For Parents: Ways to Make Sure Schools Don’t Turn Your Kid Woke

Georgia kids are back in school. Here’s the reality: every Christian kid will face challenges to the faith instilled in them from the home.In 2021 America, those challenges seem to be more severe. From CRT to radical Sex Education/Indoctrination, many students will see an active undermining of the values you are teaching them. For some, this may even mean forced compliance – where instructors and administrators will compel your child to acknowledge falsehoods on their assignments or deny God’s design.As a parent, you have a responsibility to safeguard your child. While we work on legislation aimed at protecting these little ones, here are some tips to help your child resist the “wokeness” many schools will seek to impose on them:1) Read the Bible with your child daily. God’s Word is the greatest weapon against the darkness2) Pray with your child – BEFORE they go to school – every morning. In the hustle and bustle, it can be easy to “not have time” to pray together before you separate for the day. Get their day started off right!3) Make JOY a dominant attribute of your home. When the world challenges what they hear from you, make certain that your child associates your home as a place of joy. LOVE your spouse, and let them see it. Give your child more attention and affirmation than the world does. Let them see how you LOVE the Savior and how your faith brings you JOY. A joyless home will not make the faith attractive to your child.4) Be realistic about what your child is facing. Most likely, your child is being confronted with the LGBTQ+ agenda FAR earlier than you would have ever imagined. Don’t bury your head in the sand! Research what they’re learning in school, look into whether they have LGBTQ+ identifying children in their class, and have a real understanding of what your child is seeing and hearing so you can address it PRIOR to it becoming an issue.5) Monitor your home. You can’t always control what your child sees and hears when they walk out of your front door. However, your home is your fortress.  Monitor what they are viewing – on TV, on their tablet, on a phone. Recently, “Muppet Babies” made Gonzo a “gender-queer” character, dressing up as a princess. Big Media is actively targeting your child.6) Celebrate your child’s sex. “Isn’t it awesome that God made you a boy?” /“Wasn’t God good when he made you a girl?” are great themes to have in your home. The child with gender identity issues will be celebrated. Make sure your child is celebrated for their biology – for how God made them.7) Talk about God’s intentionality in design. Preach to your child the wonder of God’s creation. He doesn’t make mistakes, and He has intentionally designed every human being. Make sure your child sees advancing false ideologies as an attack on God’s design.8) Make sure your church is actively addressing cultural issues. The responsibility IS on you to train your child. But, it is also on your church to provide support. Talk to your pastor and to your child’s Sunday School teacher to make sure they are addressing these cultural issues with intentionality.9) Find Christian books for your child. Encourage your child to be an avid reader – one capable of understanding the faith from an intellectual level. Make certain that your child knows that the Christian faith is the only intellectually honest position to hold.10) Study American history with your child. Study American history – all of it, including the warts – with your child. Teach them about the Founding fathers. Tell them what makes our nation unique and special. Talk to them about the horrors of slavery and the real racism that is a part of our nation’s story. Educate them on the progress we have made. Make sure that – when the system tries to bully them into identifying as oppressed or oppressor based on their skin color or tries to make them hate their country – they have a well-rounded view of real history and an appropriate perspective to anchor them in the discussion.11) Rejoice in your child’s status as an Image Bearer of the Living King. Long before Jesus gave His life for us, the Father gave us value – by creating us in His image. It is this status that gives us ALL value. We are not defined by our race. We are defined by being His image bearers. What a joyous gift that is to celebrate with your child!12) Discuss the lunacy of the radical sex agenda of the Left. When it’s appropriate (and it may be earlier than you think) talk to your child about the absurdity and anti-science nature of the LGBTQ+ movement. They should know that biology, logic, and the Scripture are all in agreement. When the world tries to bully your kid into accepting the ridiculousness of their agenda, your child should know that the world’s position is laughably wrong and unmoored from reason.13) Make yourself safe and available. Assure your child that they can share anything with you. Ask questions and be available. Make sure that challenges to the faith that occur in your child’s school are quickly brought to your attention by your child.14) Be aware. Look into the curriculum your child will be learning. Determine whether there are problems. Get to know other parents who may see things the same way. Learn whether your child has kids identifying as LGBTQ+ and discuss honestly with your child some strategies for how to address challenges that may arise – including whether it honors God to use their classmates’ “preferred pronoun.”15) Be engaged. Attend school board meetings. Know your child’s teacher. Learn your rights. Partner with organization’s like ours. Be ready to influence the policies at your local school and the education policy of our state.16) Understand your options. While some may not have other options, we encourage those that do to be aware of alternative schooling that may better affirm the values you have in your home.17) Discuss the depths of sin nature and teach your child grace. Talk about sin nature – that all are spiritually blind but for the grace of God. In that vein, teach your child to show grace to those who are wrong and who fail to understand His truth.18) Equip your child to defend the faith. In today’s world, your child’s faith will be challenged. Prepare them to provide a defense for what they believe.19) Embrace the realities of persecution. Don’t hide the truth from your child: in this culture, being a Christian means being different. It means you’ll be persecuted. Don’t allow them to think they can be like the rest of the world or be Christian-lite. Prepare them for the realities of the challenges they will face with radical Christian living.20) Pray with your spouse. Your child is in the Lord’s hands. Yes, God uses intentional parenting, but you will not be perfect. Put your child to prayer and take the opportunity to draw closer to your spouse at the same time.This is just a basic list to help you safeguard your child. If you find it helpful, I hope you’ll forward it on. We are praying for all the parents throughout our state in this difficult time.We know this: our kids are under attack. May the Lord protect this generation!