Who is With Your Children?

The Time is Counted

Think about this for a moment. Your children are awake anywhere from twelve to sixteen hours a day depending on their age and sleeping habits. Who is the most influential person during those waking moments?

If a child is in the public school system, their sphere of influence will be a teacher and about twenty to thirty other kids of their age. Since the teacher is there for teaching purposes, conflict resolution and for recess duty, who hangs out with your child? The other students. There will more than likely be influential interaction going on whether negative or positive. How many young children do you know who are a positive influence on your child? How many are bullies? Or leaders with a negative influence?

After school, who does your child spend time with? It is not uncommon for neighborhood children to come knocking at the door fifteen minutes after school is out, wanting to play. Another couple of hours is spent with a child their age.

Another afterschool scenario could be the television. How many hours of influence is your child receiving? And what is that influence? Teenage kids who struggle with lying, romantic interests, disobedience, disrespect towards parents and others? Parents who disrespect each other and undermine each other’s role? Violence? Suggestive commercials? Ads encouraging the purchase of more material things in order to be truly happy?

How about computer games or a video games? Who is influencing your child now? James Bond? Mario Smash Brothers? Grand Theft Auto? Aliens?

How about after school activities? Sports? Gymnastics? Piano? Singing? Influence factors again involve children their age and most likely an instructor with a lot of kids to supervise.

You get the idea… the person your child spends the most time with will be influenced the most by that person.

Now, if the above activities are somewhat curtailed and more time is invested in your children by playing games, chatting about what is most important to them, reading classics together starting with the Bible, sharing your struggles and victories through Jesus Christ, among other things, then a very powerful weapon is available to them in their fight against the worldly evils.

The Weapon

Following is a recent example of this weapon. I was talking to a 23 year old young lady the other day about her new walk with the Lord. Having come from a background of drugs and alcohol, she still struggled with some of the old habits. She became quite drunk one night and then went to her mother’s house to sleep.

She had been learning to bond with her family again after having been away for four years. She was quite attached to her youngest brother and had re-established a deep relationship with her mother.

The youngest brother overheard her complaining of a hangover. Being nine years old, he needed an explanation as to what that meant. When he found out that she had been drinking, he was upset. In fact, he was so upset that he refused to talk to her for quite awhile and kept giving her “the look” when she glanced at him. By the end of the day, she pulled him aside and said, “I’m sorry I got drunk. Next time I go out with my friends, I will let them know that I will not let my little brother down. I won’t drink. Okay?” He agreed with a hug and a promise.

A couple of nights later, the opportunity presented itself. She went out with some friends. When her friends pressed her to drink, she responded that she had promised her little brother that she wouldn’t and stood firm on the promise.

She was bonded to her family and did not want to hurt them. The relationship was too valuable to her. Two other examples are given in the article Why Bond? You can read about them here.

The Family Campout?

I know a little guy who is not very close to his parents and who is driven by his friends – his peers. I asked him if he ever went camping with his family since I could tell that he had trouble relating with adults and submitting to authority. He answered that he had gone camping once, a family campout as a church activity. Then he pondered it a few minutes and said, “Well, my parents hung out with their friends, and I hung out with mine. So, it really wasn’t a family campout. It was a friend campout!”

Our Experience and the Results

We decided that nights were getting a little too full with other activities and we were not spending any time at home with the kids. There were Church activities going on Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights. Jared had ballroom dancing on Thursday nights. Saturday was taken up with other activities. We rarely spent time together and I was feeling a little separation going on.

We cut out Wednesday and Friday night activities, trimmed down our Saturdays, and made Tuesday night the Family Night. During Tuesday nights, we have a scripture and a lesson, a game and a treat. A lot of laughter and fun goes on. The kids love it and look forward to Family Night every week.

The other nights are filled with book reading, game playing, talking, crafts, walks, bike rides, etc. We never find enough time to do it all and end up wondering how in the world we could have fit TV time into it if we had one. The time seems to fly.

They want it and need it. They thrive under the investment. Yes, it takes effort, and yes, I’m exhausted by the end of the week, but the results are worth it.

You know it’s good when any one of your children, no matter what the age (from 10 years old to 22 years old), lean their heads against your shoulder and say, “I love spending time with you.” That makes every bit of effort worth it.