NextGenKent

Ok, so I am a concerned parent. I do my job and at times put in some OT. I'd like to think I am balanced but mostly that is done just a front...but I do love my kids. Every now and then I get some +feedback on them. I'd like to think there is more out there. This time it came during the trip home from football practice (I volunteered to do it this time) and from one of the boys who tagged along. It made me smile. I never met this boy before and only heard bits and pieces about him prior (again, part of my job as a dad I do so well). As the 2 boys were discussing the upcoming season, positions, and one another, our guest starts 'bragging' on Josh. He said things I would probably never say, not because I don't believe them, but because I don't see this side of Josh. Now, I knew Josh came home from practice tired and hungry (two jobs HE does very well at age 15) and was lifting weights and I probably thought in my head, "Yes, what did you expe...

We Need More Christian Sparring. Does that sound a bit odd? Let me explain. There are two things in my son's two years of Tae Kwon Do I have continued to reflect upon: training by the level and sparring. My son has been in Tae Kwon Do for the past two years and has really enjoyed it and our Christian instructors. He has come up to his fifth gup and is now a green belt. As a youth pastor and educator, one of the things that made me smile was how the higher level kids were being asked to train the lower ones--and it's not so much an age thing. A girl my daughter's age (then 11) was asked to train my son (then, 7) and she did a fantastic job. I have always heard the adage: "The best way for you to know something is to teach it" (for me, it was Greek) and she really knew her stuff! The second thing that has continued to impress me just as much has been the sparring. It is absolutely necessary. It isn't enough to have kids stand in to throw a slow motion punch...

“Faith trajectories are often set in early adolescence.” In their recent book, StickyFaith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids (Zondervan, 2011), Drs. Powell & Clark layout why kids’ faith isn’t sticking. Their research indicates that somewhere between “40 to 50 percent of kids who graduate from a church or youth group will fail to stick with their faith in college.” Even more perplexing is “only 20% of college students who leave the faith planned to do so during high school. The remaining 80% intended to stick with their faith but didn’t.” Powell and Clark ask a very important question: “Why go through any changes in your life--seasonal transitions--with faith in the backseat?” Why indeed. As adults, do we really want to invest our whole lives of faith—at home, in the church and community and the world, in front of our children only to see them squander that investment at such a crucial time in their lives? But what can we do to give kids a suitable, rea...

A reaction to Walt Mueller's, The Space Between: A Parents’ Guide to Teenage Development, 2009. This book was an easy read—straight forward and well laid out. The book has footnotes with regards to research, but doesn’t seem to be written to be a textbook with substantial research supporting the claims that are being made. My comments will be with regards to having additional material in certain sections and clarifying remarks in others. “Some view adolescence as something to survive. Rather we should see it as a God-given opportunity to depend on God for guidance and wisdom that would not only help us point our kids to the cross and spiritual maturity, but take us there as well” (p10). I read these same words in another book several years ago and have continued to hold on to them. It helps to hear them again. In several cases parents have set their teens up for ungodly attitudes reminding them, “When you are 18 you can move out and do what you want then!” Parents need to ma...