Reading a story to the children about the advent of the house phone, the father in the story snorted:

“No. We are not getting a phone in our house! Do you know how intrusive it would be for anyone at any time to be able to interrupt the privacy of our family?!”

Let that sink in for a minute.

I remember resisting call-waiting. It’s great that you don’t miss a call. But the first time a friend abruptly interrupted our conversation with, “Oh, gotta go!” I felt like something was inherently not right about what technology was doing to basic human manners.

It’s a brilliant convenience–a necessity to most of us now–and also a curse all at once.

House phones, cell phones, texting–our world of instant messaging. When we want to reach someone we want to reach them now. We know they are constantly available through one device or the other, so if they don’t answer, they’re simply ignoring us. And the same pressure causes us to be slaves to our devices.

We have allowed ourselves to be continuously “on-call”, even to the detriment of the people sitting next to us. Have you had a conversation with someone when they received a text and began to answer it while you’re talking? Have you done that to someone? Imagine if you were talking to me and I turned to someone sitting beside me and began talking to them as if you weren’t saying anything? Is there a difference?

And sometimes I think we’re even too eager to answer our house phones. Certainly we must answer often. But since we have the choice to call someone back, I am challenged to think twice before answering if I’m having a conversation with my husband or children that I feel doesn’t need to be interrupted. Sometimes we need to say to our family, “you are important and that can wait.” Just like we teach our children not to interrupt a conversation we’re having with someone, maybe we could model for them the same courtesy.

It’s impossible to turn technology back. But perhaps we need a careful scrutiny of our social behavior.

We can be grateful for the convenience of technology without letting it command our time. We could treat it more of a tool to us than a master. We could give the people in our physical presence the courtesy that was once expected. We could dine together, enjoy conversation and the flavor of our food, taking a break from our extended social contacts.

We could talk again, face to face, at length, literally leaving our devices elsewhere to allay temptation.

And there’s the lost element of reflection…

I was sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday. I have a cell phone that I use when I drive in case of an emergency. My daughter had it so I was technologically-free for about four hours. Quiet, alone with my thoughts. I glanced around the room and I don’t think a single person wasn’t connected to a device. My concern is not the device itself; it’s the world we’ve entered where our thoughts are constantly charged and stimulated and we don’t give ourselves space to think, to pray, to be quiet and still.

I think it is changing us.

Your thoughts?

The Unwired Mom

“It’s time to reclaim your life; it’s time to live free.”

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If you took a survey, among modern, Christian parents and asked, “What is the main goal of parenting?”, what would you hear?

There is only one right answer, according to Scripture:

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” Deut. 6:6-9

“...bring them up in the nurture (discipline) and admonition (instruction) of the Lord.” Eph. 6:4

We are so distracted. We pour our time and money into providing our children (and ourselves) with all sorts of entertainment, luxuries, opportunities–which in and of themselves aren’t bad things, they just aren’t things that matter much in God’s economy. Meanwhile, we neglect our one responsibility: to intentionally, diligently, daily instruct our children in the things of God, making disciples out of them. I am guilty of failing to be intentional.

Disciples.

THAT’S our job. That is why God gave us children. And we miss that because we forget the purpose of children. They are His heritage to us. What does that mean? A gift, given to steward with particular instructions, so that the next generation will be multiplied and grown in effectiveness for the Kingdom of God.

If we could get that, remember that and parent like we understood that, the whole world would be turned upside down!

Intentional parenting: to train our children, in the ordinary daily moments, with the specific teaching from Scripture that guides their understanding of right and wrong, wisdom and foolishness.

Jesus did it with his earthly children. Not in a formal class setting, but in a Deuteronomy lifestyle–walking alongside them all day, every day.

So when our children do something wrong, it’s not enough to say, “Stop it!” That teaches them nothing except my own desires for them to behave a certain way. I need to consider the law of God they are breaking, and remind them of that, and that reminds them of their constant need of a Savior.

“Is that a wise thing to do?”

“Are you esteeming others better than yourself?”

“Is that book ‘true, honest,  just, pure’….?”

“What does the Bible say about that?”

“The Bible says…..”

Jesus constantly referred back to Scripture as He taught, answered questions and challenged His disciples to see everything through the lens of truth.

Let us be reminded of the eternal things of parenting, and not be so distracted by the “hay and stubble” that we fail to do the one thing for which He gave us children: make disciples for His Kingdom.

This was such an interesting piece. Especially as this article applauded the very behaviors that, in America, parents get ridiculed for and sometimes even punished.

Again, common sense for centuries now takes an expert to fill us all in on the best way to raise our children since Americans, apparently, have lost theirs.

“…why French children are not diagnosed with ADHD in anything like the numbers we are seeing in the United States….

From the time their children are born, French parents provide them with a firm cadre—the word means “frame” or “structure.” Children are not allowed, for example, to snack whenever they want. Mealtimes are at four specific times of the day. French children learn to wait patiently for meals, rather than eating snack foods whenever they feel like it.

French parents, Druckerman observes, love their children just as much as American parents. They give them piano lessons, take them to sports practice, and encourage them to make the most of their talents. But French parents have a different philosophy of discipline. Consistently enforced limits, in the French view, make children feel safe and secure. Clear limits, they believe, actually make a child feel happier and safer—something that is congruent with my own experience as both a therapist and a parent. Finally, French parents believe that hearing the word “no” rescues children from the “tyranny of their own desires.” And spanking, when used judiciously, is not considered child abuse in France.

As a therapist who works with children, it makes perfect sense to me that French children don’t need medications to control their behavior because they learn self-control early in their lives. The children grow up in families in which the rules are well-understood, and a clear family hierarchy is firmly in place. In French families, as Druckerman describes them, parents are firmly in charge of their kids—instead of the American family style, in which the situation is all too often vice versa.”

Read all of  Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD