Four Myths About Child Raising

Baby Dedication

December 1, 2002

With all of the millennia of child raising you would think we would have gotten a handle on it by now. Yet with every generation there are myths that arise around child raising that cause trouble for the next generation.

Myth #1 Children are a blank slate

NIV Psalm 51:5 Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

If you allow your child to grow up the way of their natural bent it will not be innocence and purity. It will lead to heartbreak and sorrow.

Myth #2 Parents need to be their child’s best friends

Two things have contributed to this myth:

a. The Peter Pan syndrome of parents who haven’t grown up

b. The treating of children as little adults.

29:15 The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.

Myth #3 It doesn’t matter what arrangement of parents a child has as long their is love in the home.

22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

23 The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ’woman, ’for she was taken out of man."

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Myth #4 For my child to grow up well she has to have all the advantages and opportunities that I can provide for her.

Your child needs less things and fewer activities and more of you.

4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

5 I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also.