Increasing parental and community engagement: Parents see children as a consumable product
Ernisa Barnwell
In a quest to discover different perspectives regarding increasing parental engagement, please give attention to this perspective submitted by Ernisa Barnwell. This article is thought provoking!
Loyalty and faithfulness to a mission
A black single mother driving to the grocery store with a passenger beside her six-year-old man child becoming more conscious of the world around him recalls something he learned in school and said to his mother: “Mom we have to save the water. We can’t use too much water because if we do we won’t have enough.”
His mother with love and from a sound knowledge of God said to her child: “What God created he replenishes.”
“What God created he replenishes,” the young child asked his mother with a look of new revelation on his countenance, and the mother said, “Yes son, what God created he replenishes.”
Isaiah 59:19
So shall they fear the name of the LORD from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun? When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him.
Accountability
Social, spiritual and economic responsibility plays a major role in whether we as parents are nurturing the developer or consumer in our children. Balance is key to productivity and guiding our youth into living up to their full potential.
Our children have great potential that can manifest itself negatively or positively. Positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement are passed on to our children through lifestyle. We teach them what role in society they are to take on. Children learn just as much from what they see as what they hear, or are told.
Genesis 2:7
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:11
And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
We all stand on sacrifice from generations before us
The single most disrespectful thing we can act out in our lives and pass on to our children is not acknowledging that we are blessed. We did not do it all on our own. Someone has gone on before us to clear a path.
Someone is always standing behind us as a support, and someone is always beside us in agreement with our thought process. These building blocks of humanity must not be degraded and ignored if we are going to raise healthy hearts and minds.
1 Chronicles 29:1
Furthermore David the king said unto all the congregation, Solomon my son, whom alone God hath chosen, is yet young and tender, and the work is great: for the palace is not for man, but for the LORD God.
Consumptive Spirit
Unfortunately the “consumer only” slave mentality has not worn off some in the black community. Some teach their children this philosophy by not only living it out in front of them, but also by consuming their very own children. Parental engagement is a double-edged sword.
Some parents are engaged to aid and assist their children while others are engaged to utilize their very own children as a consumable product by committing their children to a variety of psychological profiling and labeling in pursuit of financial reward. That financial reward received fills the holistic belly of these types of parents who usually utilize the finances for human comforts, sedatives and keeping up appearances.
2 Kings 6:28, 29
And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.
29 So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.
Sacrifice required to overcome
Children that are taught the process of seed, time and harvest, can then understand that faith without works is dead. All projects require energy and patience. Tenacity is something we must teach through lifestyle. Being tenacious usually requires us to make the most of what we have, and putting the required focus and energy toward our goal.
Children need to see us go the extra mile to get a thing accomplished. They need to see us proceed in life, and exceed boundaries even when people places or things tell us what can’t happen for us. They need to see miracles in our lives. Sacrifice comes to anyone that sticks with a project to fruition. The old adage goes: “No guts, no glory.”
Esther 4:14
For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
15 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
Esther 5:2
And it was so, when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, that she obtained favour in his sight: and the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther drew near, and touched the top of the sceptre.
Reference: KJV Holy Bible
Barnwell’s article is challenging, please respond.
Pastor Rainey