"We need to stop trying to keep our kids safe and start teaching them how to be safe"
Not literally...but I think you'll get the point
That is a quote...from me!
I thought about this while watching Dr Charles Stanley on Sunday morning. His son, Andy Stanley, spoke on the topic of raising children, which doesn't really apply to me today (our son is grown and on his own) however it's amazing how much I took from this 30 minutes regarding safety and security.
Have you ever heard this:
"Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and feed him for a lifetime"
Many people think that is a biblical passage however, it is not. It actually comes from the philosopher Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism.
My guess is that you can quickly see the application here:
While we can keep our kids safe while they are incapable, if we don't teach them how to be safe, we are not fulfilling our obligation as parents to prepare them for life on their own.
He also talked about how parents are consistently asked, when their kids leave their home to go out into the world on their own, if they thought that they had properly prepared them. The answer is consistently either "no" or some variation of uncertainty. Safety and security is a foundational level need of every human being. We, as parents, have a responsibility to prepare our kids properly to be safe and secure.
One of the many other things that came from this, that directly applied to this:
He spoke of a child who had been the victim of a divorce that led to him having to live with another family for a time. He said that living with this family showed him a completely different world than that in which he came. He said he had never known sitting down, as a family, at the dinner table; he had never known being together with family and not fighting; he had never seen a father bring home a paycheck; and many other very valuable things. Here is the lesson:
He said:
“ I needed to see it in order to aim for it”
Now...he is an admirable father with a very close family.
Here's my point:
Kids need to see things from their parents in order to be able to learn, understand, and utilize them to their advantage later in life. In other words, and I've said this numerous times:
How seriously you take your own safety and security will have a direct impact on how seriously you takes your kids safety and security, or your employees safety and security, or your congregations safety and security.
If you are content, they will be content; if you don't see threats, they won't see threats; if you don't live to be safe and secure they won't live to be safe and secure.
Keep this in mind - you may have a life where, for the most part, you (and they) are safe most of the time (or, in your minds, all of the time) and therefore there's no need to be concerned. However, things change! You (and they) will not always be in your safe world. The real world, however, is much bigger and, more importantly, different. You go places and do things that take you outside of your world, into the bigger world. When you go from your safe world, into the bigger world, there are assuredly times when you become vulnerable. As a parent and teacher this needs to be recognized and there needs to be a reaction to this change that your kids see and understand so that they will be able to utilize it for their benefit, and the benefit of their kids and family.