We live in a scary world full of all kinds of danger that could potentially threaten our kids. Just watch the evening news… child abductions, child abuse, all kinds of accidents, outbreaks of contagious diseases, and even murder. The reality of it all can be so overwhelming! We can easily find ourselves in the grip of fear. Fear that can take us beyond common sense and put us into a tail spin of extreme overprotection.
Several years ago, while at a church women’s retreat, I learned a tremendous lesson. One of the women there shared about how we should not parent our children out of a position of fear; rather, we should parent them out of a position of faith. Yes, we should use wisdom and continue to do practical things to protect our kids (car seats, safety belts, bike helmets, “good touch, bad touch” training, etc). But we need to guard ourselves against becoming fearful and overprotective. This bit of wisdom absolutely transformed the way I approached parenting from that day forward!
There is a great moment in the movie Finding Nemo when Marlin and Dory are in the whale. Marlin says, “I promised him [Nemo] that I would never let anything happen to him.” Dory says, “Huh, that’s a funny thing to promise.” Marlin: “Why?” Dory: “Well, you can’t never let anything happen to him- then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo.”
Things are going to happen to our kids- hopefully it’s mostly good stuff, but there might be some difficult stuff. Try as we might, we can’t protect them from everything. What we can do is use wisdom, pray, and trust God. The Bible tells us that God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Timothy 1:7) Let’s be parents who exercise faith, not fear!
