My 15 year old and I were talking last night about instincts, so I thought I’d share in a guest blog. We have fought hard to maintain our children’s innocence, knowing that once it’s gone, there’s no way to restore it. But part of that means keeping them away from bad influences. Children who go to government school learn at an early age about trust and deception through trial and error. Those errors can sometimes dog them throughout their whole lives. They are, however, often able to better tell a “Danger Stranger” than most of the homeschoolers I know. We’ve endeavored to shelter our children from that. So how do we maintain their innocence while making sure they aren’t naïve?
I think that God gives women (in particular) a discernment of spirit, a “Sixth Sense”, if you will. Lately, we’ve been discussing the people that we meet. It is surprisingly to me that we largely agree, though she and I are very different personalities. When we are still and quiet around a person, there’s something about their spirit that speaks. No, I’m not talking about some weird mystic thing. But have you ever met someone that you instantly take a liking to? My best friend and I felt the kindredness of spirit immediately, though on paper we’d be a very unlikely match! On the flip side, we had a man and his son visit our kids’ chess club one night. He seemed very pleasant and outwardly a good father. Yet my daughter confided to me that he gave her the heebie-jeebies. The same red flags had gone up in my spirit, but I hadn’t told anyone.
Like most women, I have been deceived by those who did not throw up red flags. It is our feminine nature to give people the benefit of the doubt. Yet I don’t think that I’ve ever been wrong about someone who set off my “Caution” light. Though I expect obedience to me and respect for adults, I have given my children the right to say “No” without repercussion to anyone who makes them uncomfortable. The fight for innocence gets more difficult every day. I hope that by approaching it this way that I’m still guarding her while giving her the tools to grow.
Think we can we count this as social studies? *s*