PARENTING LIST
1. Who influences our children
2. Aggressive children
3. Scary Movies
2. Aggressive children
3. Scary Movies
Who Influences our Children
Children of today are assaulted from all sides by images and ideas clamouring for their attention. The television has brought contemporary ideas into our living room in a very appealing way. Magazines, newspapers, posters
and salesmen are feeding information to our children, besides the ubiquitous video and television.
As parents and teachers who desire that our children will decide to follow Jesus and live by the Bible, we are called to be responsible for influencing our children, shaping their ideas and training them in discernment to make the right choices.
Hannah and Elkanah prayed for Samuel and committed him to God even before he was born. Hannah’s rich prayer-life gave her the resources to entrust her child to God’s keeping. She gave herself to weaning her child and preparing him to live away from her. Samuel never strayed from the course she had set his feet upon.
What does weaning our children involve? We are concerned about building people who can respond to God’s word and discriminate the truth from falsehood in what they see, hear and read. We are called to raise whole people, “people who are alive emotionally, spiritually and intellectually. The instruction to train a child in the way he should go encompasses so much more than teaching them the facts of gospel. It is to train the child’s character, to give him high ideals and to encourage integrity. It is to provide largeness of thought, creative thinking and imaginative wondering – an adequate view of God and His world” – Gladys Hunt.
In our dealings with our children, there are three gifts we can bestow that can enable children to be whole people – secure in their own faith and yet able to relate to the world around. They are a convincing identify – a communicating family and the creative use of time.
A convincing identity
A warm and loving home where children are free to be themselves is the source of a deep sense of belonging. A child’s worth as a person is largely determined by the attitude of his parents. Taking care that we do not equate good exam results or achievements with his innate worth as a person will enable him to see he is precious because of who he is and not because of what he does.
The message conveyed by the media is that status, wealth, beauty and material possessions determine our value and worth a purpose. We know that this is not so ultimately.
The media presents a colourful world to the child. Everything is large, enjoyable, slick and sophisticated. Our task is to make children see that they can be manipulated by what they see “Live life kingsize” is the message of a cigarette advertisement. Asking the child pertinent questions like “What is the connection between ‘living kingsize’ and inhaling potentially poisonous fumes?” help children to learn to think for themselves and not be at the mercy of what they see.
We cannot protect children from all negative influences but we can teach them to be independent thinkers, to examine the current slogans and assess for themselves how real they are. Reasoning with them can help them realize that the media picture of life is false.
A communicating family
The spiritual atmosphere in the home will determine the levels of communication within the family. Parents can pray and work at keeping the channels of communication open so that children are helped to express what is on their minds. Mealtimes and bedtimes are special times of closeness giving opportunities to share opinions and ask questions. Individual times for each child with each parent periodically where the child receives the full attention of the parent and feels listened to, have been meaningful in our home. Where children are free to express themselves we are creating room for honest talk between parent and child. We may make mistakes and indeed there are no perfect parents but if we can be honest with our children we may find confessing and asking a child’s forgiveness draws us into a deeper level of communication.
Lighter moments of enjoying creative activities together, learning to play together, sing together, and laugh together help us to relax with our children and they can give us a taste of the joy of life which can refresh overworked adults.
Communicating our faith involves teaching our children to think Biblically. The child who sees his parents reading the Bible and living in obedience to what they read has greater reason to apply the Bible to his won life.
Involving children in discussions of daily living helps them to reason out their faith and see how parents apply what they believe. The telling of Bible Stories must be adequately followed up so that the child develops an understanding of who God is, what is sin and redemption and see God’s working in history. Through their teens the child must then be led to develop a true Biblical philosophy of life.
If the freedom of the Spirit is present in the home we can present options to children and encourage choices rather than impose legalistic burdens which suppress initiative.
Creative Use of Time
Children can be made to understand that TV viewing is not the most creative use of time. However, inflexible rules can make children resentful and it is better to talk together and decide how much time is reasonable to spend watching television per week and then sort out appropriate programmes. Philipians 4:8 is a good frame work in deciding which programmes would be suitable. However it is good to aim at shortening the time and to teach children the importance of putting off the switch at the decided time. The fact that too much television viewing is unhealthy is mirrored in the name of one of BBC I’s programme, “Why Don’t You Just Switch Off Your Television and Do Something less Boring Instead”.
Children who are given other options choose freely to do more creative activities. Children’s reading is an area we can greatly influence. Instead of getting hooked on comics, fantasy magazines and sports weeklies we can enthuse a love for good literature. Ruth Sawyer in “The Way of the Story Teller” describes good books. “A good book is always a spiritual, emotional and intellectually up-lifting experience. Cruelty, evil and greed come into sharp focus against kindness, truth and honour in a well written story.”
Reading through the passages describing the hopelessness of Robinson Crusoe’s future on the island, we come to his discovery of a Bible at the bottom of a trunk and we see the ship wrecked sailor become a believer in Jesus Christ. No child listening to this story could miss the convincing difference his conversion made in Crusoe’s view of life on the island.
The Narnian chronicles of C.S. Lewis which we have read several times and each time received new insights from, are a store-house of wisdom, 4 children enter the land of Narnia which is under the rule of the evil ‘white witch’ – a land where it is always winter and never gets to Christmas. That is until Aslan a golden maned lion (a picture of the lion of the Tribe of Judah – Jesus Christ) comes bringing spring and hope. Aslan is captured, tormented and killed for the sin of a child. Children sorrow over his death and receive a beautiful illustration of why Jesus had to suffer for our sins.
Enjoying Pilgrim’s Progress together we can share together the wonder of Christian’s journey and its relevance and application in our own.
John Ruskin said “The entire object of true education is to make people not merely to do the right things, but to enjoy them; not merely industrious but to love industry, not merely learned but to love knowledge; not merely pure but to love purity; not merely just but to hunger and thirst after justice”.
Let us pray and commit ourselves to communicate our faith to our children, so that like Daniel, they may stay true to the God of their youth.
Dr. Anna Mathew. Kirkspire, 18:1; January 1990.
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Aggressive Children after Playing Violent Video Games
There is great concern about the effects of playing violent video games on the behaviour of children. A strong corelation has been found associating the watching of violent video games and aggressive behaviour in children. This study was aimed at investigating the differential effects of actively playing a violent video gaame to passively watching the same violent video game on subsequent aggressive behaviour.
In this experiment researchers assigned 57 school children, aged 10-13 years, to one of three conditions. They either played a violent video game (active violent condition), watched the same violent video game (passive violent condition), or played a non-violent video game (active non-violent condition).
Afterwards, the children participated in a free play session with peers. Aggression was measured through peer nominations of real-life aggressive incidents during a free play session at school. Boys who had actively played the violent video game were rated by their peers as more aggressive . The game experience did not appear to affect peer ratings of the behaviour of girls.
Source. Polman et al Aggress Behav. 2008 May-Jun;34(3):256-64. j.d.m.polman@uu.nl
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Scary Movies And TV Programs Have Long-Lasting Effects - Brief Article
USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), April, 2000
While the short-term effects of watching horror movies or other films and television programs with disturbing content are well-documented among children and teens, a study by researchers Kristen Harrison, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Joanne Cantor, University of Wisconsin, Madison, shows that long-term effects can linger even into adulthood. They found that 90% of the participants (more than 150 college students at Michigan and Wisconsin) reported a media fright reaction from childhood or adolescence. Moreover, about 26% still experience a "residual anxiety."
"These effects were more serious than jumpiness at a slammed door or the need to use a nightlight. They ranged from an inability to sleep through the night for months after exposure to steadfast and continuing avoidance of the situations portrayed in the programs and movies," Harrison points out. The duration of the effects range from less than a week (about 33% of the sample) to more than a year (about 36%).
A wide range of symptoms was reported, including crying or screaming (27%), trembling or shaking (24%), nausea or stomach pain (20%), clinging to a companion (18%), increased heart rate (18%), freezing or feeling of paralysis (17%), and fear of losing control (11%), as well as sweating, chills or fever, fear of dying, shortness of breath, a sense of unreality, dizziness or faintness, and numbness (all less than 10%).
