ShareThis"Saving" my family in 30 days? I confess I think it would take a lot longer than that. But Rebecca Hagelin's new book from Regnery Press, "30 Ways in 30 Days to Save Your Family," offers good ideas nevertheless.
Hagelin is an author and syndicated columnist who both professionally and personally (as a mother of three) has battled in the culture wars for decades. A story she shares about her then-13-year-old and a visit to the pediatrician puts her concerns into relief:
Hagelin recounts being asked to leave the room so that the doctor and Hagelin's daughter could have a "private chat." Hagelin refused to step aside, and the doctor, stunned that Hagelin wouldn't relent, proceeded to talk to her daughter as if Hagelin weren't there. The doctor let the child know that many girls her age were dating, and when it came to "kissing and doing other things" she had to do what was right for her.
Hagelin, presumably collecting her daughter and heading out the door while this was going on, noted that "my daughter knows that sex is only for marriage." The doctor said to her daughter, "Well, that's what some people think, but you have to do what is comfortable for you."
I've heard many similar stories, and have experienced a few of my own. Such forms the backdrop for Hagelin's book, as she makes the case that parents have to stand up for their kids and protect them because their children need them to.
Full disclosure: Hagelin and I think a lot alike, and in fact she quotes my book, "It Takes a Parent," in hers. But Hagelin gets down to day-to-day, bite-sized action items of how to better engage our kids and protect them from a culture that often seeks to separate children from their parents.
She encourages us to be willing to think through the kind of people we hope our children will become. Whatever our politics or religious values, we probably want our kids to grow to become people of character, right? So, now what?
Well, for starters, assess our homes. What kind of media is getting in? What and who is influencing our children? Because of so many media platforms today, marketers can get more directly to kids and they are doing so with increasingly cynical messages. Do we as parents know what those are? What about their friends, their music?
Hagelin doesn't suggest a fight over all these things (I agree that taste can be different while principles survive intact), but we as parents have to know what our kids are engaging in.
On the positive side, she offers practical steps on how parents can be good stewards -- such as encouraging their kids to value work and making their own lists for promoting the character traits they want their children to have.
One suggestion I really like -- though I fully admit I struggle with it -- is for parents to put down our own electronic devices and regularly engage our kids in conversation. She suggests that the whole family have a time when, for 30 minutes at least a few days a week -- say, after school or dinner -- no electronics are on. Nothing. Kids can each read, or take turns sharing "headlines" from their day -- my own family frequently does a simple catechism lesson -- anything that routinely encourages some kind of reflection and connection.
Hagelin's point is to give practical steps for parents to reclaim families that are too often today torn apart by everything from a crazy culture to crazy schedules.
As noted, my family would need more than 30 days to be saved from the above! But Hagelin gives practical steps that, however small we make them, could help almost any family move forward in the right direction.
(Betsy Hart hosts the "It Takes a Parent" radio show on WYLL-AM 1160 in Chicago. Reach her through betsysblog.com. For more stories, visit scrippsnews.com.)
FROM THE HART
