Over the years, people have raised their concern that we shelter our children too much. My response has always been the same; if sheltering them too much is the worse thing I have done when I get to heaven....I'm alright with that.
We do our best to keep our children "in the world but not of it". Now that doesn't mean we are trying to be "Amish", though I have to admit I greatly admire the Mennonites. It just means we try to let them keep their innocence as long as possible.
This is not an easy task in our media driven society. We don't avoid technology, actually quite the opposite, but that we try to control its usage in our home. For instance, broadcast television has been out of our house since Lance was less than two. When Chris wants to watch sports he does so over the internet which minimizes, if not eliminates commercials, when they do pop up we can just turn off the monitor for a moment or have the boys turn around. We've never taken them to a movie theater. All books and movies they watch at home have to be pre-screened by Chris or I. We look for poor role modeling and negative imitative behavior.
However, even with our best efforts, trouble still sneaks into our home. Take for instance "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Davy and Goliath" DVDs. We thought these would be fine, but the formula of 20 minutes of problems and poor behavior and 20 seconds of solution equaled trouble in our house. The boys missed the solution and started imitating the poor behavior of Davy and the "troublesome trucks". So much so that we had to get rid of all of them. Another series we eventually had to get rid of was "Veggie Tales". In addition to Bob's bad attitude, we started to see the problem with mixing the truth of the Bible with the fantasy of the Veggie Tales world. The boys were starting to get confused which was the true story. Last thing we wanted was the boys to view the Bible as a story instead of God's spoken work or the "History book of the universe".
We believe strongly that we are completely responsible for what our little ones "see, hear, touch and taste". Ironically, despite the seemingly extreme measures we take, I'm frequently filled with guilt about all the times/areas we fall short and the world creeps in and we give in a little.
This is not an easy task in our media driven society. We don't avoid technology, actually quite the opposite, but that we try to control its usage in our home. For instance, broadcast television has been out of our house since Lance was less than two. When Chris wants to watch sports he does so over the internet which minimizes, if not eliminates commercials, when they do pop up we can just turn off the monitor for a moment or have the boys turn around. We've never taken them to a movie theater. All books and movies they watch at home have to be pre-screened by Chris or I. We look for poor role modeling and negative imitative behavior.
However, even with our best efforts, trouble still sneaks into our home. Take for instance "Thomas the Tank Engine" and "Davy and Goliath" DVDs. We thought these would be fine, but the formula of 20 minutes of problems and poor behavior and 20 seconds of solution equaled trouble in our house. The boys missed the solution and started imitating the poor behavior of Davy and the "troublesome trucks". So much so that we had to get rid of all of them. Another series we eventually had to get rid of was "Veggie Tales". In addition to Bob's bad attitude, we started to see the problem with mixing the truth of the Bible with the fantasy of the Veggie Tales world. The boys were starting to get confused which was the true story. Last thing we wanted was the boys to view the Bible as a story instead of God's spoken work or the "History book of the universe".
We believe strongly that we are completely responsible for what our little ones "see, hear, touch and taste". Ironically, despite the seemingly extreme measures we take, I'm frequently filled with guilt about all the times/areas we fall short and the world creeps in and we give in a little.
Despite the won and lost battles, I get my reward daily by how well my boys play together and with their little sister. My almost nine year old is not too cool to play with his little brothers the way they want to play and to watch the shows they want to watch.
The other day I received a special reward. A glimpse that we are doing something right. We checked out a "Blue Planet" DVD from the library and the boys were all excited to watch it. Lance opens it up and gets even more excited shouting, "Mom! Look at how beautiful the blue is on this disc!". He then proceeds to run around the house showing the disc to everyone for them to see how beautiful it is. I look at the disc, smile, nod and I think to myself "No, YOU are beautiful".
It may seem like a silly story to other people but the preciousness of this moment nearly brought me to tears. It makes up for all the days when I feel like giving in completely. The path is narrow but its worth traveling.
Just a funny pic I found of Titus at one in a cupboard, reminds me of a Godzilla movie :-)
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