Scattershooting About Raising Kids

I had a fellow Christian e-mail me recently who had just sent his child off to college and he didn’t think the kid was attending church. What could he do?

That made me think about how it was when we sent our kids off to college.

first i told our kids they could go to any university they wanted but the only one I would pay for was Texas A&M in College Station. That’s where they both went. For the sake of perspective me and my two brothers paid for 100% of our college. Dad was very encouraging but didn’t contribute monetarily.

then I told our kids they had to do three things to stay up there. They had to go to church, they had to behave themselves and they had to pass their courses. Otherwise they could come back home and go to a local Junior college. Texas A&M is not cheap and they had conditions for me to spend the big money.

I’ve always demanded respect from our children. If they disrespected me or my wife or any other adult there would be serious negative consequences. I don’t recall them violating that rule.

One time a neighbor knocked on our door who was a little irate and said our son had been speeding down our street and he was concerned for his children. I called my son to the front door and asked him, what about this. He apologized and we moved on.

another rule I always required was that if you lived in my home and ate my food you would go to church and at least act like you liked it.

when my kids were in High School and wanted a car I told them whatever money you save up towards a car, I’ll match it. My son saved up $500 and got a $1,000 car. Our daughter saved up $3,000. You do the math. I felt like that was pretty generous. My two brothers and I had to buy our own cars.

I don’t know what my Christian friend’s arrangements with his child were and I’m not going to meddle. I simply advised him to periodically ask how are things at church?