A countercultural church needs parents who set clear limits and focus on responsibilities and relationships.

A countercultural church needs parents who set clear limits and focus on responsibilities
and relationships.

In Jon J. Muth’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s story “The Three Questions,” a young man asks his animal friends three questions:

• When is the best time to do things?
• Who is the most important one?
• What is the right thing to do?

Not satisfied with the answers he receives from his friends, he visits Leo, a wise turtle, who is busy digging a garden. The young man offers to help the turtle, and soon a series of events occur in which the young man rescues a panda and her baby during a storm.

The turtle then discloses to the young man that he has found the answers to the three questions by his very actions. Leo further clarifies his meaning this way:

• The most important time is now.
• The most important one is always the one you are with.
• And the most important thing to do is to do good for the one who is standing at your side.

That is why we are here.

These words illuminate the intent of Jesus’ life and teachings; a set of beliefs that are truly countercultural. Yet, at least in the way we raise our children, we seem to be losing sight of this. Our acceptance of and assimilation into our culture easily preclude following the more radical message of the life and teachings of Christ.

What are the characteristics of our current culture?

1. We live in a society that values things and speed over people—over relationships: friends and family.

Nothing could be more evident when I choose to email my next-door neighbor rather than knock on her door and engage in face-to-face, genuine conversation.

A national convention youth sponsor told me that the youth with whom they traveled were actively involved in conversation during the trip, but once their plane landed, they immediately took out their cell phones and engaged them rather than each other.

2. We live in a society in which our sense of self is measured externally—by our successes, clothes, how many activities our kids are involved in and possessions in general.

As a former teacher in an infant and toddler program in New York City’s affluent Upper West Side, I recall parents’ concerns about adequate peer interaction opportunities for their young children. They placed them in our program as well as signed them up for music and dance lessons. These families were frenetically self-conscious about creating extraordinary children.

3. We live in a society where the focus is on individualism and competition as opposed to a more prosocial paradigm where the group is also important.

Growing up in a Mennonite mission church in New York City in the 1960s, I remember the large number of voluntary service workers who came to work among our disenfranchised communities. These youth found their experiences meaningful, and many chose to remain in these communities and continue their contributions long after their required service terminated. Today, without the draft, there are no Mennonite voluntary service units in New York City, and I wonder if this culture of service has been replaced with a focus on “getting ahead” and “making it.”
4. We live in a society of two working parents and a high-rate of divorce, one in which parents are less physically and emotionally accessible to their children.

We are aware of how difficult it is for parents who work all day to attend adequately to the needs of their children. Exhaustion takes its toll, and quality family time bears the brunt. Recent studies demonstrate that children whose families have regular family dinner times are less likely to engage in deviant behaviors, yet this routine has become the exception rather than the norm.

Many of our children grow up doing few or no chores, perhaps because they don’t have the time due to other involvements or perhaps because parents feel guilty about the little time they have for them. When children do have chores, they are often monetarily compensated. These children grow up with little or no meaningful role to play at home. As they mature, they will likely also have an ill-formed sense of relationship to or responsibility for the larger social order.

What has been the result?

• We have higher numbers of socially and psychologically at-risk children. While this has always been true of children who live in poverty, this has now become a significant issue among affluent preteens and teens, whose rates of depression, anxiety and substance abuse show alarming growth.

• Peers are raising peers. Our children have greater peer influence at a younger age when they typically were more influenced by their parents. The ability to develop a core sense of self is impaired. And primary peer influence in general promotes a greater acceptance of deviant behaviors such as substance abuse, violence and delinquency.

• Children who spend long hours in poor quality child-care centers typically exhibit higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol. This can damage neurons in developing brains, resulting in later learning and social difficulties.

• Guilty parents may give their children things rather than their time. Yet we hear teens saying they wish they’d had more time with their parents when growing up—more than having received the latest electronic gadget and more than belonging to teams or clubs.

• Children have become less useful at home, and need much done for them. They have not been allowed sufficient time within the context of nurturing caregivers to resolve the very tasks of early childhood.

What are the tasks of early childhood?

• The ability to delay gratification and tolerate frustration—how can these skills develop when emotional needs are continuously being met by things or peer groups? It is in the context of a bond with nurturing caregivers that children begin to develop these fundamental skills.

• The inability to delay gratification and tolerate frustration is resulting in a society of adults who are less giving and more egocentric, believing their needs must be met externally.

• We are aware of the influences of television and video games. Besides a tendency to learn violence and be exposed to other inappropriate content, we have a society of children whose neurological development has been rewired as a result of watching screen images steadily before age 2. These children have more difficulty paying attention and being motivated by experiences and consequences.

How do we counter this?

We can help our children develop a sense of self that will serve them as an internal guide to becoming positive and contributing members of society who follow the life and teachings of Christ.

1. We need to give the gift of time—the gift of time that will enable us truly to nurture and bond with our children. This strong bond, a basic attachment, enables our children to face the world and its challenges—to cope, love and care about others.

When both parents need to work outside the home, what can we do about our child-care environments to give children what they need? As a church, should we take a more active role in early childhood? Should we, instead of just planting churches, also plant quality day-care centers with well-trained and well-paid staff?

2. We need to reclaim the role of play in the classroom and at home. What do kids learn through play? They learn all the essential skills they need to develop emotional intelligence:

• self-control
• respect
• kindness
• tolerance
• fairness.

We are all aware that with the No Child Left Behind Act, many early childhood centers feel compelled to drill children in skills that are mostly inappropriate for their developmental levels. As a result, there isn’t the same level of child-directed play that enables children to develop self-confidence and problem-solving capabilities.

While we tend to think of play as an early childhood phenomenon, we need to reclaim it for our older children as well. My daughter, a high school senior, has attended an Expeditionary Learning school since junior high. In this model, students are involved in a variety of outdoor experiences for days at a time that build community and leadership skills. They learn to problem-solve together and share a common language and set of values that carry over into their relationships and learning experiences. These are the fruits of positive play.

When my daughter celebrated her 16th birthday at our home, she and 15 classmates of mixed gender played Ultimate Frisbee and walked a slack line with the abandon of young children. There was almost none of the typical discomfort between boys and girls. Relating rather than flirting was the order of the day.

3. We know that young children learn by modeling and direct-teaching, so it is important to tell them to share, wait their turn, play nicely. As they grow older, they will internalize these values. Sometimes we have seen our older children stray away or rebel at a certain point in time. This does not mean we should not continue to stand for what we know is good and right and true—what is of love, what is of God.

We must allow children to fail without constantly rescuing them, at the same time that we set firm limits and allow them to deal with the consequences of their behaviors.

Somehow we think that giving firm limits and consequences is equivalent to not loving children, especially when we are not emotionally or physically accessible to our children. Our feelings of guilt create problems for our children, preventing them from developing good coping skills.

4. Finally, a strong bond with our children helps them ultimately develop a strong faith in God. Experiences of trust, security and affirmation balanced with clear expectation set the stage for healthy belief in a Creator and sustainer.

A countercultural church needs parents who set clear limits and focus on responsibilities and relationships.

I challenge us to make big changes in how we raise our children.