Parenting Counts

I had laid down the couch this afternoon, and was drifting in and out, when I heard on the news something about a boy who had been picked up by an adult male, and touched inappropriately, but apparently escaped. I was half asleep, so I don't know what the whole story is, but I remember thinking, why would the kid have gotten into the car with the guy, he should have known better than that. And that was the thought that woke me up, for a few minutes anyway.

Kids won't automatically know that they shouldn't trust someone, they simply don't have the judgment or experience to know that some people can't be trusted. They don't know what they don't know, and that's something that parents have to teach them. This is why parenting really counts.

Teaching our children about how to interact with the world is our job, it's something that we have to think about and make a priority, because after something happens may well be too late.

I'm not criticizing the parents in this particular case, because, as I said, I was half asleep when the story was on the news. What I wanted to share here today is just the thoughts that what I heard brought into my mind. I want all of us who are parents to think about some of these hard things from time to time, not because it's pleasant, but because it's necessary.

God has entrusted our children to us, and we are responsible to do everything that we can to ensure their safety. Ultimately it will be in His hands, but our responsibility is to teach them all we can, and watch out for them all we can.

Parenting really counts.