It's Just a Phase...Don't Miss It Week #3
As a parent you are not the only influence of the needs of your child. A church has the potential to connect your son or daughter to a leader who believes in their future like you do.
Every child is looking for a "tribe" outside of their family where they can find a place to belong. They will eventually find somewhere and someone on their own OR you can help them find a place that reflects your values and heart for their future.
If you are a Sunday School teacher, a Youth leader , neighbor or a friend of the family...BE LIKEABLE ! Discover their world. Know their culture. Consider watching their movies or the trailers. Read their books. Watch their TV shows. Follow their favorite celebrities. Listen to their music.
Lifetime educator Rita Pierson spoke at the TED conference to a room of educators to remind us all, "Kids don't learn from people they don't like."
Let's look at the culture. A child's culture changes the day they are born. CULTURE SCHOCK for everyone! Also when they become potty-trained, encounter discipline, enters elementary school, hit puberty, develop abstract thinking, enters high school, gets a drivers license and graduates from high school.
Don't assume you know what you don't know about their culture. For example; if you are a mother of a preschooler picking music for the sixth grade dance just may not be the job for you.
You will never know kids the way you need to know them if you don't take time to discover their world again and again. Show up where they show up; at ballgames, school plays and concerts. Look, listen and observe.Think of it as research.
Every phase of a child's life has unique cultural changes. Every phase presents new challenges when what is changing mentally and physically collides with what is changing culturally.
Relationships help resolve those challenges in a way that shapes their emotional and mental responses.
In the first 18 years of a life, kids are changing in six fundamental ways. Those changes affect how they think, learn, feel and relate. Research shows us that if we want to have influence, we have to understand what is changing physically, mentally, relationally, culturally, emotionally and morally.
Consider this; before we can lead someone where they need to go, we need to know where they are.
Kids! The more we know them, the more they will know they matter. They will believe they can win. They will feel that they belong. They will discern what they should do. If we don't now who we are talking to we can't really expect a listening ear. The better we understand who kids are now, the better they will understand who they are meant to be.
A look a week #4. Shaping character and faith is through small deposits in the KidBank. Investments, returns, rate of growth are financial words that we will use in a spiritual way.
