Parents and teachers walk a very fine line with their students/children. We strive to teach them to become independent and think for themselves. At the same time, we want them to obey us. It's the balance of two ideologies - much like the gravity well.
Have you ever seen the gravity well? There's one at the St. Louis Science Center and one at the Butterfly House. My husband is very drawn to them. It is fascinating: two laws at work. There is the law of inertia (an object in motion will continue in motion unless acted upon by an outside force) and gravity. So the coin starts at the top of the well. As gravity pulls it towards the bottom, its inertia keeps it moving in a circle around the well. Just before it drops, the coin spins absolutely sideways. Sometimes it will spin there for a long time (really just several seconds)! Finally gravity wins out. O.K. So as our children/students become more and more independent, we still want them to obey us. Only their obedience changes form too. It goes from, "Make your bed" to "Are you treating your sister like you should be?" Eventually we step back as parents (or teachers) and let them make their own way. We're still there to help them, guide them, counsel them, but we want them to make good life decisions and to be life-long learners. Neither one will happen if we don't let them become more independent! But the twist is this: in learning to be independent, to be able to do whatever needs to be done on their own, eventually the goal is that they would choose to become obedient to Jesus Christ. In the words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:5: "We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, . . ." Our goal, then, in the end, is to mold children to become independent and then obedient to Christ.
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AuthorCynthia Saladin is a homeschooling mom of three, with a passion for teaching them about God and having a personal relationship with him. Archives
November 2023
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