Dear Parents,
I hope you will consider joining the next parenting meeting, TONIGHT, Thursday, 15th, at 7pm, at the Fellowship Hall of the Church. Newbies are warmly invited to join in on this second of seven meetings, as we walk through a great and informative book by Tim Elmore, Generation Z. Even if you don't yet have the text, we can make this work. This week, we will be discussing Challenge 1 and Challenge 2 which is chapters 6/7 and 8/9. Give it the college try to at least preview the material before Thursday. Please show your intent to attend by signing up HERE.
The big topics:
Empowerment without Wisdom: our kids have googles of information at their fingertips, but do they have the real-world experience to assimilate all the available information? They are indeed growing cognitively, but are they growing (safely) emotionally, socially and spiritually, given the myriad of inputs coming at them? And then, why is "Adolescence" now a 10 or even 20 year phase of life?
Stimulation without Ownership - we helicopter/snowplow/lawnmower parents have the best intentions by super-structuring our kids' lives. But, are we fully aware of the downside of us taking on too much responsibility for them? Is our focus to prepare the path for the child, or to prepare the child for the path? Sometimes, when we try too hard, we are negatively affecting our child's march towards "maturity".
So, come join the conversation; bring your observations and questions, and I'm sure we will all be better for it. Our plan will be to treat the environment similar to a restaurant, so, bring your mask until you find your seat, and we will go from there. Bring an individually wrapped goody to share if you can/want.
Thank you, Jeff Philbrick