Michigan Camp Meeting 2017

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Parenting 101

Laurie Snyman

1. The Responsible Child

I thank you for this camp meeting, for each person here, for the children that they touch and reach, whether it's in their family, in their Sabbath school, in their youth group, in their pathfinders or adventurers.

And I pray that you will be with us as we study this important topic today.

I'm like, just want to be able to hear myself think here.

Does this mean that you all represent children in some form?

Well I hope that you will enjoy this topic because I think it's very dear to my heart.

It comes together, all these things that you see, and all of a sudden you realize that you've got, there's a big issue going on out there.

Aaron Ralston, He was literally stuck between a wall and a hard place.

And he had toppled over some stones and 1 stone rolled and caught his arm underneath.

He sat there trying to figure out what to do.

He started thinking about his parents, And he started to think about his married sister, and then he thought about her wedding that was going...

She wasn't married yet, but she was going to have a wedding with all of his friends and all of his relatives.

And he started thinking about that and thinking, I'm going to miss it, and I'm going to be...

I'm not going to be there, and I'm going to not see everybody.

And he took his pocket knife and he thrust it into his arm without any anesthesia and he cut it off.

Is the need to see a family very important?

Don't we all have this great need to see a family?

He was so burdened with the world and all the sins of everyone.

And he saw her tears, and he saw her grief and her sorrow.

And despite the fact that he's sitting there with his flesh is ripping, he says to another disciple to take care of her in so many words, because he felt so sad to see her in a grief.

I'm like, we have empathy, don't we, for our family members.

But on the flip side, well, how many of you know that you love your family members, right?

Do any of you think that you ever love your family members too much?

Do you think that if we love them too much and we are too easygoing, because we never want to make them unhappy, that we can damage our children?

There's a study from Hopkins University, it says, parents are so tenderhearted today, they admit they have a hard time disciplining their children.

As a result, Children are getting away and engaging in risky behaviors at a higher rate than any other generation.

Wow, that's from Duke University in North Carolina.

Well, I guess it was a joint study with 1 from University of Maryland.

Let's read this, And this is regarding the training of children.

And you see when there's capitalizing, you've got to emphasize that, okay?

Oh, that all would understand that these small duties are not to be neglected.

Children are peculiarly susceptible to the lessons they receive in the early years.

They will carry with them through life all the learning they may acquire, will never undo the evil resulting from lax discipline in childhood.

White's words as condemning and judgmental.

I would like to say that they're a warning.

When you see a sign that says stop, you go, ugh, that's upsetting.

You say, oh, I better start thinking and being really focused because there's something ahead.

To me, that's a comment that says we need to be really focused on the fact that not doing our work and being lax in our discipline could set up our children for some major problems in the future.

What is our, By the way, we should always have a goal.

What's your goal in raising your children?

Let me tell you what parents often have said in my counseling practice.

Well, what if smoking pot and having sex outside of marriage makes them happy?

Okay, so tell me some worthwhile goals that we should have for our children.

So we're going to exemplify the love of Christ, hoping to get them to heaven and that they will also exemplify that in their lives after they've seen it.

Respect authority because if they don't respect authority when it comes to teachers, police officers, government, ministers, parents, whatever, we're going to have kids who always think that they're above the law or that their selfishness is more important than anyone's nurture, right?

They grew up to be responsible in functioning out in the world without us.

So we want to raise them to be independent?

When I got Empty Nest Syndrome, I thought, why did I raise my kid to be so independent?

She used to wrote me an email every day when she went to Southern and then they started getting farther and farther apart and I thought what have I done.

It's a good thing though right if she was dependent and calling me crying every day my happiness and peace would be impacted because I'd always be worried about her.

We really do want to raise them to be independent, respectful, and able to accomplish the things in their lives they can do.

Actually, there's a website that I created for the conference and you are all welcome to use it.

2. The Vulnerable Child

Dear Father, I pray that you'll be with the children on this campus and in our families that are represented here.

I thank you Lord that we have children that we have been blessed with.

I pray that you'll be with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, Sava school people, child care people, that attend to the needs of the children.

And dear father, there's probably never been a more difficult time in our universe right now than to raise children than it is right now.

And there are many people with hurts and many children that are feeling socially unaccepted.

And I pray that you will help us to minister to their needs whenever we notice that.

We thank you, Lord, that you felt all of these things and yet you still died for us and still wanted us to be in your kingdom.

So I'm just going to say that my title, my little subtitle is, Popularity, Is It Really a Blessing?

She seems a little uncomfortable and when they are talking in a group, she comes up and she gets right in the middle of the conversation and they kind of give her that look.

Sometimes she says funny things but it's not at the time that she should say them.

Her listening skills seem to be really bad.

Sometimes she talks over them, and sometimes she talks at the wrong time and when they say something to her she usually cuts them off.

And behind her back they've complained to even the teachers that Victoria is a show off and that Victoria is a, they say that she's kind of arrogant and difficult and they make fun of her behind her back.

None of the kids wanted to camp with her at Pathfinders.

She sits alone at lunch at her school, and she seems to have no 1 to play with, and it's rather painful to watch.

Her mother says that she herself had problems when she was growing up and she is very distraught over this problem and She cries because she says that they're treating her daughter the same way they treated her Because really Deep down everybody wants their kid to be what?

We go, oh, I just want them to be healthy, right?

But the truth is, We want them to be accepted by their peers.

And when our kids are unhappy, we're unhappy, right?

There's a lot of fathers that are doing a lot of the care of their children too, especially divorced fathers, and they also recognize that There are lots of issues going on sometimes with their kids.

So what do you think could be going on with this child?

She may have a processing problem where her brain does things differently.

Doesn't mean that it's wrong, but she is different, right?

And what happens in this age group of kids who are like 6 to 10?

You're supposed to be all the same, right?

So when something is different, you really stick out.

I was thinking she could be shy, but she's making...

Let me say that it could be not major, it could be that she's just shy.

And she's so fearful about doing good that she just doesn't relate that well because she's just so introverted or whatever, but she still really wants a friend or else she wouldn't be hanging out.

So, okay, I didn't mean to interrupt you, except that I wanted to grab that because it may not be something major, it could be something minor.

Could it be just shy or were you about on your way to say something else?

I would say that maybe she was overcompensating.

She's trying so hard that it's just, you know.

See, that would be that processing thing.

It's just, you know how some people are like crockpots and they take a long time to warm up and then there's people that are microwaves and they shoot things out and they're very impulsive.

So she could be a microwave and then by the time she came up with a joke to share it was after the fact and they'd already laughed and then they laughed at her.

Immature, actually, yeah, she said she could be immature.

Some children get older and mature at different rates than other people.

And so it doesn't mean that that's wrong, right?

They're going to hit it eventually, but they just do it differently.

Sometimes you don't really know somebody's background.

It could be that she's been socially deprived or ignored or there's been some abuse or she's had really unstable family situations where she's been going back and forth between grandmother or aunt or uncle or whatever and so she just hasn't gotten the skills that she needs.

Apparently her mom never learned how to deal with it either, because she had the same thing, she's worried about it, yet she's not giving her any tools to...

She said, he said that evidently her mom had this issue too.

So it could be some kind of a genetic medical issue or neurological issue.

It could be that mom is paralyzed because she went through it and so she doesn't know what to do and she just is overwhelmed by it and so she doesn't get progressive and do anything about it.

I can think of some really common things that we might say that she might have?

Kids who have hard times paying attention, focusing, have problems with time, getting places on time, have problems with organizational skills.

Attention deficit disorder, they usually test out very high in intelligence.

It's just that their processing is so fast and so speedy, they don't always catch everything.

I think with the attention deficit disorder, I know I would be, If I were tested for it, I would have it.

But I don't really believe that there's such a thing as attention deficit disorder, because everybody can pay attention to what they're interested in.

So if you took that same group of kids that thrive in a classroom environment where you read and regurgitate, and you put them in a hands-on thing, they would have attention deficit disorder.

Well, I hear your opinion, But many of the attention deficit kids can hyper focus on certain things, but not on other things.

And we didn't have an issue when the kids were on farms and they were milking the cows and they were exhausted before they went to school.

They didn't have a problem sitting still.

But in this day and age, we want them to sit still.

We've taken PE away and music away and they're supposed to sit in their seat and they're supposed to concentrate on everything that you do.

And we're not doing very well, but guess what?

In Asian countries they do, whether they have ADD or not.

They better be studying when they get home too.

And our universities are showing that those are the ones who are getting accepted in many of our universities.

So I'm just like there are all kinds of things that are going on isn't there?

There are more and more autistic children and they're at different levels.

There's the ones who do not function hardly at all, can't talk.

And then there's also the Asperger's, which is a high-functioning autism, and they don't process things.

3. The Well-Disciplined Child

Again, the child that they represent, or children.

I pray, Lord, that you will help us to have a heavenly focus in this seminar, because really what we want to do is say and act in a way that will give our children that we're involved with the best chance of getting to heaven.

And I pray, Lord, that you will be with this seminar, be with my speech, with what I say, and anything that you impress me to say to these people in your holy name.

Well this is about the well disciplined child.

Discipline, you know, there's all kinds of ideas about discipline.

I've heard some really, you know, about you berate your child and then you calm down and you are nice to them.

It's almost like like a parent with mood swings, you know, there's all kinds of ideas So we want to go through What the Bible has to say about children, but again, what is our goal for our children?

To get them to heaven right To encourage them to go to heaven.

That is the biggest deal that we need to be thinking about.

So here's some verses, and I'd like you to read them with me, because I just want to make sure they're right on the tip of your tongue.

Train up a child in the way he should go.

Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Now there is a lot of parents who have adult children and They are very depressed over this verse.

But we do not know the beginning to the end, right?

And as I mentioned Monday, I travel to a lot of churches and I have seen baptisms of people who are 80, 70 and 80, and they always mention in the baptistry, oh, would my mother be so happy when she sees me in heaven?

I'm like, don't give up on our children, right?

All right, let's go to Isaiah 54 13 all your children shall be taught by who and Great shall be the peace of your children Every day, even though we don't always hear his voice The Lord is teaching our children.

Is he not he's speaking to them And we don't always know what they're thinking, they don't always express it, but we know that the Lord is teaching them because we've got this promise.

Colossians 3.21, Fathers, do not provoke your children lest they become discouraged.

So we're gonna talk about that kind of a parenting style where it's very pushy, very aggressive.

And I think that that's very clear from the Bible, that that's not the way that they want us to do it.

Proverbs 13, 24, whoever spares the rod hates his son, but let's get this part, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.

What is very important that we recognize when a parent is parenting a child that they also what?

And I would say that that is the focus of this entire seminar is that we need to be persistent and diligent.

It's as soon as your eyes are off your child that there could be an issue, right?

The devil is always waiting to take charge and as parents we have to be diligent.

Sometimes they're at a visit with their other parent for the weekend.

But whenever possible, we want to be diligent when the Lord has given us the responsibility and they're under our control.

So we're gonna talk about 4 different parenting styles.

Now, I don't want you to get depressed because I bet you're gonna see yourself in probably all of these, But our biggest thing is that we're working on it, right?

Don't be impatient, because every day is a new day, and God works on it and encourages us and gives us a goal, and He knows if we just open our hearts in prayer and pray throughout our day, he's willing to be there and he didn't say we had to be perfect.

He said that the wages of sin is death and if he finished that, then we would not have an earth with people, right?

So let's go to the first parent and we're going to call that parent the neglectful parent.

This is often a parent who is having lots of emotional issues.

Do we live in a day and age when there's a lot of emotional issues?

Have we ever seen so many emotional issues as we have in this day and age?

I work with supervising the pastors here in Michigan and they always say, you know, what do you think of this and what do you think of that?

Actually, sometimes pastors hardly get to do pastoring, they're doing counseling.

There's so many issues going on and there's things that they've never seen before that are very difficult.

People who are tired, fatigued, mentally challenged, having emotional problems, having problems with their spouse, having substance abuse, having trauma, They are the ones that are most likely to fall in this category because they're truly tired out.

This child is often spending way too much time on their own.

A bored child is a child that gets in trouble.

Have you ever seen kids that have too much time on their own?

Have you ever been in your house and all of a sudden it's so quiet and you wonder, what is my kid doing?

And how many of you have walked in and found out, I don't know, they're cutting their hair, or they've just finished opening all the shaving cream cans in their room or they're decorating the walls of their of their bedroom with something that's inappropriate like yeah permanent marker or something like that so whenever we are having them under our supervision we know that when they're quiet we better watch out, right?

You know they always talk about, they're such a gift from God, but they forget that I'm tired, right?

But we're talking about parents that consistently are not involving themselves with their children, or not connecting with their children.

I had a friend who told me that as she was growing up that she would have ear infections.

She could even smell her ears how bad they were.

They were so infected with pus and all the rest.

Her mother would not bring her to the doctor.

They're talking now in statistics that children who are neglected have more emotional problems than those who are abused.

There's something about not feeling loved or like you're taken care of or that you have anyone you can go to.

So that's also another thing for us is that when you see children that seem somewhat neglected to offer your love and care for them and tell them that they can call you or they can be around you.

Some of the youth pastors have said that 1 of the biggest problems they have is with children who just are completely empty and they just constantly want to call them over and over all throughout the day because they need a friend so badly.

We have a lot of lonely children out there.

Another illustration of neglectful children is they feel really little attachment with adults.

They may try to attach but then they resent them because they don't think they can trust them.

It says, before visitors, before every other consideration, your children should come first.

When the phone rings, when you're at the dinner table, when you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, when you have somebody who you want to impress, your child is still the priority.

Even, oh, this might be hard to say, even if you choose to do a blended family, you had your children first, you have to think about that their safety is very important.

The labor due your child during its early years will admit of no guilt.

There is no time in its life when the rule should be forgotten.

So this is a very serious thing is to give the child the time that they need.

This child does not get love predictably.

They don't know, you know, have you heard the kid that says, mom, I'm home, when they come home from school?

I see, when I used to see children, I felt really bad.

There were children that had schedules like you can't believe because of parenting time and because of parents' work thing.

And so Little children are trying to remember where they're supposed to go and which bus they're supposed to get on and where they're needed to stop.

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Series

Parenting 101

2. The Vulnerable Child

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Breakout Session B

Always on Call: God’s Purpose for a Professional Parent

48m

Seminar: Spiritual Enrichment

Raising the Remnant

1h 22m

Practical

What the Bible Says About Working With Others

1h 8m

Health & Family

Juggling Work, Home, Family, and Ministry: Finding the Balance

1h 19m

Parenting 101

1. The Responsible Child

1h 15m

The Media Mind

Reclaiming the Soul in the Digital Dark Age - Part 2

56m

Parenting in Today's Culture

Follow the Leader

1h 1m

Restoring Connection

05 From Dysfunctional to Functional Families

1h 6m

Called to Lead

04 This Is Gonna Hurt Me More than It Hurts You

59m

Children's Ministries

Sabbath School and the Home

1h 16m

Sound Doctrine