up with time with me or with Kathy, their whole outlook on life seems to improve. They tend to be more trusting of my heart, and more submissive to correction. They are much more apt to be patient and kind, and often will serve with a more willing spirit. The only cost is my time, which is not so bad, since I really like being around my children when they are cheerful.

Some tomatoes are so fierce, you have to put them in cages.

Tomato staking is a good word picture for the way that we try to infuse our children with the best of our wisdom, discipline and love for God. Thinking of how Jesus worked with his disciples, and how God works in my life, it seems a good word picture for more than just parenting. How many times have I chafed at being trained to the standard as the Gardener binds my life to His stake through the Word and the ministry of the Holy Spirit?

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. — John 15:5-8

Tim
Project 366, retroactive, Day 82

L. Elizabeth Kruger’s book, Raising Godly Tomatoes, is available on her website for a discounted price of $14.95. Please mention that you read about it here — we’d like to build some credibility so we can, in the future, get a further discount for our readers.

I wanted to post a clever Tips for Tuesday parenting blog today. Our new chore/house organizing is going GREAT and I know it would make an excellent blog.

After all, someone who’s been successful for a whole week at keeping her house clean should share the news with the world.

But, I was too busy doing school, breaking up fights, making delicious homemade meals (yes, that’s plural because I fixed grilled cheese sandwiches at lunch today), and participating in family fitness that I didn’t take any pictures that would accompany the post. And without pictures, our blog gets a little dull.

For example, it’s a little boring right now, isn’t it. You’re wishing I would break up the rambling with a picture.

Sorry.

Without pictures and the time needed to write a helpful blog on chores, I’m forced to ramble. Oh, I do have this one picture that I can share. It has nothing to do with parenting or chores or blogging in general but it was taken today.

I fixed a yummy stew this evening for dinner and made bread bowls in which to serve it. How cool is that! We’re practically our own Panera Bread. I made our family’s famous Mesa Manna bread recipe (created by my Nana) and then shaped the dough around over-turned (greased) glass bowls. They came out fantastic! I can’t wait to try it again.

Sarah is hogging the blog photo attention these days but she’s so darn cute, it’s hard to resist taking a few extra pictures of her. Joshua is more than willing to give her his share of the photo time.

Sarah and Rachel don’t like stew so they had their bread bowls plain. Garnished with a little cheese of course. It’s hard to please everybody. Wouldn’t that be a great Parenting Tip post - How to Please All of Your Children without Going Crazy. Maybe next week.

Kathy
Project 366 - Day 14

One of the most challenging problems that parents face is teaching and motivating their children to repent from sin. This is not particularly surprising, I suppose, since many parents don’t know what repentance means, don’t see the need for it, and wouldn’t know how to repent if their life depended on it (which, of course, it does).

The word ‘repent’ has several meanings, depending on whom you ask:

“to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one’s life” — Merriam Webster (1)

“to feel such sorrow for sin or fault as to be disposed to change one’s life for the better; be penitent.” — Dictionary.com (2)

Some definitions of the word speak more to how you feel than what you do:

“to feel sorry, self-reproachful, or contrite for past conduct; regret or be conscience-stricken about a past action, attitude, etc.” — Dictionary.com (1)

” to feel regret or contrition” — Merriam Webster (2)

Personally, I think that ‘emotional’ repentance is not worth much, unless it is accompanied with a change in direction. Old Testament references to repentance use a combination of Hebrew verbs, which can be translated as: to return, and to feel sorrow. The writers of the Old Testament books will be gratified, no doubt, to know that I think both are necessary. A pragmatic change in behavior motivated by self-interest is not true repentance; nor is contrition sufficient in itself, without action that shows the contrition to be genuine.

Repent, I say, repent!!

Back to parenting. Let’s start with a toddler (we’ll call him Alfred), who is watching his baby sister as she coos contentedly, strapped in her baby seat. An idea comes to Alfred’s little mind: what will happen if I hit her? A born scientist, Alfred forms a hypothesis: “I’ll bet she will cry.” He immediately tests his theory by striking her on the forehead. The sister wails in a satisfactory manner, and the toddler enjoys the happy knowledge that his experiment in causality has been successful. Alfred’s mind immediately turns to additional variants of the experiment, but his plans are spoiled by the arrival of his mother.

“No,” scolds Mom. “You may not hit your little sister. No, no!”

Mom gives Alfred’s hand a sharp swat, and a tear forms at the corner of his eye. His lip quivers, but his jaw is thrust out in defiance. Mom’s disapproval is not a sufficient deterrent at this point in his development. Although the pain in his hand has taught him some respect for Mom’s physical presence, Alfred’s heart intention is unchanged — he’d do it again in a heartbeat. Why should he not be free to extend his scientific knowledge? Who is this Mother, to place limitations on his freedom and enjoyment? Craftily, Alfred waits until Mom is on the phone, and he whacks his sister again, this time on the nose, extracting a loud cry.

Several days later, Mom catches him pinching his sister with a malicious grin on his face, and gives him a hard enough spanking to make it no longer worth his while to torment her. He was beginning to reach the limits of science in that field, anyway, and turns his attention to the reprogramming of household electronics and poking holes in the walls. But what about Alfred’s heart? Skip forward a few years.

Alfred is six, and his friend Eric has come over for a visit. Eric notices Alfred’s cool new action figure, and snatches it up, swooping it around in proper heroic fashion. Alfred, outraged at the liberties taken with his toy hero, tackles Eric and rips the figurine from his hands. Eric appeals to Alfred’s Mom, and Justice is Done — the toy is given back to Eric and Alfred is sharply rebuked. Alfred’s jaw thrusts itself out again … and a little while later, Eric suffers an injury under suspicious circumstances.

Why do people repent? It seems clear from the Bible that God’s standard is very high, and that no one can meet it (Romans 3:23). Clearly, there should be a whole lot of repentance going on, yet it seems a concept very foreign to many. Repentance seems only to come about when the following elements are all present:

1. An authority is acknowledged
2. The standard for behavior (given by that authority) is understood
3. Failure to meet the standard is acknowledged and confessed
4. A breach in the relationship with the standard-maker is recognized
5. A deep desire to restore that relationship is felt
6. A change of behavior is implemented to ensure the standard will not be broken again

Most people (and many children) don’t want to change their ways, even when they are forced to admit that the things they do are wrong. People kick up smoke screens in all six areas, but they often do it in a haphazard and inefficient manner, so I’ve written the following cheat-sheet to help, for those wishing to avoid any form of repentance:

How Not to Repent

1. Ignore any authority that is set up over you.
2. Pretend not to understand any behavioral standard, or interpret it in a way that renders it useless.



What? I didn’t do anything.

3. Never acknowledge or admit that you didn’t meet the standard. Feel free to blame anyone and everything. Claim to be a victim.
4. Act as though breaking the standard will have no effect on a relationship with the standard-maker. Tell yourself that God is Love, and that a loving God won’t hold your ‘mistakes’ against you.
5. If you ever do feel that you have wronged God (or any other authority), act as though it is his responsibility to restore the relationship


It’s not my fault, don’t look at me. Why don’t you pick on someone else?

6. If caught and forced to endure some consequence, assume that sorrow (even sorrow that you were caught) is enough. Act as though you are performing a great service to accept your consequences. Take no steps to avoid breaking the standard in the future.

Let’s check back in with Alfred, now that he’s all grown up. Alfred still mostly cares about Alfred, and assiduously pursues life, liberty and happiness for all they are worth, as he has been taught is his constitutional right. Alfred decides to drive home from a party where he’s been drinking, because he doesn’t really think the .08% blood alcohol limit in his State is a legal standard that applies to him.

Sadly for Alfred, he is pulled over by a man with a flashing light and a blue hat. He first tries to pretend that he wasn’t doing anything wrong, and quickly becomes belligerent when the officer insists on a breathalyzer test. Imagine Alfred’s surprise when he finds himself in handcuffs in the back of a patrol car, and spends the evening in a cell. When he appears in court, he is further angered by the severe, lecturing tone the judge takes, but (as he learned from his mother), he conceals his furious reaction under a veneer of contrition (since he wants to avoid being held in contempt and spending more time behind bars). He pays his fine and leaves the courtroom.

Unfortunately, Alfred hasn’t ever learned how to repent, and so he continues living his life without bowing his knee to the standards that God (or even the government, or his employer) have put into place. Ultimately Alfred is fired, jailed and killed. Since he never acknowledged his sin before God, he never admitted his need for a Savior, so his name isn’t found in the book of life. Alfred spends eternity separated from God.

Actually, Kathy tells me I can’t kill poor Alfred off so quickly. “Not everybody who fails to repent is killed in a gang war,” she told me, in a rather patronizing tone of voice. “You’re setting him up as a stereotype, but lots of people never repent and go on to become rich and powerful, oppressing the ‘little people’ around them quite happily.”

This looks like a gang war in the making.

OK, fine. Alfred is not fired, jailed or killed. But his pattern of blaming others and considering himself above and apart from the law continues, so that little Alfred Junior grows up to be much like his father. Alfred doesn’t really know this, because his wife divorces him while his son is still in elementary school, and Alfred ultimately dies in his 60’s of liver failure, alone and unmourned. He still spends eternity in torment, apart from God.

It’s been a long day, and I’m a bit tired, which makes me gloomy.

We’ve written before about the Five A’s for Resolving Conflict:

1. Admit
2. Apologize
3. Accept
4. Ask
5. Alter

I wish I had a ‘magic bullet’ that would reliably get to the heart of a child and bring about repentance every time, but I don’t. From what I can tell, development of a tender and repentant heart in a child is a long and grueling process, although some children are naturally more tender-hearted than others. What I have discovered is that I can teach the mechanics of repentance through the Five A’s, but actual sorrow of the heart comes more slowly. I’ve tried to accelerate that process by asking these kind of questions:

• How do you think you would feel if your (sister, brother) did that to you?
• Do you think God cares about what you just did?
• How do you think your sister feels, when you spoke to her that way?
• Does the Bible have anything to say about what you did?
• Did you know that God is sad when you ignore His rules?

More often than not, my children are angry at me for catching them, or for enforcing the standard, rather than repentant for their actions. They’d rather blame me for being a harsh and unfair ogre than take responsibility for their own sin. I try to get out of the way, between them and God, by speaking to them gently, but firmly, administering any consequences in a dispassionate manner.

I think she can take him.

As I write this, one of my boys, suffering from idleness, ignored his mother’s suggestion to clean his room. I rebuked him and sent him up to clean it, and his face darkened in anger. As he left the room, I stopped him.

“No one is doing anything unkind to you. You were idle, and so Mom wants you to clean your room. You have no reason to be angry.”

He went off, still unconvinced and angry. When he arrived upstairs, he found a way to bully his little brother, by hiding just outside the door, and scaring him. I took him into my room and closed the door. “Is it such a big deal, to scare somebody?”, he asked, jaw thrust out belligerently.

I tried to help him to understand the sequence of events that led to the bullying; how his idleness often leads to sin, and how Mom and I were trying to protect him from punishment by giving him something to do with his hands. I explained to him how inappropriate it was for him to bully his brother when he was mad at his parents, and how he should have accepted my rebuke in humility. I asked him if he meant to be unkind to his brother when he scared him: “Sort of,” he grunted.

I reminded him of the Five A’s, the first of which is ‘Admit’. His unwillingness to embrace that first ‘A’ stiffened my resolve to send him to bed early. As I turned out his light, I reminded him of 1 John 1:9:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

I’m convinced that true from-the-heart repentance is possible only when we are willing to confess our sin to God — that when we do that, He keeps his promise and begins cleansing us, ripping sin out of our heart, denying it a chance to develop deep roots. He gives us the power to resist it in the future and the energy to make a new start.

Tim
Project 366 - Day 7

Tim says I have to get to bed by 11 pm tonight.

We read a lot of marriage books during our courtship and first years of marriage. During the submission chapters, I dutifully took notes, vowing to cheerfully submit to my husband. I have a wonderful mother and mother-in-law who model beautiful Christian marriages of mutual love and respect. My grandmother was a staunch advocate of marriage and believed submission was easy when your spouse was laying down his life for you as Christ did for the church.

No one ever warned me submission would involve bedtimes.

That’s going from preaching to meddling to this night owl.

Okay, perhaps Tim didn’t really say I have to go to bed by 11 pm. In fact, all he really did was make a suggestion. And, to be completely truthful (because I’m all about being honest on the blog here), it’s only because I was an emotional wreck today and am very over-tired and he’s looking out for my best interest.

Hmmm. That sounds an awful lot like loving as Christ loved the church.

Unfortunately that means I don’t have a parenting tip for the day. I could have spent some time this evening writing, but I decided to read to the children instead. If I ignore my children but compose a brilliant parenting tip, what have I accomplished?

Presents for the “Giving Tree,” a project blessing needy children in the community.

So, instead of cozying up to my wireless keyboard and sharing words of wisdom, I was snuggled on Big Blue with three children, reading Christmas books, opening birthday presents and reviewing piano lesson work.

Consider that your tip for the day - relish the sweet moments with your children. Hug them, read Christmas books, play a game, bake cookies. Smile. Close your mouth and wait just a few extra seconds before speaking words of correction and discipline.

Kathy
It’s three minutes to 11 pm - I still have to publish this post, throw together a lunch for Tim, turn off all the lights in the house, run a quick load of laundry, put the last of the dishes away and start the dishwasher. Maybe I’ll make 11:30 pm. That’s pretty close.

Yep, that’s me, always one to heed good advice.
Sigh.
Project 365 - Day 344