Raising Good Kids

Everything Counts


My husband, Michael, and I were driving home from seeing the movie The Apostle, which features a Pentecostal preacher who kills someone in a fit of rage, takes off, and spends his months on the lam preaching some feisty sermons and bringing people to Jesus.

"So what did you think was the message of this movie?" I ask. Michael says, "What I got out of it was, everything counts. The bad that you do counts, and so does the good." Though the preacher did a lot of good while on the run, he still had to pay the price for his crime. But even the fact that he had murdered someone didn’t mean he couldn’t be an instrument of God along the way.

I’m a sinner in need of redemption, and I’m a beloved child of God. For parents, teaching these twin truths to our kids is like walking a tightrope. Lean too far to one side or the other, and you fall off, right on your head.

Consider some of the excesses we see on either side. For decades Catholics heard a loud message that "only the bad counts." God was just waiting for us to screw up. Our crimes and misdemeanors carried a lot more weight than our times of generosity, forgiveness, or courage. If you felt guilty, fine–go to Confession.

Today we teach our kids about the loving God that we hear about in the gospels, as of course we should. Self-esteem is in. Guilt is out. Are we teetering on the other side of the tightrope by preaching cheap grace? Family therapist Frank Pittman says of our society, "We have come to consider nonjudgmentalism and moral neutrality to be the only socially acceptable values. . . . And we’ve ended up with a world impatient with moral distinctions and highly resistant to making the moral judgments that should be part of daily life." Kids don’t need moral neutrality (despite the view of a dad I heard yesterday on the radio, who insisted that if his 15-year-old came to him saying he was about to become sexually active, he would think only "It’s his choice.") The loving God is not a neutral God who doesn’t care what we do because he’ll forgive us anyway.

Sin has consequences. Bible scholar Father Leslie Hoppe says that sin is like throwing a stone into a pond. The ripples spread out to disrupt the water long after the stone has sunk to the bottom. One way to get across the message that everything counts is to help your kids see that what they do matters. It has consequences for them and for others whether they wish it to or not.

I recently heard the tale of a parent defending his child’s cheating because "the test was too hard." Cheating in school, which by all reports has risen astronomically, has consequences–for the cheater (I don’t have to study), the noncheaters (honesty gets me a worse grade), the teacher (I can’t fairly evaluate these children), the system (we can’t trust each other).

Lying brings with it the consequence that people soon stop believing you even when you tell the truth. Selfishness means that you’ll be the last one people will come to when they’re in need. Goodness, too, has its consequences. When you forgive easily, you help mend relationships. When you cut the grass for your 80-year-old neighbor, she may be able to stay more years in the house she loves. Help your kids pay attention to all the stones they throw into the pond.