Welcome to this month’s Rooted Parent Top 10- a list of parenting articles from across the web for the Rooted community. This list represents ten articles we believe will encourage and equip you as you parent your kids. At the end of the list we have included all of the parenting articles that ran on Rooted last month. If you have an article you’d like to contribute to the next edition of the Top Ten, please email Anna at anna@rootedministry.com.
Gospel- Centered Parenting
Your Kids Are Not Projects or Burdens. They are Gifts. by Cameron Cole, TGC. When we see our children as a gift, our need to control and micromanage subsides. Certainly, we take responsibility for the gift, but nobody clutches and chokes a present to make it perfect. We hold it loosely with gratitude.
4 Things My Family Discussed After Passing Victoria’s Secret by Garrett Kell, erlc.com. “In the end, my desire is not for my kids to be little legalists who are shackled with rules about not looking at certain things. Instead, I want them to be enlightened to the fact that we don’t look at sinful things so that we can more purely see and enjoy God.”
Your Teenagers Need Discipleship podcast with Jen Wilkin and Melissa Kruger, TGC. “When children are in middle school and high school, they know what it means to be a student, and yet that is precisely when often in the church we treat their faith as though it is not study-worthy. And so at the point that they are being asked to do calculus and physics, we begin saying, ‘You know what? Just spend 10 minutes each morning doing a devotional with your sacred text.’ I think that’s the wrong message.”
Why Youth Stay in Church When They Grow Up by Jon Nielson, TGC. “The words of Proverbs 22:6 do not constitute a formula that is true 100 percent of the time, but they do provide us with a principle that comes from the gracious plan of God, the God who delights to see his gracious Word passed from generation to generation.”
When Suffering Falls On Our Children by Sarah Walton, Desiring God. “If you have been entrusted with a road that has been marked by loss in your parenting and are struggling to see beyond the pain, I pray that you will be strengthened by remembering that your family has been divinely chosen to display God’s glorious redemption story.”
Teen Culture
Middle School Misfortunes, Then and Now, One Teacher’s Take by Benjamin Conlon, waituntil8th.org. “Smartphones and social media aren’t going anywhere. Both are powerful tools, with many benefits. But they have fundamentally altered how children interact with the world and not in a good way. We can change that.”
‘God is Going to Have to Forgive Me’: Young Evangelicals Speak Out by Elizabeth Dias, NYTimes. “The six young evangelicals featured here, all deeply involved in their churches, offer the textured sound of the rising evangelical voice in America, one that is often drowned out by white elders.”
Chronic pot use may have serious effects on the brain, researchers say by Shamard Charles, MD., NBC News. “Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, but little is known about its effect on health or how addictive it is.”
Kids and Sleep… A Helpful Infographic by Walt Mueller. “Sleep is actually a form of worship. Who knew?!? And since worship of God through sleep requires holding to that sacred rhythm of work and rest that we’ve been created for means that we not only sleep regularly on a daily basis, but that our sleep is uninterrupted for the necessary duration.”
Generation Z Stressed About Mass Shootings by Alan Neuhauser, US News and World Report. “The threat and emotional toll of mass shootings are the most common source of stress among members of Generation Z, or Americans between ages 15 and 21, according to the results of a poll made public Tuesday by the American Psychological Association.
The same group is also more likely than previous generations – namely millennials and Gen Xers – to report that their mental health is fair or poor.”
On Rooted
What We Do Know About Heaven by Anna Meade Harris. “The best thing about heaven is Jesus. In fact, Jesus is what makes heaven, heaven. We do our kids and ourselves a disservice when we make heaven primarily about seeing the people we love who have passed away.”
Trusting God When Your Children Don’t by Katy Shelton and Anna Nash. “Although I might like to, I cannot manufacture resilient faith in myself or in my kids. Praise God, the Gospel means that I don’t have to. I fail, He wins. I trust, He takes over.”
Raising Kids in the Way of Grace: Parenting by the Spirit by Rooted. Your child “needs to see you depending on God – filled with the Spirit, strong in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit.”
Cultivating Kids Who Follow Christ by Kristen Hatton. “To cultivate kids who genuinely love Christ—kids who will seek out a church and Christian community when they go off to college and beyond—we must lead them to love the person of Jesus.”
What We Talk About When We Talk About Pittsburgh by Tracey Rector. “As Christians, they (and we) are commanded to live as ‘children of light … and have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them’ (Ephesians 5:8,11). We have a responsibility to bring the light of God’s goodness and righteousness into dark situations.”
How Do I Help Teens Who Doubt? By Kirk Kingsley. “Before you panic and set up a meeting for your teen to sit down with the pastor, elders, and deacons, I want to encourage you to lean into their doubt. Let them know that their doubt is normal. Doubt can often be the beginning to a more genuine faith and or the way one expresses their questions.”
You Have Seven Minutes… Maybe by Luke Paiva. “Trust God with the time you have and let Him redeem it.”
A Youth Leader’s Word to Parent on Discipleship Part One by Rachel Cain. “Relational discipleship is not you being your child’s best friend. It is not you being the perfect parent – your child already has the perfect parent in God our heavenly Father and the perfect example in our elder brother, Jesus Christ our Savior.”
A Youth Leader’s Word to Parents on Discipleship Part Two by Rachel Cain. “Because there is no formula for discipleship and parenting, prayer is the best tool.”
