Parenting With The Education Fear Factor

According to Barna Research, the number one outcome we want for our kids is a good education (39%), followed by helping the child to feel loved (24%), and then, in third place, was enabling them to have a meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ (22%). I find this to be almost incomprehensible.

What I see in the homeschool world, if I can call it that, is the same intellectual elitism I see in Ivy League schools. We tend to pressure our kids to be nearly perfect. We don't consider a 50th percentile score on a national standardized test to be normal, but failure. If our child isn't at least 2 grade levels ahead in most subjects, we wonder if they will make it in life. If our teenager wants to work, say, in what some would consider to be a blue collar job, we secretly wonder how we have failed as parents. All of this line of thinking causes me to really grieve about how we, as Christian parents, have fallen into the education trap.

What ever happened to the idea of trusting God to lead the kids where He wants them to be? Doing what He, not society or even we, think they should do? Why can we trust Him with salvation but not with our kids' career choices?

But, we argue, we just want them to have a better life than we had. But is "a better life" connected with one's career? College degree? Or is a better life the life abundant promised by Jesus of intangible spiritual nature, regardless of degrees or careers?

I'm not talking here about letting adult kids live at home, be jobless, hopeless. I am talking about what drives us as parents with regard to our kids. While we cannot make them walk in faith in Jesus, why do we not see that goal as primary? Why do we let fear rule how we focus our efforts as parents?

I see this as an epidemic in homeschooling circles, as well as public/Christian circles. I've struggled with it in my own heart for years (this is our 11th yr. of homeschooling...whew!)

The Barna Research info. may be found here:
Take a look for yourself and see some of our inconsistencies as parents. It's a very convicting link! May it cause us all to rethink our goals as parents.