My first thought was, I know exactly what I would say to that child….”This is my home and you will go to church whether you like it or not, as long as you are living under my roof, and that’s that!!!” There’s truth to this bold statement, but I don’t know what exactly what I would say or do. Here are some of my thoughts of how I think I might handle this kind of situation, if this is something that our family comes to experience.
I joked with my mother-in-law that this would be something that I would pass off onto my husband to deal with. But this situation would definitely take both of us being prayerful and mindful of that child to be able to help that child. So there would be a lot of prayers. Prayers on behalf of that child, but also prayers that I would know how to help, to guide and to ultimately to strengthen that child.
There would be discussions between us (me and my husband) and that child. Those discussions might be about what the most important things are in life, what does it mean to be truly happy, what brings us happiness and joy, what are the most important relationships that we have and who are they with. Talking about these things and helping that child to understand why church and why the gospel of Jesus Christ is so important would be a fundamental first step to answering their question “Why do I have to go to church?”
I believe very strongly in the importance of families. Families are ordained of God. In “The Family, A proclamation to the World” we read about our sacred duty, as parents, to raise our children in love and righteousness, to provide for them their spiritual and physical needs and to teach them to obey God’s commandments and to love and serve one another. So we would help them understand why there are parents in families, how important parents are and what would happen if there weren’t any parents.
Should we let our children make their own choices? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, for many things such as things that help them to express themselves and things that help them to be a little more independent as they grown, etc., etc. But for the things that are important to their happiness and health, (emotional,physical and spiritual) we, as their parents, have the responsibility and great privilege to teach, guide, ecourage and to often decide for them what is ultimately going to be best for them.
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This is a hard one. I don’t think we handled it too well when we were hit with it. We want so bad for our kids to make good choices that we often want to eliminate their choices so they do what is right. Yikes. Parenting is hard, hard, hard.