monster house.

as parents we are called to love, protect, teach, nurture, guide and correct our children.
this week as parents, we loved our wee babs with tickles, cuddles and affirming words…
we nurtured their hurts, clarified their questions, and helped guide their decisions…  
we corrected unruly behavior and taught them to make wise choices…  
and this week as parents, we protected. we protested. we were proud. and we prayed.
we protected our kids from a black hairy googly-eyed spider. sure, it was only a quarter of an inch long. but it was a spider. *hooray* exclaimed our kids ~ mom and dad saved the day! 
we protested after our 3rd grader saw the movie monster house at school.
{what? you protested a silly little kids cartoon movie?}
why yes. we did. 

today the whole school watched monster house after returning from their fall field trip.  
p.a. called the school and talked to the principal, who was apologetic. he asked why this movie was shown without parental consent?  it’s rated pg {ahem. that stands for ‘parental guidance’}.
call us overprotective. call us prudes. call us crazy. we don’t care. 
while some might think this is an overreaction, we are taking action.
nope. we’re not going to file a lawsuit. that would be *ridiculous*.
however, we do hope that next time a movie with no educational purpose is shown during school hours, paid for with our tax dollars, we will know ahead of time and have a right to keep our child out of school for the ‘movie time’ without being counted as an absence if we do not approve of said movie.
yes that was meant to be a run-on sentence. thank you for reading.
the point is:
we are not trying to be holier-than-thou-pastor-parents.
we are called to protect our kids.
the school is not going to do that for us. culture is not going to do that for us.
it is our parental job to protect.
so. we choose to use our parental right to protect our kids from certain media.
and we expect to get a note ahead of time the next time said media is going to be shown at school.
this week as parents, we were proud.
when the movie began, soleil was immediately uncomfortable. she also noticed another classmate who seemed to be shaking and physically scared by the movie.  she went to her teacher and explained her feelings. she was given the option to turn her chair around and read. 
i wish we could’ve just come to the school and picked her up.
we were so proud soleil spoke up.
and this week as parents, we prayed. 
we know we can’t control everything every second of the day about our kids. especially while they are in school or any other time they are away from us. 
so we pray. 
we pray over them everyday.
we know we can’t make decisions for them, 
but we can influence.
our home is our training ground for life. 
it’s our base camp for tackling situations that arise.
it’s our headquarters for problem-solving.
home is where we teach, train and take-to-heart the truth.
…
we choose to follow Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The living Word of God.
The Bible is our root, our foundation, of truth.
…
when we teach our kids to think about ‘whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable…’ as in Philippians 4:8, there are very few movies that fall into that category.  there is so much media [even media deemed *kid friendly* that is contrary to those things].
we are humbled to love, protect, teach, nurture, guide and correct our wee babs.
this is our calling as parents. 
we are honored to have this job.
and this week we are *proud* of a job well done.

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