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The simple world of a toddler always gives way to a more complex world of early childhood. Early childhood then gives way to the even more complex world of the preadolescent and then the teen. The more complex the child’s world, the more often parents will be asked to make decisions that carry some level of risk. For example, a preadolescent seeks permission to go somewhere, do something, or be with someone with whom Mom and Dad are unfamiliar or do not favor as an influence.

Eventually, all children make requests that test the boundaries of “letting go,” not to mention the boundaries of Mom and Dad’s wisdom. Even though parents take into consideration the child’s age, character strengths and weaknesses, and positive or negative propensities, how will they know that their decision is the right decision? How can they know if they have rightly weighed all the potential risks associated with a “Yes” answer against all the potential benefits of a “Yes” answer? How will they know if a “No” is too limiting or unrealistic, not to mention disappointing for their child to hear?

Take a look at the following three scenarios. If you were faced with similar challenges, what would you do and why?

 

One: Your son or daughter comes home from school with a bulletin announcing that next week the school will have a Gay/Lesbian Awareness Week with special speakers from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance. Will you allow your child to participate, or will you keep him/her home during those days?

 

Two: “Dad, a bunch of the guys are driving up to the big game, and they asked me to drive. I know I only have my permit, but Jimmy’s brother is 19 years old, and he will be going with us so he can be the adult in the car. Can I drive the car to the game?”

 

Three:  “Mom, Martha’s brother is having a party for the junior-high basketball team, and she asked if I could help her serve and clean up after the party. Then I would spend the night at her house. She knows that I have to check with you guys, but I really want to go.”

 

Using the examples above, let’s plug your child’s name into the story line. Here is how parents can gain a greater sense of confidence that their “Yes” or “No” or “Maybe” answer is the right answer.

When faced with a similar challenge as presented in Scenario One, or requests similar to Scenarios Two and Three, you can find confidence in your answer by first applying the following four questions to the request:

 

1. If you say, “Yes,” to your child’s request, what is the best thing that can happen?

 

2. If you say, “Yes,” to your child’s request, what is the worst thing that can happen?

 

3. If you say, “No,” to your child’s request, what is the best thing that can happen?

 

4. If you say, “No,” to your child’s request, what is the worst thing that can happen?

 

As an assessment tool, the four questions can be applied to a host of decisions involving parenting, finances, business, health, and ministry decisions. Although we do not know the origin of this particular analytical tool, we believe in its value in the context of parenting. By working through these four questions, parents will gain a greater sense of confidence that their decision is the best decision because each question forces the consideration of facts and variables that are often overlooked.

However, it does not stop with just a parental assessment of risk. As children grow through the middle years, parents need to bring them into the conversation and work through the same questions, so that as parents, they are leading by the strength of their relational influence and not by the power of their authority.

By considering together the potential consequences associated with “Yes” and “No,” and comparing them with the potential good associated with “Yes” and “No,” the preteen and teen will learn how to assign a value to the benefits and risks of their own decisions. They, too, will learn how to evaluate their own requests, not based on the emotional content of the moment, but by the risk vs. benefit potential associated with their decisions.

Parents cannot know with absolute certainty that their “Yes” or “No” is the most prudent answer or serves the child’s best interest. However, by inserting the variables that apply to each of the four questions, parents can at least minimize the potential risk of a negative outcome and maximize the possibility that they are making the right decision and ultimately keeping their teen safe.

 

 

This excerpt was taken from Protecting the Innocence of Childhood by Gary & Anne Marie Ezzo.  If you’d like more information on protecting your child’s innocence or are interested in taking a class on this topic, please visit GrowingFamilies.Life.

 

 

The human imagination is one of the reflective attributes of God transferred to man at the time of creation. Our imagination allows us to create a thought from a previous experience, or create a new thought by pulling independent fragments from our memory and weaving them together to form mental images of something we have never seen or experienced before.

For example, you are standing next to the fireplace warming up from the chill of a cold rain and begin thinking about last summer’s Tahiti Island vacation. You close your eyes and visualize the many sights and sounds associated with the long, white, sandy beach and tropical greenish-blue water. You can hear the water lapping on the shore. You can see yourself lying down on one of the blue-and-white-striped beach chairs, resting in the shade of a row of coconut palms, their trunks bending seaward to meet the morning sun. Further down the beach are several colorful overturned fishing boats; the bow of each boat is draped with an orange fishing net drying in the sun. A warm, gentle, sea breeze carries the refreshing scent of the ocean and the sound of an occasional seagull swooping down toward the blue-green water and back up again.

Even if you have never been to Tahiti, there were sufficient descriptive triggers in this example that allowed your imagination to replicate a seaside vacation. The words we used to describe the beach scene were already in your memory. Your mind can conjure up the two blue- and-white-striped chairs, a row of seaward-bending coconut palms, and some overturned boats draped with fishing nets. Your imagination did this by going into memory and pulling up an assortment of beach scenes, palm trees, boats, and fishing nets stored from previous experiences. These images came from glossy calendars, resort advertisements, movies, photos, or a description from someone’s vacation. Your imagination pulls all the details, edits what it wants or needs, and then creates a completely new scene. Once the imagination creates it, the mind does not soon forget it.

The popular website, “Pinterest,” is a collection of individuals’ decorative art, fashion, and home organizing ideas. At the birth of each example was someone’s inspiration, fueled by the imagination, which led to the creation of something new and different. Then someone else visits the page, becomes inspired, and by using her imagination, creates something entirely new. There is no end to what the imagination can create once motivated! However, since human imagination is subject to a free-will thought process, it can serve both good and wrongful pleasures.

 

How Does it Work?

The imagination is stimulated by one of three activities:

 

1. Action or activity
2. Strong emotions
3. Sensual arousal and curiosity

 

Although the Tahitian beach scene contained some action: the waves, gentle breezes, and swooping seagulls, and even some emotions associated with wanting to return to a warm place, it did not have any sensual triggers. Your imagination was working for non-sexual enjoyment, comfort, and pleasure. However, every human being equally possesses the ability to conjure up what the Bible refers to as evil imaginations. Genesis 6:5 says “…every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This is why we need to protect the imagination.

 

Protecting the Power of the Imagination

The only things protecting our minds (and the minds of our children) are the boundaries we place on our thought life. The child exposed to unfiltered scenes of violence becomes tethered to those scenes. The scenes are collected and stored in memory and become accessible to the child’s imagination. The young teenager exposed to pornography will respond to any real-life situation that reminds him of the pornographic images. This happens because the various images and associated vocabulary that are now stored in his (or her) memory become the incidental triggers, moving the mind to create imaginary scenes of arousal that are similar to what is already stored in his memory.

     An important area where we need to set boundaries to keep the imagination from running wild is imparting sexual knowledge to our children.  Children who receive sexual knowledge before they are morally or emotionally ready to process such knowledge are most vulnerable. Words and body parts that are specifically tied to sexual pleasure are stored in the arousal section of the brain and become vulnerable to outside triggers. Images flashing on a screen, lyrics of a song, or a roadside billboard can arouse curiosity leading to fantasy. In order to satisfy the brain’s reward circuits, pursuit and experimentation become the dominant impulses.  All of a parent’s good intentions, guarded words, and biblical study of purity can be undermined in minutes when a child is prematurely introduced to sexual knowledge.  In contrast, the absence of specific sexual knowledge means a young child’s moral imagination cannot be wrongfully strained, challenged, or forced to bring up sexual images or create inappropriate thoughts. This is all part of keeping childhood innocence—innocent!

Parents cannot police their child’s moral imagination but they can protect it by maintaining a life-giving home environment that marches in step with the Philippians 4:8 anthem: Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report;  if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

 

 

This excerpt was taken from Protecting the Innocence of Childhood by Gary & Anne Marie Ezzo.  If you’d like more information on protecting your child’s innocence or are interested in taking a class on this topic, please visit GrowingFamilies.Life.