My pastor recently asked, “Why do you think students who seem to be solid Christians in high school, go to college and come back with a different worldview?” It is a common occurrence today. While public schools are increasingly pushing things like Critical Race Theory, that blatantly undermine a Christian worldview, there are also subtle influences that undermine a child’s worldview in our homes. Assuming your child plans to attend college, how can we as parents prepare our children so that they, “…Will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming,” Ephesians 4:14. First, however, a word to parents:

While God is the one who changes hearts, how well children retain their faith is dependent on training. Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Science shows that a child’s brain, particularly the frontal lobe which controls reasoning, is not fully developed until the age of 25. This means two things: 1) Children need to be taught what and how to think, even when they are older. I have a black belt in mixed martial arts. It is something I worked hard for and it is a sign that I am well equipped to kick butt in hand to hand combat. I am a novice marital artist. As my instructor said, “As a black belt, you have mastered the basics,” meaning I have a long way to go before I master the martial arts. As parents, we are to teach our children so that they master the basics by the time they leave us. 2) Teach them that they are developing and sometimes show them, gracefully. As a young parent, I will not pretend to have grand, practical application of such things. I am still learning here. However, I can underscore its importance. To draw again from my experience from martial arts training, my instructor always stressed exercising power under control. While it may be prudent to strike to hurt someone in self-defense, it would be a detriment to train with a partner at full power blows. If a child does not understand the limits of their development, it may eventually lead to unnecessary harm.

While I want to spur you and I into action, it is important to think about what actually threatens our children. First I will start with where many of us send our kids for long periods of time: school. I am not here to bash school. What I am here to say is, “Be super, mega, extra involved in what your kids are being taught in school.” Unfortunately, many schools today are pushing evil ideologies that sound good, especially to someone with an undeveloped brain. It is often disguised as righteous, even Christian. A blatant example is Critical Race Theory (CRT), which is derived from Marxism. Basically, CRT teaches that a person is valued solely on the basis of race. Race determines how much privilege/victim-hood a person has. These values are used to bring about equity of outcomes among students, often by discriminating against a privileged race to benefit a victimized race. Sometimes, CRT is infused with how the curriculum is taught. Without writing an expose on CRT, it can simply be said that CRT is evil. Teaching a young child such content will radically transform how they view the world, even if they are being taught counter Christianity at home. So investigate what your children are learning or teach them on your own.

While overt attempts to convert our children may be easy to spot, there are other influences that are more subtle. Remember that children, no matter how old, are impressionable. Given that the brain is still developing up into young adulthood, I think a strong, Christian foundation can be undermined by slow, repetitive influences. Sometimes, content may seem innocent, perhaps it is, but what is a child retaining? This example pertains more to a younger child, but I think such influence would carry into adolescence and adulthood. Consider some lyrics from the song, Let It Go, from Disney’s movie Frozen:

Let it go, Let it go
Can’t hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and inject some more

I don’t care what they’re going to say
Let the high rage on
The needle never bothered me anyway

Obviously, neither Frozen nor Let It Go is about doing drugs. However, by swapping out a few lyrics, it is easier to see the song transformed from a princess singing a song to becoming a song supporting licentiousness. I understand the song is used for character and plot development in the movie. I would point out, however, that most children, just sing the song. Yes, they may watch the movie dozens of time, but it is the song they will sing all day long. What message would we think they would take away from a song that celebrates throwing off restraint and acting impulsively? To one degree or another, that message of, “do whatever I want,” is going to be imprinted on our children, unless it is put in check. Am I saying cancel your Disney subscription? or burn your DVD collection? No, but let us be aware of what our children are consuming. Offer alternatives. Teach them how and what to think about what they consume explicitly so that their worldview is not weakened by trivial material.

The final morsel of wisdom I have to offer is this, from my martial arts instructor, “You fight the way you train.” When a person is in a fight, adrenaline has kicked in, fists are flying and noses are bloodied, everything is instinct. In a fight, a person who practiced sloppy punches will throw even sloppier ones. A student faces much the same challenges in college, where opposing ideas are presented eloquently and cast in righteous light, but the where the consequences are eternal. Evermore, students are even facing violent opposition to holding a Christian worldview. What influences them plays a large role in what kind of person they will become. We, as parents, can guide those influences upon our children so they are not led astray by them. Let us not grow slack or slothful in our instruction, but be intense and diligent that our children may not depart from it.