Trinitas Blog

The term “helicopter parents” has been used to describe parents who for the past three decades, give or take a few years, have been over-protective, micro-managing, and sometimes just plain suffocating to their children. It seems helicopter parents don’t want their children to experience hardship or danger or difficulty or failure, and that motivates them to intervene in all aspects of their children’s lives, rushing in at every opportunity to preserve a perfect day.

 We parents are often tempted to idolize our children’s happiness. From the time they are born, we tolerate nothing that makes them cry—not hunger, not boredom, not loneliness. We react immediately to their cries with whatever remedy is necessary. Of course, it is our job to provide for their needs, and babies express those needs by crying; however, babies will eventually grow up. A baby who has never been allowed to experience a moment or two of unhappiness—probably more like an inconvenience—can become an older child, then a teenager, then an adult who has no tolerance for anything that makes him unhappy or inconveniences him. Such a person is impossible to live with, for he acts as if he is sovereign of the world and tramples everyone around him to get what he wants.

Summer break provides an opportunity for parents to rest from the routines of the school year and give fresh consideration to the joys of parenting. In this summer series, Mr. Gilley draws upon his experience as a father of two grown sons and grandfather of four to share with us Five Perfect Gifts for Children. Whether this is your first time to enjoy the series or you have enjoyed it before, be encouraged and drink deeply of the wisdom contained within and share it freely with anyone blessed with a "heritage from the Lord." 

We'll begin with a preview of all five gifts and then unpack each individually over the next five weeks. 

Kurt Vonnegut gave a commencement speech towards the later end of his career, and he advised that all such speeches should begin with a joke. I toyed around with possibilities for this venue, including the much beloved green ping pong ball joke, the always-appreciated purple kingdom joke, and the new-to-many-of-you story about lil’ Johnny and the Noodle Man. However, none of them seemed quite right for the occasion, so I thought I’d do something completely different: let’s start tonight by defining our terms. I promise if you’ll bear with me, that this will be over quickly.

This week we celebrated the retirement of one of Trinitas’s most beloved teachers of all time. After twenty years of teaching in the Grammar School, Mrs. Wendy Phillips is retiring from that role. Many alumni, parents of alumni, students, and faculty members gathered for a time of remembering, gift-giving, and neck-hugging to send Mrs. Phillips out in style.

Kindergarten has a way of sneaking up on young parents. After all, it seems like just yesterday that you brought your sweet bundle of joy home from the hospital and now she is starting school in the fall. How are parents to know if their child is ready for this huge step? Here are six simple steps to help you answer that question for yourself. But remember, if your child isn’t ready, relax, August is still several months away. There is enough time this summer to get ready, if you have a plan and a willingness to work it.  

Last time out, we ended our discussion with a list of questions. We established the fact that there is no magic in those questions. They are merely questions that leave space for your child to tell his story in a way that he hasn’t even thought of yet. You can think of other questions like these that will help peel back the layers, and you can change them to fit the moment. The point is to get to the sin that motivated the action. For example, striking someone in anger is a sinful behavior, but oftentimes, there is something else motivating that anger and violence, whether pride or envy or covetousness or something else. If we don’t work to get at that sin that is rooted down in the heart, it is going to continue to manifest itself on the surface somehow—this time it was anger and violence, but next time, it could be something different.  

Picking up the thread from a couple of weeks back, I want to discuss correction a little further. We have talked about what correction is, why we must correct, and why our children don’t always love correction. Now, we’ll examine correction that addresses patterns of sin or even besetting sins in our children's lives.

Sometimes, our children have a bigger problem putting off sin than we had hoped. Perhaps it begins with a single event. We correct and move on. Then the very next week, here we are again in the same situation. Coincidence? Maybe. You correct again and move on. But oh, no! In a matter of days, here we are again. Now, to be fair, there are so many variables here that it’s hard to reduce this to a few brief words. For example, the type of sin dictates how we address it. Is it forgetfulness, gossip, disobedience, disrespect, unkindness, laziness? And there are plenty of other variables, as well, that have a bearing on how we proceed. We can’t get into all those methods here, so we’ll stick to a conversation about principles.