Raising Hell

Created on December 5, 2011

Yep, I know the title is harsh, but….I couldn’t help it.You all should know by now that I feel comfortable being real and honest with you, so let’s just dive in shall we?!On my way to work and switching lanes (safely), I saw two bumper stickers. They were those school bumper stickers that you see everywhere. Leaving out the school names, one said, “My child is an Honor Student at…”, that one was nice enough.The other, however said, “My kid beat up your honor student”.The first one was obviously a proud parent, the other was just plain ignorant.

Sorry to hurt your feelings if you have one of the said ignorant bumper stickers but to quote the bible, I would have you NOT be ignorant…in your learning or your actions.I am not calling you ignorant (I see you looking up that verse on judge not!) but rather that the bumper sticker some find funny, is actually a signal to our children that we might not intend to send. You have to remember, there are parents like you who are trying to raise women and men of God and then there are those parents who are raising hell! (again, a reference to the BEHAVIOUR not the PERSON!)

We all know that training starts at home, but we cannot be physically with our children 24/7.But, we can mentally be with them by what they see us do and what we condone (see my mother’s “Take” on our other site, aprilanddecember.webs.com)*.When we think that stickers that talk about beating up smart kids is funny, we re-enforce the craze of bullying and fighting that is running so rampant in our school systems today.In a time where you only had to worry about your son’s fighting, now our daughters are not only fighting but recording viral videos to stream to YouTube.You even see parents jumping into the fight to get a few swings in too!

Our heavenly father asks us to “keep ourselves unspotted from the world”, (James 1:26-27).We cannot condone things that are not Christ like.We know Christ was not a violent God.This means that we cannot sit back and chuckle at something that is no longer harmless.I watch countless teenagers talk to their parents with such disdain and nothing is said to correct them.Do you think that just because your child has been raised not to do such things that they are not confronted with it on a day to day basis away from your home? When we are with our kids we must make sure that they understand what is on t.v. and how they should not repeat the behaviours they see there or on the internet.

The most harmless of attitudes for adults can be the most challenging for kids…hence why parents need to teach their kids how to deal with conflict in a positive manner and how to recognize bullying so that they don’t join in.What’s more, we definitely don’t want to discourage anyone from being an honor student. The best way to teach our kids how to be accountable for their actions is to be the adult and be accountable for ours.Now, march yourself right out there and remove that bumper sticker, then sit down with your kids and tell them why you did it.

*This site is no longer accessible