As homeschool parents, one of the things we tend to do well is protect our kids. We watch over them and guide them along life’s journey fervently. It is of utmost importance to us to protect the purity of our children. We want to spare our kids from some of the things we experienced and participated in as teens, and we want to shield them from the deceptions that are in the media. This is not to create a bubble around them so that they can’t relate to the world, but to insulate them with truth so that they may be able to withstand pressure from their peers and the world.
I am a columnist for Choose Now Ministries. I just finished a series on inspiring purity in our teens and I’d like to share a little of that series with you. This part of the series I am going to share was written to parents, like you, who want to help guide their children on the path of purity, whether homeschooled or not.
Using the word PURITY as an acronym, I outlined steps parents could take to accomplish their goals.
Let’s start with P. It’s a privilege we have as parents to offer protection to our teens. Not protection in the way the world means it. I’m not talking about birth control or STD prevention here. I’m talking about the wonderful blessing we have as parents to act as God acts with us.
It says in Psalm 91:4, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.”
P is for the privilege we have to offer protection.
There are a lot of words that start with U. You might be surprised at how many there are. I spent some time in my thesaurus looking for the perfect word to focus on for the letter U in Purity and was unable to narrow it down to one. So I focused on six U words/concepts.
Unified – Umbrella – Unending love and support – U-turns — User-friendly – Unlock the potential!
Find out more about the six U’s of inspiring purity.
We can’t stop our teens from going down the wrong path. But we sure can put up road blocks, detour signs, caution lights, and bright beacons to light the correct way. This is a lot of work but not near the work it will be to go back and try to fix things once the damage has been done. It’s our responsibility as parents to inspire purity in our teens.
R is for responsibility. . .to inspire purity. (Read More)
As parents, we must retain sexual integrity (and integrity in general) so we can help our teens live lives full of it. I is for integrity! Here are three tips for maintaining sexual integrity.
You may not know it but spending time with your teens can change their lives. Your values rub off on them the more you spend quality time together. You influence them to live upright lives. This time enhances your life, too, because you feel connected to them like you did when they were little.
T is for treasuring time with your teens. It is a step to inspiring purity in them.
Whether you know it or not you really and truly are the most important person in your teen’s life aside from God—if you let yourself be. “Y” is for You, Of Course!
You can have an impact on the life of your teens and make a difference in the way they view the world around them and how they view themselves. I want to encourage you to press on toward the goal, like Paul spoke of in Philippians 3:14. It’s hard work but when you embrace your parenting days with everything you’ve got and you parent purposefully, you will plant seeds that will grow and become firmly planted—seeds that are not easily uprooted.
