Welcome to this month’s Rooted Parent Top 10- a list of parenting articles from across the web for the Rooted community. This list represents ten articles we believe will encourage and equip you as you parent your kids (plus a bonus article to share with your kids). At the end of the list we have included some of the month’s posts on the parenting side of the blog. If you have an article you’d like to contribute to the next edition of the Top Ten, please email Anna at anna@rootedministry.com.
Gospel- Centered Parenting
Three Lenses Every Parent Needs by Champ Thornton, TGC. “The first lens provides the view that God made everything originally very good (Gen. 1:31). The next lens reveals that this good world is now also bad, broken and tainted by sin (Gen. 3). The third clarifies Jesus came to make new everything broken by sin (Rom. 8).”
Why Youth Stay In Church When They Grow Up by Jon Nielson, TGC. “Christ gives us—teachers—to the church, not for entertainment, encouragement, examples, or even friendship primarily. He gives us to the church to “equip” the saints to do gospel ministry, in order that the church of Christ may be built up.”
Enjoying Sports to the Glory of God by David Platt, radical.net. “In the process of thanking God, let the enjoyment of sports lead to ever-increasing affection for God.”
Rehearsing What’s True When Our Kids Head to Try Outs and Auditions by Jen Oshman, jenoshman.com. “Our kids need more than shallow assurances. They need to know what’s true and unchanging. They, and we, need a firm foundation in Christ alone—our solid rock, in whom we have safety, security, love, joy, freedom, and so much more—whether we succeed or not.”
5 Ways We Do Family Worship by Daniel Darling, ERLC. “But teaching your kids the Bible doesn’t have to be scary or boring or a drudgery. It can be simple. Here are five ways we implement it in our home.”
Youth Culture
Tell Me More: 8 Conversations to Start (and Continue) With Your College Freshman by Steve Argue, Fuller Youth Institute. “For those of you who have a kid heading off to college or moving away from home that first year after high school, this is a crucial moment to begin nurturing new conversational patterns.”
When Faith Comes Up, Students Avert Their Eyes by Michael S. Roth, The Atlantic. “In college classrooms, where almost anything is up for discussion, religious ideas are met with awkward silence.”
What Christian Parents Should Learn From Marty Sampson Losing Faith by Natasha Crain, christianmomthoughts.com. “Every Christian parent should take a hard look at whether they’re fostering a “thinking climate” in their home. Giving your kids opportunities to process questions (not just telling them answers are available) so they don’t conclude “no one” is talking about these things is a critical part of discipleship today.”
Opinion: Have We Hit Peak Vape Panic? By Spencer Bokat-Lindell, NYTimes. “The collective fever over vaping is fueled by the suspicion that somewhere, power is being abused — whether it’s the power of corporations to deceive and poison the public for profit or the power of the state to restrict bodily autonomy with puritanical, self-defeating drug laws.”
Is Your Child Emotionally Ready for College? By Anthony Rostain and B. Janet Hibbes, WSJ. “There is no Advanced Placement class for emotional readiness, but research has shown that it is the best predictor of whether a student will adjust successfully to college life. In our own work, we’ve found that readiness is best defined by a student’s ability to overcome three common negative mind-sets: a fear of not belonging, a fear of not making it academically and unrealistic expectations about performance and success.”
Share with Your Kids
Ten Spiritual Benefits of Journaling by Reagan Rose, redeemingproductivity.com. “By reading your own journal’s record of God’s providence in the past you can be emboldened to believe that He will yet again be faithful to you in the future.”
On Rooted
Sanctification by Sibling: Seven Encouragements for the Parents Who Love Them by Anna Meade Harris. “Sometimes that sharpening comes with lots of sparks and noise that make parenting feuding siblings a dicey proposition. But we as parents, with Scripture and the kindness of God as our guide, can allow that sharpening to puncture the self-righteousness that destroys sibling harmony.”
A Time to Hold Close and a Time to Let Go by Meredith Exline. “Like Mary would have to trust God with what the angel shared with her just prior to Jesus’ birth, we too must trust God with our children and remain faithful to his calling on their lives.”
Why Your Vulnerability Matters to Your Kids by Lauren Center. “One-sided vulnerability does not work well in any relationship because that’s not cultivating true friendship and trust and commitment. If you as parents have never modeled vulnerability for us and with us before, the expectation to talk about the deep and hard things of our lives feels very scary and almost unfair.”
What Weeding and Parenting Have in Common by Katie Polski. “There will come a time when our children need to take over the maintenance required in pulling out the temptations that seek to overcome them, but while they are still growing under our care, we are responsible to help our kids identify the weeds and teach them how to prune them out.”
Sufficient Hope for the Teen Years by Christina Fox. “The challenges we face with our teens do not have the final say. That’s because the gospel is our hope in all seasons of life, including adolescence.”
Three Political Truths I Want My Kids to Know by Mark Howard. “As a parent, I’m increasingly aware that citizenship is a discipleship issue that I need to be addressing with my kids – particularly since cultivating ‘a habit of devotion’ is something our culture is definitely doing through the history they learn, the patriotic songs they sing, and the Pledge of Allegiance they repeat daily in school from a very young age.”
