Shielding Our Children

Living a set apart life, how do we shield our children from worldly happenings rather than be naive about what is happening? Is there a difference between shielding and being naive or ignorant?

I think most people use the word ignorant as a demeaning term, but in reality it means "the state of being uninformed" (dictionary.com). Naive on the otherhand means "having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information" (dictionary.com).

This topic comes to me after being in Sunday School last Sunday. We had a substitute teacher as our regular teacher was at a wedding out of state. Our topic was "Hear the Word of the Lord" and the question we were discussing was "What kind of opposition might outh face for doing what is right?". The teacher said that if all women dressed like us (meaning cape dresses and coverings) then there wouldn't be any rape, women who do not dress like us want to be raped. I think the worst part about that was what followed, more than half the youth girls agreed with her. That is teaching the girls to be naive.

So how can we shield children without teaching them to be naive or ignorant on certain topics? To shield someone, we acknowledge something happens but we do not allow them to read about it or learn about it in great depth. But if we say, for instance, because you dress modestly and cover your head (to girls) or because you dress modestly (to our boys) you will not be murdered, that is being naive. Simply saying because we are following God's instructions does not mean something bad will not happen. There are plenty of times when good Christian people have bad things happen.

I have a friend whose mom near a month ago was on the verge of death, she had blood in her brain and the doctors could not figure out where it was coming from or why it happened. She is a conservative Mennonite, raised conservatively and adheres to God's teachings, does this mean that she wasn't a true Christian because something bad happened to her? No. It means God allowed a challenge/struggle in order to strengthen her family and her in some other way that He felt needed attention. Her mom is now doing well, although not as well as she would like to be :), but she is headache free and now has a better relationship with her husband than before.

Crime does not discriminate. Crimes are committed by Christians and non-Christians. Crimes are committed by all races, genders and ages. They happen to everyone, no matter race, gender, age, or religion. We need to realize that. In order to be good parents to our children we need to learn how to be honest with them about what happens in the world but yet shield them from seeing or hearing about it everyday. There is a difference.

We want our children to be smart in the ways of the Lord and not comfortable with the ways of the world, but that does not mean we should ignore what happens in the world. The challenge is where is the balance? How much knowledge of the world is too much and how much is too little? That is where a parent's discretion comes in and with that means prayer and meditation.

Blessings in Christ,