Parenting

I decided to put this over here. 3Rs of Parenting
I think all homeschoolers; all parents; are haunted by some recent stories about Christian homeschooled teens shooting other people. Obviously, homeschooling is no longer a guarantee if it ever was. There is another case on my mind of a homeschool teen who died tragically and accidentally by his own hand. Ever since I heard his story, I have been praying a daily St Michael's prayer for all our teens.

Biblically, it is said: "Train your child up in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Now is the corollary to this: "if your child has departed from the way he should go, then you have not done your job training him?" Perhaps; in some ways it would seem so. Solomon's children quarrelled and divided the country; David's son rebelled against him, in both cases because they had been left to peer influences and also? perhaps? or correspondingly because the fathers were sinning on a big scale, David by his adultery and Solomon by letting his wives worship false gods. Both these things are not only grievous sins, but intimately, betrayals of the family.

Homeschooling is a means, not an end. I am always aware of that, in the back of my mind. The end, the goal, is a closer walk with God and possibly less distractions. Sometimes I let that reality take back burner; often our walk with God is NOT the first thing on my mind in a given moment. God give me grace to focus better.