Do you have any insight on raising kids?

Raising children, you say? Haha! Whoa! I don't have anything written about raising children ... not sure I want to get into that. :) I will comment about the oft-used verse:

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

Most of the stuff that has been said about, "training them in the way they should go" is detrimental to the identity of your child. It's not in the way YOU want them to go, or in the way YOU think GOD wants them to go, but in the way THEY should go. I know that probably sounds weird, but there is an important distinction.

It is very important to get past your own illusions of WHO and WHAT your children are, and also that control is quite the facade. Remember, they are people who have to go through that self-awareness stage just like you and I did. You can't protect them from that. Yes, maybe from some of the more dangerous expressions of it, but each and every one of us have had to ask ourselves who we really are, and if we make any real effect on our world. What it is that they will have learned from you (in every imaginable way) will either help them or hinder them in this time of stress.

Don't fall into the trap of trying to raise your children by grace. Sounds strange coming from a grace man, huh? Grace stands in stark contrast to law, but we have turned it into graciousness -- a nicety -- in the minds of our children because we think we can teach them grace. Grace is seen through failure, but how will our child see it when we do everything we can to prevent that failure. I think we have only produced the ILLUSION that we can keep failure from happening. And when it does happen to your child, he/she will not come to you or even consider what you have taught for they are sure you know nothing about dealing with the obvious failures you have been covering up.

Remember that Jesus came to save sinners. If your child doesn't seem to fit into that category, then there seems to be no hope for him/her.

Love, Jim