Adventures in Parenting

I just finished helping out with a week of Vacation Bible School at my church. It was tiring but fun.

Our VBS attracts a large number of kids from the community who do not normally come to our church. Guess which kids are the ones that everyone gets acquainted with real fast? Yup, the trouble makers.

The kids who run on stage to scream into the mic, the kids who yell out inappropriate answers to questions, the kids who come back for their 10th helping of snack after spilling the first 9 servings – we got to know them real well!

I see the mothers of these children at VBS looking very tired! Children who do not behave exasperate us.  But the fact is, they are kids. It should come as no surprise that kids, especially little boys, will test your limits. But those behaviors do not define who they are or who they will become.

One of our most responsible leaders at church, in his twenties now, remembers himself being one of those kids that made everyone tired! He was a Vacation Bible School student at our church, the one who could not sit down, the one who ran on stage, the one known as the trouble maker. But look who he is now. Would you believe he is our worship leader?

So I learned never to write off any child as a delinquent without hope. I learned to look at each child as a work in progress, just like I am too in many ways. All they need is someone with patience, kindness, and perseverance to love them, to not give up on them.

Don’t let childhood immature misbehavior take your focus off the potential in that child.