Parenting Tips from a Survivor—Part 19

By Chuck Gartman

Posted December 16, 2005

As I sit here writing this article for you this morning I am staring at a picture of my brand new granddaughter. She is six weeks old, and as you might imagine, she is beautiful. She is the daughter of my middle daughter, Brittany. I thought I could take several tacks with this information, but the one I have chosen is evident from the title.

The choice of friends is so critical, and you and I as parents have some control (though not complete control) in this area. If you have a junior high or middle school child in your home (or if you have had one in your home at one time) you know exactly what I am talking about. We moved to another state when Brittany was in the 8 th grade, and we wanted her to fit in as did she, so we did not monitor closely the people that she hung around. As you might imagine, some of the choices of her friends were not as healthy as we would have liked, and she drifted off into some activities of which we did not approve. Those activities were the consequence of the influence of her friends. Fortunately, God did not allow her to make any really serious mistakes, but there were problems nonetheless. We had taken somewhat of a hands-off approach and we suffered the consequences.

What we did do, however, was continue to be faithful to our church, and to encourage Britt’s participation in youth activities, and in the course of regular attendance at those youth functions, Brittany met Dana, another 8 th grader with fine Christian parents. The result was that they became friends, went to camp together, went to youth activities together, started singing together, and eventually formed a Christian girls’ trio and traveled around the country doing concerts and worship services. Now they are both married with baby daughters in their care, attend the same young couples Sunday School class, and remain BFF (Best Friends Forever—as they say)

We can take very little credit for how Brittany turned out except that we did a few things that I think might be helpful to you.

1. We tried to stay faithful to our church and its activities. We were active and we took her with us, plus we insisted that she participate as well.

2. The main thing we did was after their initial friendship was established, we encouraged it. We traveled together with them, we encouraged them to spend the night together, to attend youth events together, to be faithful in their Christian growth opportunities, and to remain friends.

One of the great joys of this is that I get to sit here and bask in the glow of a wonderful granddaughter who is the product of a Christian marriage. Brittany’s husband is a youth communicator and they travel around the country leading youth to a deeper commitment to Christ. What a great joy for my wife and me!