Combatting the Lies Children are Taught
Everyday our children are exposed to media and peers that would tell them enough distorted truths and outright lies to entrench a false way of thinking, giving them a warped view of the world and of themselves. It is our responsibility as parents to identify these lies as they threaten to mould the way our children think and to replace them with the truth as seen through the eyes of the One who made all things - the world and every person in it. My husband had noticed our preteen daughter had stopped eating bread. The Spirit of God in him prompted him that it was more than just a taste preference. She is only ten, but she has commented a few times on being "slimmer" than her sister, a perfectly beautiful little 8 year old. For days I waited, biting my tongue for the right, unthreatening moment to get to the bottom of what was in her mind. The last thing I wanted was to put her on the defensive. The moment seemed right, and I began: "My Gracie, you know how there are sometimes things that you hear at school that are not the kind of things that Mom and Dad would like you to learn?" She agreed, remembering a number of discussions we had had previously regarding sex, dating, certain movies, music videos and so on. I knew I had her positive attention. "There's one more thing that I think you might have heard, but that is not true." I assured her she had done nothing wrong, but that I thought she might be believing a lie that someone had told her. "Have some people told you that being slim is important, and that it's better to be skinny?" "Yes…" she answered, still wondering where this was going. "My darling, I'm afraid that that is a lie," I said, and I added for emphasis, "It comes straight from the devil! The devil is a crazy, mean guy that likes to tell us things that will end up hurting us." When she admitted that she had often not eaten her snack at break and gone hungry to stay slim, my heart went out to her. She had heard bread and cake were fattening. "But," she grinned, "sometimes I just eat cake anyway because I can't resist!" My tiny little girl, trying to beat her body into un-health because of a lie! It was time to give her the truth - the whole untwisted truth - hopefully in time to correct her perceptions and thinking. "The best thing is not skinny or fat. The best thing is looking after the bodies God gave us and keeping them healthy. We need to be exactly how God made us, not skinny, and not fat, just right. We are supposed to look after our bodies and eat healthily which gives us the energy to exercise and do our schoolwork and get strong and clever. But Satan just wants us to die so he tries to tell us it's better to be skinny." We pointed out all the destruction that came from Satan's lie - grumpy little girls, getting in trouble with teachers for being unable to concentrate and do school work, getting in trouble with parents for not finishing their lunch. She pointed out another one - the number of fights and amount of name-calling that happened at school because of this. Bigger girls being teased, healthy girls thinking they're not pretty enough or skinny enough. Satan is a master of destruction. But we - we are the agents of truth. What a privilege to be parents that can bring truth at opportune moments and nip lies in the bud. She seems to have genuinely settled the facts of health and life in abundance and disregarded the lie that skinnier is better, and that a "healthy her" is not pretty enough. Let's be on the lookout for anyone or anything who would brainwash our children for destruction and ruin, so that we can expose the lies timeously, before they take root. Let's be forever teaching them the way of truth and light, to bring them good and not harm, all the days of their life.
