So many take walking for granted. It’s a work in progress. Today I must rest so I can attend church tomorrow . I pushed too hard yesterday.

I walk leaning on a grocery cart. It is safe, A/C controlled and if I get in trouble there are people around. Besides, people can be interesting.

Then there are those that are not interesting. The toddler in the cart looked at me and asked if I had a baby in my tummy. At times like these, handicapped or not, I just want to give up and go home. The mom nervously laughed, fussed at the child about not saying such things and pushed quickly down the aisle. It was not the child’s fault. Who taught her? Damage was done. I think she was #2 below, Indulging parent.

Truth is, “out of the mouths of babes” means unsuspected wisdom, not misunderstood truths. One of my earlier blogs, Sand Buckets, deals with when a child is ready to learn more about God and spiritual truths. However, it should be applied to all complex facts and truths.

They are all different. Here is an excerpt:

Imagine that your infant arrives on this earth with an empty sand bucket.  It is every parents job to raise that child with their bucket.

1. A CONTROLLING parent will walk through life holding the child and the bucket deciding everything that goes in the bucket.  That may work in the first few years, but what does the child learn other than being a puppet or robot – a ‘mini-me’. Their views of God will be shallow in that they never learned to seek Him and His truths, they just repeat what they are told.
2. An INDULGING parent sits the child down on the ground and gives them the bucket loaded with all the information and toys of life.  They want their child to have it all and everyone to brag on them.  They want them to have all the advantages. They want everyone to pat them, the parent, on the back  for their smart and successful child.  They overwhelm the child with knowledge and trinkets, taking away their natural pattern of mental, emotional and spiritual growth.  The children are ‘force fed’ life way too fast.  God is in the mix, but He is not clearly defined.  He is on equal footing with appearance, education and success.
3. A SELF-CENTERED parent may seem to be over-indulgent.  In truth, they find it easier to give things instead of time. So while indulging the child in their whims and over flowing their buckets too fast, they are doing it as a baby-sittIng device so that they, the parent, have more time for themselves.  They may do the obligatory take them to S.S., church and/or VBS but, will do little to influence their child in spiritual matters themselves.   These parents are all about me and their own bucket.  If their child learns about God it will be on their own as their parent has little interest in their spiritual life.
4. And last, an INVOLVED parent is the parent that is prayerfully seeking how to raise their child.  They have the manual, God’s word, before them.  Their child comes here and they hold them in one arm and their bucket in another.  The time comes when they sit the child down and help the child to select things to put in their bucket.  At times the bucket becomes heavy, and they help their child carry the bucket.  The time will come when they can carry two buckets.  They hold on to their young firmly at first, then as they grow the palm loosens ever so slightly and finally opened as they are on their own.  However, the hand is always outstretched ready to grasp or be grasped throughout their life.

This trend of overloading kids with agendas, truths, facts and information they were never intended to handle is disastrous in so many ways. Beyond hurting an unsuspecting stranger, their innocence is stolen. You cannot give it back.

Products on the market aim at making your kid smarter, teach them to read faster, make your child gifted. All children are gifted in one way or another. Allow them their own gift and quit forcing academics and facts too early. Allow them to grow and learn. The proverbial “too much on their plate” is beginning earlier every half decade. No longer applied to just adults, it engulfs young innocent children in the way of too many facts.

Answer the questions they ask and do not force feed information they do not need yet or have asked you for. Allow them their childhood.

From agendas and politics to academics, we are stealing their childhood.

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