Short and sweet tonight, fellas. The way it should be, in my opinion! 
So the story goes something like this:
I was at church today, helping out with sunday school as I’ve been doing (rather inconsistently, I must admit) for the past couple of years.
We were talking about King Solomon, who asked for wisdom when God asked him what he wanted. Great man, King Solomon.
Anyways, out of the blue, a little girl suddenly comes out of nowhere, and says:
“I was at a thing the other night… a-a-nd there were lots of drunk people fooling about… a-a-nd shirts were being ripped and…”
Of course, us leaders are stunned for a fraction of a second. The guy that’s taking the sunday school class recovers promptly, however, and manages to state: “Well, that’s not very nice, is it?” A rather generic response, but kudos to him for deflating the situation.
It got me thinking, though. Obviously the girl (who would only be in grade 4, mind you) had witnessed some sort of drunken party where the adults were acting in a far-from-responsible manner. I mean, seriously – a child shouldn’t have to see things like that.
Hence, Impressionable Young Children. Today’s title was inspired by how little children, who, like the girl at the drinking party, can be influenced by those around them. Their parents influence them. People older than them influence them. Which is why we need to be careful about what we say (and do) around young kids.
A guy named Dean (former leader of Radi8 youth) once told me that he had to tell bogans on the bus to tone down their language as he had his kids with him – which was perfectly acceptable. Had I been in his shoes, I probably would have done the same thing.
It’s those kinds of things that make impressions on the children of our generation. The swearing, the drunken behaviour, the bad behaviour exhibited by adults and those older than the childern. I’m not trying to be sarcastic when I say “Won’t someone think of the children?”
There’s no reason we should swear, or be drunk around our children. Absolutely no reason at all – and to be frank, it’s downright unacceptable. I for one don’t want my kids to be exposed to that sort of behaviour, at the very least not until they’re old enough to understand it properly. There’s no way that girl would have known that what was going on at that party was just something that adults do from time to time, and no way to know that alcohol can make smart people do stupid things.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is that we should show a good example to our kids. Don’t swear around them and don’t expose them to bad influences. Understand this – I’m certainly not saying that you should mamby-pamby your children – far from it. Let them learn from their own mistakes (see how hot fire is?), but don’t expose them to things that they ordinarily wouldn’t be exposed to, like random drunken behaviour.
Comments below.