So, what else is your child good at?
So what else is your child good at? If you ever plan to enrol your child into an independent school or pursue any form of grant or scholarship in the UK, you better come prepared to answer this question. Knowing this, we start preparing the answers VERY early. We now have to also juggle exposing our children to ‘acceptable extra-curricular activities’ to increase their chances of getting into good schools or explore the 0.5% chance that they may be good enough in something and rise to fame. Not too long ago, all we had to do was stay on top of our studies and make good grades. How times have changed! We have now transitioned from ‘learn a skill’ to play a sport, a musical instrument or write lines of code.
I’ve been particularly fascinated by two families who took this issue seriously, and the extent of their focus and sacrifice. Their stories sound crazy and you would need to have a bit of crazy to go that far.
Lewis Hamilton’s father! To support his son, this guy opted for redundancy from his position as an IT manager and became a contractor, for the flexibility to train his son and attend his races. A career in IT is a BIG DEAL but he didn’t mind the ‘stay at home daddy’ title, if it allowed him chase this ‘thing’. And for a boy who was six years old at the time? Who does that? Even though it seemed like a gamble, it paid off. By eight years old, Lewis started a racing career and at 10 years old he won the British Karting championship which was the first of many championships. The time and effort paid off!
Serena and Venus Williams have a very similar story. Their parents even built this picture BEFORE they were born, they barely had a social life. At some point, they too adopted the ‘stay at home daddy’ formula to train the girls full time. The girls went on to win championships, break records and set new ones. Again, it paid off! If you don’t fancy tennis or car racing, there’s a list of acceptable/popular options, e.g, football and swimming.
These two scenarios got me thinking. What if we channelled similar effort to raising God’s next generation army? What if we ‘maintain the same energy’ in giving our children what it takes to become grounded in the knowledge of God and take over the world systems. When it comes to godly parenting, the energy is very different. We begin to hear things like, ‘they’ll decide for themselves when they’re older’, ‘but we pray at home and they understand that we’re Christians’, ‘we go to church and they all have Bibles’. Somehow, we believe their knowledge and relationship with God will magically happen.
I know we’re not about to leave your jobs like the ‘crazy’ guys, but we lose the same stamina that carries us straight from the office (after a full day) to football practice because we’ve formulated the strategies that our children need to win in life. Sadly, Bible study, prayer walks and house fellowships did not make the list. For some parents, it becomes the one aspect of the children’s lives that is outsourced to strangers, without feedback because we create time to evaluate even school work through assignments, performance results and parent-teacher meetings. But not their spiritual wellbeing, we just allow the children to tag along.
Attending a Christian school is great but will NOT be the quick fix you hope for. The shift from academic success to other competencies is just one aspect of the many shifts in today’s world. There are a lot more to prepare for and a solid foundation and relationship with God is that proverbial stone guaranteed to shoot ALL the birds. There needs to be a plan, a strategy, a collaboration with the Holy Spirit and laser focus. Even when you tick all the right boxes, please take time to evaluate their progress. If you’re in the space where you’re unsure of what to do, please ride with me, that’s what we’re here for.
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