The Life Challenges Podcast
Modern-day issues from a Biblical perspective.
The Life Challenges Podcast
Who Raises a Child: Parents, Community, or Government
What happens when parenting meets pressure from schools, policies, and cultural trends that sideline the family? We tackle the question head-on, starting with Scripture’s clear claim that parents—especially fathers—carry God-given responsibility to raise children in truth and love. From there, we dig into the gray areas that so often trip us up: when to intervene for another family’s child, how to spot the line between objective harm and mere parenting style differences, and why demeanor and trust can make or break hard conversations.
We also unpack the government’s limited role in family life. Yes, civil authority can protect and support, but overreach—especially in spiritual and moral spheres—undermines parental rights and confuses children. Through examples like school secrecy around identity changes and curriculum battles, we offer a field guide for engaged, informed, and respectful advocacy. The goal isn’t to fight every trend; it’s to stand where Scripture stands, act where danger is clear, and partner where common ground exists.
Most of all, we emphasize the quiet force of presence. Show up in your child’s world—coach, volunteer, ask questions, and pray. Build a network of parents and church members who encourage rather than critique. Offer practical help to moms and dads who feel overwhelmed, and keep the focus on what glorifies God and truly serves a child’s good. If you’re ready for clear biblical principles, grounded wisdom, and tangible next steps you can use this week, this conversation is for you.
If this resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs the encouragement, and leave a review so others can find the show. Have a question or story to add? Send it to lifechallenges.us or email podcast@christianliferesources.com.
The ministry of Christian Life Resources promotes the sanctity of life and reaches hearts with the Gospel. We invite you to learn more about the work we're doing: https://christianliferesources.com/
On today's episode.
JeffSamelson:As believers, what should we be doing? Obviously, first and foremost, look out for your own children. But you know, you see these things around you, you pray. It's pretty much your number one one thing, take it to the Lord. Do what you can to influence things. But whether it's speaking up, it's acting, it's posting, attending meetings, uh supporting the right causes against the wrong causes or whatever. But the thing that I think a lot of us really forget, and because it's actually a little bit more uncomfortable, is offering parents encouragement, offering them comfort and strength and help and guidance. You know, just like, I know what you're going through. I'm gonna help you with that. You know, how can I support you more in what you're doing here? Welcome to the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Our world today presents people with complicated issues of life and death, marriage and family, health, and science. It can be a struggle to understand or deal with them. We're here to help by bringing good information and a fresh biblical perspective to these matters and more. Join us now for life challenges.
ChristaPotratz:Hi, and welcome back. I'm Christa Potriz, and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samelson. And today we're gonna talk about the topic that uh pertains to families. Now, most parents will maybe say that they don't think anybody else should be telling them how to raise their kids. Maybe I might have said those words at one time too. Um but uh many parents will maybe also say that other people or the government um have certain obligations to help their family out in certain ways. And then on the flip side of that, I mean, others will get upset at any suggestion or interference. And so we we see a lot of that. Um, you know, there are many different sides to that. Talking specifically with us today, we really want to focus on what the Bible says and what what God's word is for for parents and for families. Maybe a place to start is to whom has God given primary responsibility for children.
JeffSamelson:That is quite clearly to parents, and we could say most especially uh to fathers. Just let's bring some Bible into this. Um in Ephesians, uh Paul uh quotes the uh the fourth commandment and um gets specific. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise, that it may go well with you and that you may live a long life on the earth. Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. And he has a much shorter version in Colossians three, children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the in the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children so that they do not become discouraged. And even if we didn't have passages like those, it would be clear from Scripture that fathers and mothers are responsible for their children, because they are gifts that God gives to parents, and we are to be good and responsible stewards of all that God entrusts to us. And that's going to be especially true of the human beings that are placed into our care, or with mothers placed into our womb. And some verse uh reinforces that. So children are something given to mothers and fathers to be cherished, but not just as a a gift to say, Oh, isn't that pretty? But to um to take care of, to um, you know, do everything possible for. It's a great responsibility, but it's also great great privilege.
BobFleischmann:There's a few presumptions with this, and that is that the parents are rightly calibrated. When Jeff cited the passage, bring them up in the instruction of the Lord. So if you've got a father who's in the drunkenness and and gives alcohol to his children and they develop it, that's that's not the instruction of the Lord. And I think that's oftentimes where the line starts getting blurred, is that when we sense that parents are not acting in the best interests of their children, which is consistent with the word of God, that's where it gets difficult.
ChristaPotratz:Has God made us responsible for other people?
JeffSamelson:Yes, and in in some specific ways. Obviously, as we just mentioned, we are responsible for our our children. Uh we are responsible for our parents as they age, and uh you know, we're supposed to give them honor and and and assistance. And if we have authority over someone, God has made us responsible for that. That would be particularly true if we were in the government. God has given us that responsibility. But also if you're an employer, if you're a boss, a manager, or there are people in your household other than your children that you might be responsible uh for them. Romans 13 makes clear the responsibility of the ruler toward his his people, and uh the same sections of Ephesians and uh and Colossians that talked about parents and children also talk about those other relationships. We don't have primary responsibility for people in general, but love for our neighbor, and especially love for our relatives and for our fellow Christians means that we take some responsibility because we're interested in their welfare, because we know that our actions or our inaction, our decisions, our our words, all of those kinds of things have an effect on other people. And so there is responsibility there. Uh it's hard not to think of Cain's feeble uh attempt to deflect responsibility when he answered God's question about where Abel was, whom he had just killed. Well, am I my brother's keeper? God never uh uh gave a direct answer to that, but there was an implication. Well, yeah, you do have responsibility, at the very least, not to kill him. And and we can say that we are responsible for protecting other people's lives and health, and and and that when we have that ability uh or opportunity, that's behind much of the motivations and arguments that the pro-lifers have and use. Particularly point to that passage in in Proverbs uh 31: speak up for those who cannot speak, speak for the rights of all those who are defenseless, speak up, judge fairly, and defend the oppressed and needy.
BobFleischmann:Over the years in my ministry, I've been brought in on interventions, which are really difficult, very uncomfortable experiences. And uh a few of them have been related to suspicions of some form of child abuse and so forth. And you you cross that that gray area in your relationship with people where it's not my child, but I have to step in. And uh I did a lot of thinking, like when you sent this out, Krista, that this is what we were going to talk about. Did a lot of thinking and praying about it. And the um one of the things that that I've concluded about it is that it reminded me a little bit about the old Supreme Court case about defining uh pornography, when the justice said, I can't really define it, but I know it when I see it. And the reality is that there are areas that are intuitively clearly wrong. Like uh you may be a close protector of your right to raise your children, but if you and the family are over at our house and all of a sudden one of the kids go running out into traffic and I happen to be the close one there, I am going to usurp your authority immediately and rescue them, pull them back so they aren't being hurt. And I don't think most normal sane people would disagree with that. Because it it is clear. But what I think happens where we get into trouble is when we look at the way you raise your children and say and we say to ourselves, Well, that's not how I did it, or that's not how I raised you. You know, cause I mean you get that. That's a problem when you're a grandparent. You know, you're always going, You know, I don't know where they got that from. I sure didn't teach them that. But it's you get into that, but it becomes a lot of technique. In other words, we've abandoned the objective truths, like rescuing them rather than letting them get hit by a car. And we get into the technique approach, which is your style versus my style. And as a parish pastor, I'm sure Jeff, you experience this, where there'd be like a consistently or persistently unruly kid in church. And at some point it comes up at the council meeting and the pastor, you need to do something about this. No, wait a minute. I didn't cause it. What you know, but it you know, not my kid. Yeah. But I mean it just I mean, I face that, you know, where they all of a sudden they came to me and said, You gotta do something about it, you know, and this is where technique sometimes gets too far, you know, and we'll say like my technique worked. Yeah. Okay. I I happen to see other I in full honesty, I've seen other people use my parenting technique and have it not work. So there's a lot more at work here than just technique. Yeah.
JeffSamelson:Yeah. As as Lutherans, we um have a special kind of advantage. We're we're programmed with the sense that we have a responsibility towards other people uh from the small catechism, particularly if we benefited from memorizing it and being taught it as as children. Luther's explanations of the commandments in the small catechism, uh what's called the second table of the law, they they underscore this idea that we have a responsibility to our neighbor, uh, not just to do no harm to our neighbor, not just to sin against our neighbor, but with the seventh, what does it say? Help him to improve and protect his property and means of income. With the eighth commandment, defend him, speak well of him, and take his words and actions in the kindest possible way. Ninth, do all we can to help him keep his inheritance in house. And the tenth, to to urge our neighbor's spouse, workers, or animals to stay and do their duty. We understand that just as the you know, there's a thou shalt not, there's also a and thou shalt, you know, that's that's implicit in those commandments.
ChristaPotratz:Yeah, I was thinking, you know, about this question like um has God made us responsible for other people's children? And I think like the key word is maybe like how people define responsible. Because like as Bob was saying, yes, uh somebody's kid going into traffic, okay, yeah, you're gonna pull them out of traffic. Or if you notice that there is um uh abuse going on in at your neighbor's house, you might say something, I mean you should say something to help that situation. But when we think, oh, we're just responsible because we don't like what that person is doing, or it isn't the way that we would do it, uh, then I think those become um more uh sticky situations.
BobFleischmann:Mm-hmm. Well, you know, it's interesting. When you study what the Pharisees had done with with the law, it sprouted from a noble heart. I think the Pharisees were looking at things and said, Well, we're supposed to remember the Sabbath. Okay, so and then they began to define, you know, and it was like 700 some 746 regulations or something like that they had can't come up with. You know, and that's kind of and that's a little bit like what happens when you're when you're parenting, because everything becomes a theological matter when you are an Uber Christian. You're Uber Christian, so you say to yourself, you know, we're supposed to raise our children and the children and ad admonition of the Lord. So so I look at what you're doing, and you know, you know, Krista, you're not teaching those children to sit still in church, you know. They they should stit still be able to do that. You try it, Bob. Yeah, I know. Yeah, but it was always funny. Uh I should tell you some stories about that. We've had when your children were born while while you're like in the pulpit, you know, when your poor your poor s wife has to, your spouse has to deal with the disciplining and all that kind of stuff. But you know, but it what's interesting about it is how people will um you know, I had a chairman of my congregation who was a retired Christian day school principal, and the story used to be that he had developed the Medusa stare. That's what it was referred to in the in a church council meeting where they came up. And that is some kid would be acting up in church and he would turn around with that turn you to stone look that only a a seasoned principal had, and that would stop the kid no matter whatever the parents did. My point is is that uh you know part of it has to do with the demeanor that you have. There are people who could come to me and offer me suggestions for raising raising the kids that I would embrace. There just is something about their demeanor that we're on the same plane, we're trying to accomplish the same thing, so forth. There are other people who come and say the exact same thing and I would never want to listen to it. And that's the problem when you're trying to tell other people how to do their business, is that sometimes, quite honestly, there are other things in your life that never gave you that permission. I was reading in the gospels how a prophet is not welcomed in his hometown. Now, Jesus applied this to himself. Now, can you imagine Jesus not being welcomed in your hometown? Why wouldn't he be welcomed and everything? They're just sometimes you just don't have that that relationship. You don't have that rapport and so forth. And of course that's hard for us to accept. Well, I used to always tell everybody I was a far better expert about raising children until I had them. Yeah.
ChristaPotratz:I think that's everybody. Yeah.
BobFleischmann:And once you have them, all of a sudden it's much clearer, you know, that this is not easy. Yeah.
ChristaPotratz:Yep. No, it's true. Jeff, I think you had mentioned uh the government. And can we say that God has also given the government responsibility for our families?
JeffSamelson:Aaron Powell Yes, but in a limited way, in in the in the sense that the state has responsibility for all of its citizens and their welfare, and and families are included in that. Parents retain the primary responsibility. But in its business of taking care of the nation and its people, you know, it it it it may be that the state says, okay, well, we're going to uh provide education, and that's going to be part of it. Maybe that the government is going to say that parents need some help with this thing, so we're going to make provisions for it. Maybe you even mandate it. That's not really always going to be stepping uh out of out of its bounds. But the the state does overstep uh if and when it inserts itself too much into the family, especially in in spiritual matters, if it starts saying this you you must do, this you cannot do, and it's it's really getting into uh the primary responsibility of the uh the parents to um look out for the spiritual and moral uh training of their children. Uh it's a common tactic of of totalitarian regimes to do exactly that through uh control of education, through intimidation, punishments and rewards, and and frankly a good bit of brainwashing to to drive a wedge between children and their parents so that the tril children have their devotion not to mom and dad, but to the state or to the leader of of the state. It makes it uh much easier then to control the next generation and from generation and you know to generation that way, because there is no competition for for the allegiance of of the children, and they'll just believe whatever they're told.
ChristaPotratz:Some of the this is just we're seeing a lot of this stuff play out more. And I just think too about oh, just those parents that came and spoke up at school board meetings and said, No one told me that my kid had changed their name at school or their pronouns or just different things, and then there was like what parents should know uh when it comes to their kids and what the schools should teach them and and just that type of thing too. And uh some real, I mean, eye-opening, honestly, conversations that were being had uh with some of these topics.
BobFleischmann:Well, and you know, you have to remember in in the Old Testament we're told that people are inclined to start calling what is good bad and what's bad good. And when you begin to see that blow in full proportion, you know, the argument that that a lot of those schools were using in that circumstance was, well, you know, it's it's not good, it's not healthy for for the child to be living aware that they they feel they're the wrong gender. And if the parents are going to fight us on that, then we have to look out for what's good for the child. You know, in other words, they create a whole new moral framework to justify what they're doing when they have no ground to stand on the very beginning. But it has that has to do with uh a parental flaw of lack of vigilance. You really do have to stay engaged and you have to be aware of what's being done. But you know, there's a number of things. Do you remember a few years ago the the debate that was going on about what's called free-range parenting, you know, where the children were allowed to pretty much go unsupervised and Yeah, yeah.
ChristaPotratz:Yeah.
BobFleischmann:And that I and that raised some very interesting questions about to what degree do you say yes and no. For example, one of the things we went through having five daughters, at some point you g you raised this question of when can I leave them home? When's the oldest one old enough to watch the younger ones? And then of course, if you want to get get into a lively discussion with people, let them talk about it. You know, it's we're facing this now. I've got uh a wonderful daughter living in Iowa, and my my my grandson at 14 can drive in Iowa. At 14. It's funny because I told it to one of the other kids, uh their kid was 14, they go, I'm not sure I'm gonna let my kid drive at 24. But it it has to do with you know different situations, different techniques.
ChristaPotratz:Bob when you mentioned the free-range parenting, it did uh remind me too of parents that I had heard about in the news and you know, that were had their child and that they were gonna just let their child basically choose their gender identity and they weren't gonna tell their child if they were a boy or a girl or or just I mean, real strange things where you know I I look at that as a Christian parent and I think, oh my goodness, somebody needs to stop that. I mean, that is really one of my first thoughts with something like that. And so when we have these thoughts as as Christians too, like when, man, that clearly doesn't seem right, how should we respond with with some of that?
BobFleischmann:Well, I'm gonna let Jeff answer.
ChristaPotratz:Or do we just say to each their own? I mean, that doesn't necessarily sit right as a Christian, but I I mean what what can we really do in situations like that?
JeffSamelson:Aaron Ross Powell I guess a lot a lot of it comes to defining and being comfortable with where are the lines drawn in in terms of you know what I should do do or can do and so forth. If if parents say, you know, we're we're we're gonna leave it up to our child whether or not to eat food. We're gonna leave it up to our child whether or not to uh go to school. We would pretty much all be in favor of saying, you know, the government needs to step in here, you know, because that's that's neglect or that's abuse, and and that's you know, that's a proper role of government uh to protect the children in in those ways. But then the example that you were giving of, you know, well, we're gonna let our child choose the gender. You know, we as informed Christians who understand these things are thinking that's neglect or or perhaps even going all the way to abuse, because that is not what's best for that child as an absolute thing. We can say that. So we we would want to be able to say, well, you know, the the neighbors are are doing that with their kids, so um, you know, I'm I'm I'm gonna, you know, maybe I'm gonna talk to them and just try to, you know, help them see you know what's going on. Or maybe I'm gonna uh you know if I I don't feel I can do anything like that, maybe I'll see if I can talk to the kid and be be helpful in that way. But maybe I'm gonna go to the government and say there's abuse going on here, there's neglect going on here. But we of course in in this day and age, that's not likely to uh to be well heard. But yeah, I'll just say, yeah, it it is difficult. What responsibility do we have um to step in or to act? Yeah. Well Bob, what do you think?
BobFleischmann:Well you know, it's interesting. Uh over the years, you know, I people have challenged me on stuff I've said or written. And I I've grown to to uh kind of divide it into two ranks. I remember uh early on in in the time I came to CLR at the end of a worship service and I had mentioned about abortion and and this lady came out of church and she was very angry with me that I would even s suggest that there was anything wrong with abortion. And I I had the wherewithal at the moment to say, well, ma'am, your problem isn't with me, it's with God. And you know, there are people who feel, well, I really like God, except I don't like him about that point or another point. But sometimes you've got to get yourself out of the middle and just make it between them and God. Uh when you get into some of these situations, I think, you know, I've I've often wondered, and I look back over the years, that if I've made mistakes in this regard, and that is we're always assigned to glorify God in all things. And so really the conversation should be with the parents about um do we agree on this fundamental truth that we are to glorify God in all things? First Corinthians 10 31, you know, Isaiah, I think it's Isaiah 43, 6 or 7, that we are created for the purpose of glorifying God. So how do we glorify God? Well, you do his will. And what is his will to love God and to love others? And how do we do that? We get kind of defined and everything like that. Is what you're doing defensible before God? You don't even have to I and I've told it I've when I've had conversations, you don't even have to answer me on it, but that ultimately is the question you've got to wrestle with. Is it defensible? And of course, a lot of times, you know, it drives people from the church because they finally conclude that I I really don't believe in your religion, and so they will follow their itching ears to find the religion that they want. But I'm not comfortable correcting little Johnny who now thinks he's a Julie, but but I I'm much more comfortable talking to Johnny's parents and just saying you have to wrestle with this. I've encountered parents within our circles who are convinced that their son now thinks he's a girl and maybe we should let him travel that path. Well, okay, you can think that. You might even feel that and Johnny might feel that way, but ultimately you don't answer to Johnny, you don't even answer to me, but you do answer to God. So where where does God come down? And I I think w one of the mistakes we make is that we oftentimes make any type of correction or any type of reminding of people of a battle between us and them. And it isn't me. There are all sorts of things that my evil inclination wants to permit that God's word doesn't.
ChristaPotratz:I uh gave kind of a big example there. But um, you know, what are maybe some of the other areas where we see tension or conflict today when it comes to family business?
JeffSamelson:Particularly in education, public education uh primarily, um but you know also in some private institutions. There's this idea that uh the educators know what's best. Period. Parents, you know, either go along with with whatever it is, recognizing how much smarter we are than they are because we have the PhDs, or the parents just get shut out and pushed to the side as as as much as possible. And so there is that conflict in the school board meeting, you know, that's a place where we see that tension coming out, often far too late because things often have to get really serious before parents wake up and say, wait a second, you're not doing that with my kids and i and in our community. Um but generally there's there's just this sense of parental authority being slowly and consistently eroded.
BobFleischmann:And oftentimes surrendered.
JeffSamelson:Yeah. Yeah.
BobFleischmann:It's like, well, it's confirmation time, so we're gonna send them to you know, there, and then they're upset because they're not doing their memory work and you raise it as an issue. Well, mom and dad don't work with them on it and stuff like that. Well, then they feel, well, you know, I didn't need memory work. And I mean you get into all these little crazy battles. Uh so even in the church, you know, parents aren't engaged. They surrender sometimes responsibilities, so they don't know what's going on at school. You know, I've always so admired my my one daughter had uh chosen, she's college graduate, you know, degreed, that kind of stuff. But she chose to stay home. And she chose to to be involved and to coach and uh you know, on on staff here, I've got a staff member who's a coach and you know, she leaves early, you know, now the the coach. And I think that I d I very highly admire that because you're engaged, you know it's being taught, you know, and because I've seen coaches the my one daughter who's doing a lot of this, you know, when she was in high school, her coach was anything but a godly example of coaching. I mean, screaming and yelling and all that kind of stuff. And um this way, you know, she plays an active role of setting the right example. And and I admire that because I I she didn't learn that from me. And she learned better than what I taught her.
JeffSamelson:Yeah. There was a time um when it was recognized that parents had authority over and responsibility for practically any unmarried son or daughter, into the late 20s, sometimes even in into the 30s. Today it's a struggle for parents to have their authority recognized over the kids they send to college. Increasingly down into uh, you know, they're told that their high school students can make all their own decisions for birth control, sexual activity, sexual identity, gender identity, all these kinds of things without any parental uh authority involved or or even influence. They're not even supposed to be informed of some things like this. And um, you know, that that authority just keeps getting eroded. And it's uh not just you know, from kind of those semi-official channels, but it it's uh it's um especially today, people on social media trying to get between parents and their children. Sometimes it's their peers telling them, oh, your parents can't tell you that. Your parents have no business saying that's wrong or whatever. Sometimes it's uh more nefarious people or people with ill purposes who are trying to say, oh no, no, no, no, you you should you shouldn't listen to your parents. You're you're your own person. You should be making your own decision. And they're telling this to people who are like 12 years old.
ChristaPotratz:You know, as as Christians, too, I mean I think we're all kind of in agreement here that we hear some of that and it it's concerning. Why why is that? Why do we feel that way as Christians when we hear these things?
BobFleischmann:We work with a lot of presumptions. I remember the first time I heard about uh furries, you know, about you know girls who thought they were cats and stuff like that.
ChristaPotratz:Aaron Ross Powell Boys think it too. Yeah, boys do. Yeah.
BobFleischmann:And but the first time I heard it, it was like, you've got to be kidding me.
ChristaPotratz:Yeah, and it's affirmed in several areas. So that's yeah.
BobFleischmann:But a lot of times it hits you by, you know, out of the because your presumption is that there's certain fundamentals that people recognize and it gets blown out of water. So part of that was disengagement. I wasn't engaged enough to know that that was going on. Now, I one of the things we've been talking a lot about having parental control wrestle the way and everything. I d I do think that uh parents too have to recognize what does it mean to be a parent. I do think, remember I told you I th I thought I was more an expert on this until I had children. And now that my children are growing up and moved out, I'm beginning to feel like an expert again. Yeah, and and part of the thing is is expert by virtue of mistakes. I think parenting, uh if I could do it all over again, I w I would be far more engaged. You know, when the when the kids are school aged, you know, I sh I should have been volunteering more at the school and and helping out, you know, volunteering at the school. For me was, you know, shoot, we've been assigned them this month to be cleaning the school. That was forcible volunteering at school. I mean, I wish I was more involved. When I was growing up, my parents, my dad, I was the oldest of four boys, my father became a pioneer leader. He was involved. We'd go on campouts, my dad was there. We'd be at school or pioneer activities, my dad was there. I think in hindsight, parents had to be engaged. And I think a lot of these unwinding of Christian values and so forth occur because we worked with presumptions that are no longer valid.
JeffSamelson:A verse from Galatians. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people and especially to those who belong to the household of faith. That just reinforces for us that when we see these things happening in society, if not to our own children or our own neighbors, we care because we want what's best. This is love for our neighbor, but we also want to do what is good for our neighbor. So that really motivates uh Christians to be concerned and where possible to do something, to help, whether it's you know on an individual basis, you know, this is what's going on with my neighbor's children, or whether it's more of a a political and cultural thing, where you know, this is how I'm gonna vote, or this is how I'm gonna speak in order to try to influence things. From a strictly secular perspective, the children that are being affected by these things are the future uh of citizens of our nation. So we we we don't want them messed up because we don't want a messed up country. But within the church, we we recognize that love for our neighbor means that that we have a responsibility to look out for other people's well-being, for their for their growth, for for their education, all those kinds of things. And again, we're we're called to look out for the weak and the vulnerable in our society. And uh that pretty much describes children to a T.
ChristaPotratz:Any um final thoughts on the subject?
BobFleischmann:Well, I I would just say that everything about our culture today is designed to create heaven on earth. I mean, it really is. And so a lot of us in our parenting have really tried to help the children get on a track for the best possible job and to earn the best possible money and to have the best kind of home and all those kinds of things. And I wonder that in starting it over, if we were to have focused on we have an eternal home in heaven, your job one is to glorify God in all things and then you start communicating that at home. I and I've I've met I've had members who are like these ideal parents, you know, where their children come home and they they they grumble about, you know, th they're they we just got this class today and they're talking about gender neutrality and stuff like that. You know, in other words, where they become conscious of that and how you how you create that consciousness in your children, that's actually done not at school, but at home. So you begin there.
JeffSamelson:Yeah. As believers, what should we be doing? Obviously, f first and foremost, look out for your own children. But you know, you see these things around you, you pray. It's pretty much your number one one thing, take it to the Lord. Do what you can to to influence things. But whether it's speaking up, it's acting, it's posting, attending meetings, uh supporting the right causes against the wrong causes or whatever. But the thing that I think a lot of us really forget, and because it's actually a little bit more uncomfortable, is offering parents encouragement, offering them comfort and strength and help and guidance. You know, just like, I know what you're going through. I'm gonna help you with that. You know, how can I support you more in in what you're doing here? You know, we're we're afraid to help because we're afraid we're stepping into something that we shouldn't be stepping into. But you know, as long as we're not going in and say, I'm gonna tell you what to do with your kids, we're doing okay. Have that compassion, have that willingness to help them. And particularly if you're you're older, if you've gone through some of these things, be there as that resource. And so that when parents are thinking, I I don't know, maybe we should just give in to what the schools are doing. This is, you know, you you can be the one who supports them. No, no, you don't have to do that. Um, and and here's the better way.
ChristaPotratz:Well, thank you both for your discussion today on this topic, and we thank all of our listeners too for joining us. And if you have any questions on this episode or any others, you can reach us at lifechallenges.us, and we look forward to having you back next time. Bye.
JeffSamelson:Thank you for joining us for the Life Challenges Podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it, and sharing it with friends. We're here to help. So if you have questions on today's topic or other life issues, you can submit them as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes at lifechallenges.us, or email us at podcast at ChristianLiferesources.com. You can find past episodes and other valuable information at lifechallenges.us, so please check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit Christianliferesources.com. May God give you wisdom, love, strength, and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
