What I tell my boys
by | Posted on May 7th in Children, Pastors thoughts
I’m nowhere near a “raising boys” guru… there’s good chance that I might look back on this post and freak out, but I thought I’d share my thoughts about how I send my boys off to school.
Every morning, when my two boys (yr1 and yr2) hop out of the car to go to school, I tell them the same 4 things, again and again, everyday.
- Be good
(not “learn lots”, or even “do what your teachers say”, but “be good”) - Be nice to the mean kids
- Protect the weak kids
- I love you!
I hope that by the time they’re in yr4 & yr5 and have become the “older kids” in primary school, they’ll have those words always ringing in the back of their minds as they interact with other kids. And I pray it’ll have an effect on their classmates and the whole school too, for God’s glory.
Today, Mitchell asked me why we should “be nice to the mean and protect the weak”. I couldn’t think of any better reason than to say that’s how Jesus has treated us; We’re weak, and we’ve been mean to him! But Jesus has been kind to us by protecting us. We should want to be like Jesus. 
photo credit: freeparking
May 7th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
tops blog Dave. i think your answer to Mitch - that’s how Jesus has treated us - is very gospel!
May 13th, 2010 at 8:45 pm
good tips Dave, we just say to Sophia (Y1) and James (K) ‘be kind to everyone’ and ‘i love you’ and pray with them before i go to work. But i like the idea of telling boys especially to look out for weaker kids and to be nice to mean kids as they are really God-like actions for males that don’t come naturally. i’m sure your boys will have an impact on the school.
Would you say the same things to your girls?
May 17th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Yeah, that’s a good question… I think I will tell Tesla to “protect the weak” but as she gets older and I explain the idea behind it and fill out what it means, I think it WILL look different to what I tell my boys.
There’s probably more emotional bullying going on among girls than boys, and its good for our girls to love justice and hate evil and protect the weak. And the WAY girls will protect the weak who are emotionally bullied will look different to the way boys will protect the weak who get physically bullied (though there will always be both types for both sexes)
But there’s probably also a line where I think girls should protect “girls” and boys should protect “boys and girls”. Not exclusively, but there’s something right about that, you know?