How do you raise your children with Christian values when so many of the kids around them are raised with the world’s standards? This question was posed to me by a concerned mom. Christian parents are under a lot of pressure these days by other parents and by their own kids who see other kids doing things they’re not allowed to. The temptation is to cave and conform to what everyone else is doing.
I don’t have all the answers, but I can give you a word of wisdom that has been passed down through the generations in my family and has been a North Star for us raising our kids.
Teach your kids from the get-go: Our family doesn’t follow the crowd. We do things differently.
It was an unwritten maxim in our family that the old argument, “but all the other kids are doing it” or “all the other parents let their kids do it” would not fly in our household. We don’t do what others do.
That was part of the family culture my mother grew up with. In those days, many parents dropped their kids off at the cinema every Saturday, where they would spend all day watching movies. While Mom’s parents welcomed her to go to the movies once in awhile, they viewed all-day cinema as a waste of time—time that could be better spent in constructive activities—not to mention enjoying the day with family.
And that was what I grew up with. While other kids in our high school attended wild parties and got into the girlfriend-boyfriend game, my parents encouraged us to focus on our education and to wait until college to date.
This was not presented as legalism, a list of don’ts we were to follow. It was presented as a better way that would get us where we needed to go in life. To be successful in life, we don’t follow the crowd. We do what is right. What pleases God.
We brought our kids up the same way. And it served us very well. (Of course there was the occasional snag, as when I repeated to my son the timeworn parental admonition, “If all the other kids jumped off a cliff would you jump, too?” His smart-alecky reply: “If all the cool kids were doing it—sure.”)
Raising our kids to avoid following the crowd paved the way for them to follow their own paths—leading them both to creative and productive endeavors as adults.
Not to mention offering a strong foundation for living the Christian life. When you look back in history, you see that Christianity has always been counter-cultural. And if we are living the life Christ has called us to, there are many times—especially in this day and age—we need to stand apart from the crowd.
Psalm 1:1-2 expresses this when the author cautions us to step away from the crowd:
Blessed is the man
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but whose delight is in the law or the Lord,
and who meditates on his law day and night. (NIV)
How might this translate for child-raising in today’s world? Each family needs to draw up their own list before God, but here are some that come to mind:
- Not joining the world in making our kids into mini adults, whether through fashion choices, tight schedules, or letting them watch programs or play video games that are too old for them.
- Bucking the trend of giving our kids cell phones when they are too young to handle them responsibly.
- Limiting screen time, unlike other families, so our kids live healthy, wholesome, and active lives.
- Monitoring what our kids see on their screens.
- Bucking fashion trends that are unwholesome.
- Not allowing coarse language in our homes.
- Eschewing materialism and the world’s view of what makes us “successful.”
- Emphasizing that we are here to serve others, not ourselves.
- Lifting up Christ in all that we do and say.
Don’t be afraid to buck the crowd. Let “we do things differently in our family” be a part of your family culture!
