This week's newsletter from Karen

For the past few weeks I’ve been keeping up with a blog from a Children’s Pastor entitled, If You Want to Ensure Your Kid Will Be on the Bachelor…, where each week the title was completed with a different phrase. The previous four phrases were:

1. Never show your daughter physical affection.
2. Teach your kids that connections are more important than commitment.
3. Teach your kids there are no consequences for their behavior.
4. Give your kids whatever they want.

I read the fifth and final in this series and wanted to share.

The last thing you must do if you want to ensure your kids end up on the Bachelor is teach them their self-worth is connected to people’s acceptance of them.

One of the worst parts of this show is when someone is sent home. They show them in the limo crying out of control. They are devastated. It’s a much different thing than when someone is voted off an island or loses at Jeopardy. On the Bachelor, the pain [is] intensely personal. The Bachelor is not saying sorry you didn’t win; he is saying “I don’t love you.” It hurts like few things do in reality TV and in life for that matter. These women come on the show to find love that has eluded them and has left them feeling privately rejected only to be publicly rejected in front of millions. How do we help our kids build real relationships in a world full of superficial ones?

I never want my kids to go through this. How do we prevent this?

1. Teach them that their acceptance before Christ is finished and final. There is nothing they can do to make Jesus love them more and there is nothing they can do to make him love them less.
2. Teach your kids God first–Family second–Others third. Their filter for acceptance has to be God’s unconditional love and grace, the warm unconditional love of family. Then teach them that when others reject them their acceptance is found in Christ and nurtured in a caring family, and rejection by others becomes a paper-cut rather than a gashing wound.
3. Teach your kids that our acceptance of others comes from a proper understanding of the Gospel and Christ’s acceptance of us.
4. Don’t defend your kids every time they face a relational problem or when they are rejected by others, rather give them practical steps to deal with the relational [problem].
5. Teach your kids that relationships can painful but are always worth it. Our faith is only seen in how we care for those around us and in how we resolve conflict in a way that brings glory to God. There are many evidences of God’s grace that can only be seen in community. We need each other. Real relationships matter.
6. Demonstrate to your kids that doing the right thing is more important than doing the popular thing.


Above taken from samluce.com