| When my son was 3 years old, my wife and I visited a preschool fair. Crammed into a gymnasium were about a dozen booths, each representing a different early education organization, vying for our business. I got bored and decided to have a little fun. I went around asking each representative if they could guarantee that my son would get into Harvard. I knew it was a ridiculous question, but I was curious to see their reaction. Rather than recognizing it was a joke, they took my query very seriously. I remember one guy saying, “We can’t absolutely promise he’ll get in, but we have a ton of graduates that have gotten into the top colleges in the nation.” I could barely keep a straight face. We were talking about 3- and 4-year-olds! The American obsession with academic achievement starts early. There’s nothing wrong with pushing our kids to excel academically, but if we’re not careful, academic success can become an idol. It’s a point Andrea Palpant Dilley makes in 6 Ways to Parent Your Kids for the New Creation. She writes: “We need to see our kids’ future influence, earning capacity, and social mobility in the context of stewardship, not success. Do we want them to do well? Of course. Success and stewardship aren’t mutually exclusive. But one serves the other, so our worldly goals for our children have to be continually subjugated to higher purposes.” Speaking of higher purposes, if you’re in children’s ministry, I want to encourage you to check out our resource on spiritual formation for kids. This collection of articles will give you more perspective on the potential of spiritual disciplines and some ideas for implementing them into your children's ministry. | 