Teach Your Children Well

It's heartwarming when we discover that children have learned to take initiatve, organize themselves, pulled together the tools for a task and set out to do it. Most of the time it warms the cockles of the heart.

It can also be rather chilling to find out that kids have done all of the above for sinister purposes. A group of Grade three students in the States -- Grade three!-- decided to punish a teacher they didn't like and put together a tool kit for the job that included duct tape, handcuffs and a knife. Some of the nine children involved in the plot were assigned to cover windows, others to clean up after the attack. God knows what might have happened if another student hadn't tipped off authorities. These conspirators were eight and nine and ten years old.

We often wonder what our children are actually taking in when they come to church on Sundays and for other activities during the week. Are they learning the way of Jesus, which is the way of compassion and self-giving love? We talk about it, but how much gets absorbed along the way.
Christian educators suggest that much of faith is caught rather than taught, so the "lessons learned" at church may have to do more with the model overheard and overseen by observant children.

We can't know for sure what our children are taking in but its worth the effort when we consider the alternatives.