6 Tips for Walking Our Children Through This Trial
Have you ever heard the story of A Donkey, A Boy, An Old Man?
An old man, a boy and a donkey were going to town. The boy was excited to go! He always loved getting to ride the donkey. The boy climbed up on the donkey and the old man walked beside. They smiled and laughed along the way as they talked. As they were on their way to town, a few people alongside the road commented on how it was shameful for the boy to ride the donkey and make the old man walk. The boy became worried and started to feel embarrassed by their comments, questioning whether they were right.
“What should we do?” the boy asked the old man.
“What would you like to do?” the old man asked calmly.
“Why don’t you ride, and I’ll walk alongside,” the boy said. And they switched. The boy began walking alongside the donkey and the old man enjoyed their travels to town on the donkey.
Not long after, they passed another group of people alongside the road. They overheard the group say how shameful it was that the old man made that poor boy walk while he enjoyed the leisure of riding the donkey. The boy grew worried and concerned and embarrassed by their comments.
“What do you think we should do?” the boy asked the old man.
“What would you like to do?” the old man asked calmly.
“Why don’t we BOTH ride the donkey, so people won’t make comments any more,” the boy suggested.
So they both hopped on the donkey’s back and continued toward town.
Soon, they again came to a group of people alongside the road. The boy overheard the people making comments about how shameful it was that the boy and the old man were riding the poor donkey and how their weight must be exhausting for the small creature. The boy became worried, ashamed and embarrassed.
“What should we do?” the boy asked the old man.
“What would you like to do?” the old man asked calmly.
“How about we walk and carry the donkey for a little bit?” the boy suggested.
The old man smiled and agreed. So they picked up the donkey and carried him for a while.
Soon, they came to a bridge. The boy suggested they continue to carry the donkey across, to let the donkey rest and so the donkey wouldn’t accidentally slip in and drown in the river. So they did.
As they were crossing, they lost hold of the donkey and the poor animal fell into the river. The old man rushed to help save the donkey, but the boy noticed some people watching and the boy worried what they were saying about them.
The old man rescued the donkey before it was consumed and killed by the river. He came up to the boy, drenched, soaked. Both he and the donkey panting and out of breath. The boy realized what had just happened and now felt shame that he didn’t help save the donkey. He felt shame that the old man could have died as well.
They continued on to the town, walking alongside the donkey. The old man spoke to the boy and said calmly:
“My son, you got a free lesson today. You learned, that it is important not to worry about what others say, or what others choose to do with their own lives. Don’t let others’ comments be your burden.”
As the story ends the moral of this particular story speaks for itself: Be mindful of who you decide to listen to, and who you spend your time. In the end, you are the only one walking in your shoes.
(Story source: A Donkey, A Boy, An Old Man)
Intro – I want to apologize. This blog turned out WAY longer than I ever could have imagined. I am passionate about this topic and I believe God must’ve felt I had many stories to share to help us as parents in this sensitive area.
I am not sure if you can relate to my own story. I have two children, ages 11 and 9. My daughter just began middle school this year. You can imagine all of the anxieties and fears for parents when their kids are beginning middle school. Quite a change from the sweetness and cuteness of elementary school. One of my greatest worries – the school bus!
Inevitably, our family needed both children to ride the school bus home. In fact, my two have been riding the school bus, going on their 3rd year now.
And let me tell you…
Riding the school bus is as awful as most of us can imagine.
I wish I could tell you otherwise. I wish I could reassure you, it’s fine, it’s not as bad as you think. But no, it is!
Now, let me clarify, the bus has never been a physically unsafe place for my kids, although I will admit that one such ride home in elementary school, my children came home telling me a 5th grade girl shared that she had a pocket knife in her bag. But, there were no known intentions in this situation that indicated anything other than she was just proud of her pocket knife and showing off that she had it. Very quickly administration was made aware and the girl suspended from the bus.
However, let me tell you what DOES go on, on the bus, and I will admit that I believe last year (my children were 5th grade and 3rd grade) that their experience may have been someone intensified for an elementary bus ride given one such kid that hopefully is not on 95% of the bus rides home – but, I may be wrong.
#1 – My child heard every fowl word under the sun – EVERY word!
#2 – That INCLUDES F-bombs! Many, MANY F-bombs. Yes, an elementary school bus ride, kids (mostly 5th graders, some 4th graders, are using F-bombs)
#3 – There is sexual talk on the bus
#4 – There were comes about homosexuals and calling other children “gay”
#5 – A kid told my daughter and a group of other students that his mom’s job is to take pictures of her (crotch) and share it with other people
#6 – Kids have threaten to hit other kids (my son received several threats from a boy who he was just trying to be friends with)
#7 – A boy threatened to hit my daughter if she told on him for something he said (she did and he was suspended from the bus the remainder of the year)
#8 – Kids do everything you can imagine to disrespect anything the bus rider tells them
#9 – Yes, the bus rider SCREAMS at the children
#10 – Kids pull out their cell phones and take pictures (yes, your child is probably on some other child’s photo album against their or your approval)
I could probably go on and on, the school bus is NOT a parents dream ride for their precious, sweet innocent child. And let me tell you, my two children are pretty sweet and innocent. We have been VERY slow to expose them to things of this world.
And ALL of this in under 30 minutes of riding the bus.
How can so many awful things happen in just a 30 minute bus ride?
I recall vividly my own experience of riding the bus between late elementary years and through most of middle school. It…was…terrifying! At least, in my mind it was.
I thought standing at the bus stop around 6:15 am, waiting alongside some scary individuals was bad enough. We had several kids I can remember I feared might kill me before we even got on the bus. Mean, angry kids, parents below their butts, by middle school, at the bus stop…smoking! Yes, by middle school, kids would be at my bus stop…SMOKING!
The back of the bus was the worst. Stop after stop some of the biggest and meanest kids would get on the bus and head to the back where all of the scary kids sat. I would typically sit with my brother either toward the front or no further than the middle. The occasional paper or pencil thrown from the very back would hit us in the back of the head. The constant foul language. The occasional, “What the f#$% are you looking at,” should me, my brother or any other kids turn and look back at the scary group in the back.
In my mind, it was pretty terrifying!
And how did I turn out? Well, I think…I turned out… pretty fantastic.
I work, I have a family, I am married to an amazing woman. I have two fantastic, God-loving children. We attend church regularly. We give. We contribute to society. We even recycle! We care for our 3 dogs.
How the HECK did I turn out so well? Wasn’t the bus supposed to ruin me???
What does it say in Proverbs 22?
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I did what I consider to be some pretty awful things during my time between middle school through high school (mostly middle school).
I tried a cigarette. GROSS! Never my thing. I tried black and milds (poor man’s cigar) – I actually enjoyed those. I looked at things I shouldn’t have. Luckily the internet wasn’t as accessible in those days or I can’t imagine what I may have seen. I said some of the most foul language you can imagine. I spoke poorly about the opposite gender. We made homophobic comments. We said mean things about kids different from us. We were disrespectful toward adults. I wore pants below my butt for a time.
But, was it the bus?
Did the bus turn me into this awful child?
No! Peer pressure as a whole most likely contributed toward what led me down this path for a brief time (maybe a 2 year stint at best, during the years which many kids are just trying to figure out where they fit in).
I would actually argue the two great contributors to this ridiculous time in my life were more of the individuals whom I played basketball with and the examples I saw there. Along with what I believe to be my parents stepping back a little too soon and allowing me a little more freedom than I believe youth should receive. Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe my parents did a pretty fantastic job. But I do believe that parents need to be very strategic about quite a few things during middle school concerning their children, which I’ll share shortly.
Alright, enough about me. We are Christians. Christ-followers. So, let’s ask the question, the horrible, terrible, awful things that go on, on the bus:
Is God Big Enough to Lead Your Child Through This?
YES!
And you already knew this! Now, I don’t consider myself much of a scholar but, didn’t God take this man Saul and turn him into Paul? A man who was the cool guy, the it guy, surrounded by people that hated and persecuted Christians? The peer pressure Paul must have felt to behave a certain way and be a certain way. And God chained him!
What about that chick, Esther. She married a king and lived in a world far from her life as a Jew. Imagine the pressure to be like everyone else. I’m assuming a secular life, a secular world. The temptations to live as a queen and to do and have anything you want. What did she do? She stuck to the faith.
And Daniel. Holy cow! Daniel. Didn’t this guy get taken from his home and forced to live in and with another culture? One who denied the Jewish faith, the God of the Jews, and even at a time forced to practice their religious practices, threatened to death if he didn’t comply? And what did Daniel do? He prayed!
So, Is God Bigger Than Your Child’s School Bus? YES!
Now, I’m not suggesting we are not to be vigilant and proactive here. I believe that middle school (probably even beginning 4th grade, as everything we experienced as a child, our children are experiencing 2 years earlier) more than ever is a time our efforts and time become the most invaluable and I’ll share practical wisdom and tips shortly on how we can be involved in our children’s lives to position ourselves to remain in a posture of influence.
But we have to remain focused on what school is to our children – influence and peer pressure. Our children will begin to seek out who they think they are, their identities among other peers, and in the process, they are seeing, hearing and feeling what other kids, all of the majorly insecure and desperately lacking adult guidance, are conforming to.
Romans 12 says:
Do NOT be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…
Now, how does this relate to money? Because after all, I am here to help guide our children toward being responsible, God-focused, kingdom-focused individuals with their future wealth.
Let’s talk peer pressure. Oh wait, we just did! Let’s talk about trying to fit in, to be like others around us. Oh wait, we just did! Middle school is the first time our children are seeing what other children are doing. And the bus ride is just one tiny piece of that story.
And we grow up and the peer pressure begins. Pressure to get a credit card on college campus. Parents pressure their children into car loans, and student loans. We get poor wisdom, poor advice. We see other people driving sweet cars, shouldn’t I get one? We see others wearing amazing, expensive clothes, shouldn’t I?
For me the struggle for a few years now is seeing all of the different toys other dads have around me. The sweet ride-on mower, the 4-wheeler, the golf cart, the boat, the $60,000 truck. The $600,000 house. The vacations they post on social media. Peer pressure doesn’t just exist in middle school, it is merely introduced.
And as parents, what an honor and amazing opportunity to be there to walk our children through only a small fraction of the temptations and pressures they are going to face for the REST OF THEIR LIVES!
I heard one time someone said, in reference to the 10,000 times they had to tell their son to quick doing something they weren’t supposed to, “I have the honor and opportunity to tell my child 10,000 times that this is wrong, so when they grow up and leave the home, they have it in their head 10,000 times that what they are doing…is wrong!”
What an amazing perspective!
Imagine if we put on our calendars to sit with our child 10,000 times to explain to them those things that we believe to be wrong, inappropriate, not God-honoring, not kingdom or God-focused, not pleasing from heavens perspective. What an honor and time worth spent!
Imagine, for a moment if we had the opportunity to walk our kids through the fire of temptation, which begins in a social setting and can spread to their money habits someday in which they lack the strength, the muscle to resist the pressure, resist the temptation to buy like everyone else, spend like everyone else, go into debt like everyone else, become slaves like everyone else.
Practice In Action:
#1 – Spend INTENTIONAL time with your children beginning middle school. Make it a rule, we eat dinner at the dinner table as a family every night. Sports get in the way? Make it a goal for at least 3 nights. But keep in mind, as much as you fool yourself that sports is this great, beneficial thing, sports is just ONE component of the influence your children see and hear and experience. Sports is not all happiness, sunshine and rainbows
#2 – Spend an intentional 1-2 hours a week with each child. Put it on your calendar. Get a coffee, a drink from tropical smoothie, walk the beach, go on a bike ride. FIND A PLACE to get alone with one child at a time. Let them talk and you be available to listen
#3 – Prayer and bible time are NON-negotiable. At least once a week schedule to pray with your children. At least once a week, read the bible with your child
#4 – Your child NEEDS to be apart of your church’s youth group. Over sports! Yes, over sports! Once a week they need to be around other children who are also being encouraged to learn about living lives pleasing to God
#5 – Listen, listen, listen! Listen to what your children are telling you. Don’t freak out! Don’t get angry! Don’t tell them everyone around them is evil or sinners or going to hell! Remember, I was once that kid. Possibly YOU too were once that kid. Look how WE turned out. Listen to your kid. Be calm, patient, once they are finished you can share your own stories and experiences if they seem interested.
#6 – Pray! Once a week MINIMUM pray for your children, pray for those kids on the bus who are poorly influencing others, pray for the bus driver, pray for leadership
So, will riding the school bus ruin your child? NO! Is God bigger than a bus ride home? YES! Be honored knowing that God has positioned and postured YOU to guide your children through this moment into becoming responsible, God-focused, kingdom focused wealth builders!
What do they say, we have 18 summers with our children before they are heading off into the world? Be intentional about that time.
Check out the next blog, This One Thing Will Make Your Kids Money Smart
Featured Photo: Photo by Florian GIORGIO on Unsplash
Bible Reference: Proverbs 22:6 ESV
Bible Reference: Romans 12:2 ESV
Success by 1,000 Wins 
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