In the fall of 2014 I took my oldest daughter Aspen out of junior high. We had homeschooled since she was knee high to a grasshopper. When we moved to Utah all my kids wanted to try public school. As I prayed about it I felt like it wasn't wrong, but I didn't feel this push to do it. I felt like it was something we could try, I didn't feel a sense of permanency with it.
Aspen started 8th grade and the other people went to the elementary. The first month went okay. In the second month Alora (who was in 6th grade at the time) came home and a few weeks later the dude and then a few weeks later Alexa. It wasn't any one thing, they all just preferred homeschooling.
Aspen stayed in junior high for the rest of her 8th grade year. I was not comfortable completely with it but I did not feel strongly to take her out. (I believe that as a mother I must look to God in all things especially those regarding my children. I do not presume to know anything, I look to him in thought and in prayer about their friends, about their schooling, about everything in their life. I take to him my desires for my children and I lean heavily on his counsel regarding them. And during this time I did not feel led to take her out.)
She did make some friends, none that I was necessarily impressed with. And yes a mother should be impressed by her children's friends. Why would you allow your children to hang out or associate with people who do not empower, improve or inspire your child or even you?
Something was eating at me though. I have shared before that she has Asperger's. Unless you have experienced it, it's too hard to explain. It's trying to tell a blind person what the sun looks like.
She favored fantasy. She preferred it in her books and in her movies. I've always been very aware and intentional about what I allowed her to read or to watch. I've always been very intentional with her and with life period. I have had many a person cross my path who fights me on this. And yes I mean fight. They have believed that I am thwarting her, that I am interrupting her opportunity to become the best version of herself. Fantasy was not created by God. I have watched what it has done to family members and friends. There is fiction and there is fantasy. I won't give a lesson here but research it. Look it up. Learn more for yourself.
That year in junior high the friends she was making were into the same things. No I did not think it was cute. No I did not like it all. It raised red flags deep in my soul. I was very strict about her participation with them. They had to have a purpose. No hanging out. No just meeting somewhere to plan. I wanted her to be intentional in her activities with her friends. But I watched and I prayed to know 'when'. When was the time to snatch her out? When was the time to bring her home and surround her with our love, God's love, not the world's love?
During the summer some events had occurred which affirmed my feelings that many of these kids were not going the right way. Some actions and lack of actions, some that I saw and some that were brought to my attention more like gossip but my heart was listening and internalizing.
It is not my child's job to save her friends. I want my children to have friends who lift them and inspire them. If there aren't any available then they will be okay. I would rather them be alone then to settle. You can judge me for this but I am not raising my kids to survive life, I want them to thrive. Like the quote says: Show me your friends and I will show you your future.
That fall we registered her for 9th grade and she started school. I remember the first day of school very vividly. She walked out of school that day with those same friends that she had made and I felt ill.
My dear friends this is called intuition, that feeling that you can't quite describe but you know something isn't quite right.
I prayed mightily. I had not yet talked to Ray when he called me one day and said "I really feel like it is time to take Aspen out of school."
You must understand. I am the feely emotional spiritual person in our marriage. Ray is a good man and he leads his family, but for him to speak up like this was unusual at this time. Life with teenagers has definitely brought us closer to each other and closer to God.
When he said that, I withdrew her that day. I think she had been in school for three days maybe a week and she was mad. Fuming mad. She didn't understand what we were doing and she didn't understand why.
The thing about kids is when you are parenting they won't understand most of what you are trying to teach them. It is not necessary that they understand. I explain my why to them. I explain what it is I am trying to accomplish with my expectations of them, but I know they do not understand. I don't expect them to. I am the adult and they are the child.
When we brought Aspen home she made sure to tell everyone how unhappy she was. This didn't bother me. Free speech. (*wink) What did bother me is the number of adults who felt it necessary to show up and question me about my motives. I took her out of school and you would have thought I had done something abusive and morally wrong.
The argument was that I needed to allow my 14 year old to make her own life decisions. What the freaking what? FOURTEEN!!!!! She can't even drive a car and I am supposed to let her choose the way she wants to live her life???? Yeah, no.
The argument was that my daughter should be allowed to go to junior high and to keep the friends that she likes, that as a mother of course I'm not going to like her friends. It's all just a right of passage. I was told that children learn life skills through all experiences, and especially the wrong ones. I kid you not. I was told by one mother all the things her daughter had experienced in junior high, appalling things, and she looked me in the eye and said that it would all make her a better person.
Really? This is why America is in trouble. We believe that children can make life decisions before they are even old enough to drive, vote, get a job or go to college. It's insanity. These kids are not going to be better people, they will be messed up, emotionally stumped and damaged adults who are stuck as an adult child in their minds needing more therapy than they will be able to afford or even endure.
No she does not get to pick friends who I know will drag her down, who do not inspire, empower or improve her. And what gives me that authority? I am her mother. I am her authority. It is my God given and law given right to insure that my daughter, that all my children receive the education and life that I believe is best. You may disagree with me on how I raise my children. I probably disagree with you. But once we take one parents rights away we take everyone's rights, including yours.
The next year would be rough, but nothing we couldn't handle. I was everywhere she was. I was all up her in grill, as they say. There wasn't a move she made I didn't know about. Yes she lied to me about things and she was disciplined. We talked, I'm not sure how much she listened at first. We prayed together. I told her everyday 'I created will power and determination so you've got nothing on me. I am not raising you to be 15 or 16. I am raising you to be useful to God and your community.' People still felt the need to help me know how to raise my child because I guess when you don't understand someone or something then you have to change it so it makes you feel better.
If you have read my earlier posts you understand that I lived through hell as a child. I was told more than once by different therapist that first of all, I would never break the chain of dysfunction, that people who are raised in the hell I was do go onto to repeat it. (I love a good a challenge so I took that personally and decided to show them) And secondly that I should be dead, that people who go through even a portion of what I did usually die from either suicide or overdose. My survival is because of God, he spared me - he saved me. That same intention, drive, passion and determination I used to survive, and then find healing is what drives me to be intentional, passionate and determined with my children.
I am not raising them so the world will love them. I am raising them so that they will love God, seek him, find him, serve him and be useful to him. I am raising them to be useful to their communities. I want them to be a whole human being when they leave me. I don't want them to have to heal from their childhoods before they can go out and serve others.
Recently Aspen went in to donate blood. The gentlemen who was taking her blood remarked to her "Your parents let you be a child didn't they? They let you experience life as a child" She was surprised by this remark and told him that yes we did let her be a child and in fact we were really strict about television, books, movies, and friends. And he replied to her that she didn't need friends. That he is really strict about his children's friends, he was raised in Russia and immigrated to the US at 19. He told her his friends were not what made him who he is, it was the good and inspiring people he surrounded himself with, that he only has one or two really close friends.
First of all what he said to her about friends reaffirmed what I have been saying to her about friends. Second, it was comforting to hear that he could pick up on her innocence, that he could see that she had been protected from the world and allowed to experience life as a child and not have it forced or thrust upon her before she was ready. She doesn't know what she said that sparked that remark, she was just sharing about her work and what she wanted to do.
I have never been very good at listening to other people's opinions. I've pretty much always done my own thing, paved my own way. I get annoyed that people think I care about how they are failing their children and that they try to convince me to follow them. I feel sad that there so many people care more about their child's feelings than they do about their child's future. I feel sad that people care more about how they look, how their children, how they world perceives them than what God sees or feels. Men's hearts are failing them and because of that, they are failing their children.
Aspen has come to me several times and told me how much she appreciates my intervention. She apologizes for being so stubborn - I tell her stubbornness can be useful - she tells me that she is glad to have a mother who doesn't seek for the approval of the world, who isn't afraid to follow inspirations from the Lord. She is a CNA, she goes to high school part time works 24-36 hours a week. She is registered for her EMT course next fall and will be interning next winter with a local fire department. She is standing on two feet firmly with her eyes focused on the Lord.
The inspiration for this post comes from the things I have seen from Collin Kartchner share on his Instagram stories. Society is failing. We as parents are failing our children. We are failing them because we care too much about what the world thinks. We are failing them because we are not intentionally parenting. We are failing because we don't have our own foundations of spirituality and emotional health firmly set. We are more invested in how we look, how our homes look, the sports our kids are in, what kind of car we drive and what the world thinks about all that than we are about the future, or the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of our children. We as parents are insecure. We are all still in 8th grade hoping someone will tell us we look pretty or that we are enough. We cannot help our children navigate this world if we ourselves are drowning in the chaos of it. We are the problem. We must reevaluate our priorities, our why, our purposes. If our foundations are not firmly set we cannot help our children set theirs. If you are drowning in the chaos of the world your children will drown too.
It's up to us. We are our children's future. We must change. We must do more than want something. We must go after it. Forget the world. Focus on God. Make him the center of your home, of your life. Be willing to see your weaknesses so that God can make them your strengths.
Go. Fight. Win.
Aspen started 8th grade and the other people went to the elementary. The first month went okay. In the second month Alora (who was in 6th grade at the time) came home and a few weeks later the dude and then a few weeks later Alexa. It wasn't any one thing, they all just preferred homeschooling.
Aspen stayed in junior high for the rest of her 8th grade year. I was not comfortable completely with it but I did not feel strongly to take her out. (I believe that as a mother I must look to God in all things especially those regarding my children. I do not presume to know anything, I look to him in thought and in prayer about their friends, about their schooling, about everything in their life. I take to him my desires for my children and I lean heavily on his counsel regarding them. And during this time I did not feel led to take her out.)
She did make some friends, none that I was necessarily impressed with. And yes a mother should be impressed by her children's friends. Why would you allow your children to hang out or associate with people who do not empower, improve or inspire your child or even you?
Something was eating at me though. I have shared before that she has Asperger's. Unless you have experienced it, it's too hard to explain. It's trying to tell a blind person what the sun looks like.
She favored fantasy. She preferred it in her books and in her movies. I've always been very aware and intentional about what I allowed her to read or to watch. I've always been very intentional with her and with life period. I have had many a person cross my path who fights me on this. And yes I mean fight. They have believed that I am thwarting her, that I am interrupting her opportunity to become the best version of herself. Fantasy was not created by God. I have watched what it has done to family members and friends. There is fiction and there is fantasy. I won't give a lesson here but research it. Look it up. Learn more for yourself.
That year in junior high the friends she was making were into the same things. No I did not think it was cute. No I did not like it all. It raised red flags deep in my soul. I was very strict about her participation with them. They had to have a purpose. No hanging out. No just meeting somewhere to plan. I wanted her to be intentional in her activities with her friends. But I watched and I prayed to know 'when'. When was the time to snatch her out? When was the time to bring her home and surround her with our love, God's love, not the world's love?
During the summer some events had occurred which affirmed my feelings that many of these kids were not going the right way. Some actions and lack of actions, some that I saw and some that were brought to my attention more like gossip but my heart was listening and internalizing.
It is not my child's job to save her friends. I want my children to have friends who lift them and inspire them. If there aren't any available then they will be okay. I would rather them be alone then to settle. You can judge me for this but I am not raising my kids to survive life, I want them to thrive. Like the quote says: Show me your friends and I will show you your future.
That fall we registered her for 9th grade and she started school. I remember the first day of school very vividly. She walked out of school that day with those same friends that she had made and I felt ill.
My dear friends this is called intuition, that feeling that you can't quite describe but you know something isn't quite right.
I prayed mightily. I had not yet talked to Ray when he called me one day and said "I really feel like it is time to take Aspen out of school."
You must understand. I am the feely emotional spiritual person in our marriage. Ray is a good man and he leads his family, but for him to speak up like this was unusual at this time. Life with teenagers has definitely brought us closer to each other and closer to God.
When he said that, I withdrew her that day. I think she had been in school for three days maybe a week and she was mad. Fuming mad. She didn't understand what we were doing and she didn't understand why.
The thing about kids is when you are parenting they won't understand most of what you are trying to teach them. It is not necessary that they understand. I explain my why to them. I explain what it is I am trying to accomplish with my expectations of them, but I know they do not understand. I don't expect them to. I am the adult and they are the child.
When we brought Aspen home she made sure to tell everyone how unhappy she was. This didn't bother me. Free speech. (*wink) What did bother me is the number of adults who felt it necessary to show up and question me about my motives. I took her out of school and you would have thought I had done something abusive and morally wrong.
The argument was that I needed to allow my 14 year old to make her own life decisions. What the freaking what? FOURTEEN!!!!! She can't even drive a car and I am supposed to let her choose the way she wants to live her life???? Yeah, no.
The argument was that my daughter should be allowed to go to junior high and to keep the friends that she likes, that as a mother of course I'm not going to like her friends. It's all just a right of passage. I was told that children learn life skills through all experiences, and especially the wrong ones. I kid you not. I was told by one mother all the things her daughter had experienced in junior high, appalling things, and she looked me in the eye and said that it would all make her a better person.
Really? This is why America is in trouble. We believe that children can make life decisions before they are even old enough to drive, vote, get a job or go to college. It's insanity. These kids are not going to be better people, they will be messed up, emotionally stumped and damaged adults who are stuck as an adult child in their minds needing more therapy than they will be able to afford or even endure.
No she does not get to pick friends who I know will drag her down, who do not inspire, empower or improve her. And what gives me that authority? I am her mother. I am her authority. It is my God given and law given right to insure that my daughter, that all my children receive the education and life that I believe is best. You may disagree with me on how I raise my children. I probably disagree with you. But once we take one parents rights away we take everyone's rights, including yours.
The next year would be rough, but nothing we couldn't handle. I was everywhere she was. I was all up her in grill, as they say. There wasn't a move she made I didn't know about. Yes she lied to me about things and she was disciplined. We talked, I'm not sure how much she listened at first. We prayed together. I told her everyday 'I created will power and determination so you've got nothing on me. I am not raising you to be 15 or 16. I am raising you to be useful to God and your community.' People still felt the need to help me know how to raise my child because I guess when you don't understand someone or something then you have to change it so it makes you feel better.
If you have read my earlier posts you understand that I lived through hell as a child. I was told more than once by different therapist that first of all, I would never break the chain of dysfunction, that people who are raised in the hell I was do go onto to repeat it. (I love a good a challenge so I took that personally and decided to show them) And secondly that I should be dead, that people who go through even a portion of what I did usually die from either suicide or overdose. My survival is because of God, he spared me - he saved me. That same intention, drive, passion and determination I used to survive, and then find healing is what drives me to be intentional, passionate and determined with my children.
I am not raising them so the world will love them. I am raising them so that they will love God, seek him, find him, serve him and be useful to him. I am raising them to be useful to their communities. I want them to be a whole human being when they leave me. I don't want them to have to heal from their childhoods before they can go out and serve others.
Recently Aspen went in to donate blood. The gentlemen who was taking her blood remarked to her "Your parents let you be a child didn't they? They let you experience life as a child" She was surprised by this remark and told him that yes we did let her be a child and in fact we were really strict about television, books, movies, and friends. And he replied to her that she didn't need friends. That he is really strict about his children's friends, he was raised in Russia and immigrated to the US at 19. He told her his friends were not what made him who he is, it was the good and inspiring people he surrounded himself with, that he only has one or two really close friends.
First of all what he said to her about friends reaffirmed what I have been saying to her about friends. Second, it was comforting to hear that he could pick up on her innocence, that he could see that she had been protected from the world and allowed to experience life as a child and not have it forced or thrust upon her before she was ready. She doesn't know what she said that sparked that remark, she was just sharing about her work and what she wanted to do.
I have never been very good at listening to other people's opinions. I've pretty much always done my own thing, paved my own way. I get annoyed that people think I care about how they are failing their children and that they try to convince me to follow them. I feel sad that there so many people care more about their child's feelings than they do about their child's future. I feel sad that people care more about how they look, how their children, how they world perceives them than what God sees or feels. Men's hearts are failing them and because of that, they are failing their children.
Aspen has come to me several times and told me how much she appreciates my intervention. She apologizes for being so stubborn - I tell her stubbornness can be useful - she tells me that she is glad to have a mother who doesn't seek for the approval of the world, who isn't afraid to follow inspirations from the Lord. She is a CNA, she goes to high school part time works 24-36 hours a week. She is registered for her EMT course next fall and will be interning next winter with a local fire department. She is standing on two feet firmly with her eyes focused on the Lord.
The inspiration for this post comes from the things I have seen from Collin Kartchner share on his Instagram stories. Society is failing. We as parents are failing our children. We are failing them because we care too much about what the world thinks. We are failing them because we are not intentionally parenting. We are failing because we don't have our own foundations of spirituality and emotional health firmly set. We are more invested in how we look, how our homes look, the sports our kids are in, what kind of car we drive and what the world thinks about all that than we are about the future, or the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of our children. We as parents are insecure. We are all still in 8th grade hoping someone will tell us we look pretty or that we are enough. We cannot help our children navigate this world if we ourselves are drowning in the chaos of it. We are the problem. We must reevaluate our priorities, our why, our purposes. If our foundations are not firmly set we cannot help our children set theirs. If you are drowning in the chaos of the world your children will drown too.
It's up to us. We are our children's future. We must change. We must do more than want something. We must go after it. Forget the world. Focus on God. Make him the center of your home, of your life. Be willing to see your weaknesses so that God can make them your strengths.
Go. Fight. Win.
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