How To Raise Sane Kids When Leaving Public Schools Is Not An Easy Option

Are you raising children in America today? Are you also not insane? If so, you have surely asked yourself: How can I protect my kids from the race, sex, and anti-American garbage rampant in our society these days?

This question is especially pressing for those of us who send our kids to public school. We’ve watched the teacher video encouraging kids to pledge allegiance to the gay pride flag, and read reports of entire districts propagandizing that white-skinned people are guilty of “the spirit murdering of Black and Brown children.”

We don’t need Twitter to tell us the schools are crazy, our kids do. We have seen the Black Lives Matter school curriculum promoting “queer affirmation” in the name of so-called anti-racism. We have attended the inane “student-led conference” with our kids’ pride-pin-adorned advisory teachers, and observed the classrooms emblazoned with leftist, anti-capitalism, and BLM propaganda. 

When Big Changes to Family Life Are Too Much

“Get your kids out of the public schools!” is one solution. But for some families, that’s not an immediate option.

Another popular recommendation is migrating from blue to red states. We salute that and envy the right-sized housing prices people who move can cash in on.

Many others, however, have ZIP codes dictated by the responsibilities of an ailing parent, or a business that can’t be moved to South Dakota, or a child custody arrangement. It feels hopeless. What can you do? 

If this is you, the only solution is to get very serious about training your kids.  

It’s Going to Take Very Active Parenting

Good programs, camps, and resources can help. Organizations like MAVEN, Impact 360 Institute, and Summit Ministries offer camps that not only teach your kids what to think, but how to think. We send our teens to Worldview Academy every summer.

But one week out of 52 ain’t enough. You must worldview camp them the other 51.

But how? Is there a book you can give them? A curriculum? Some kind of program that can inoculate your kid against wokeness? Yes. It can be very effective. It’s called P-A-R-E-N-T. You, sane mom or dad, are the program. 

Maybe all this cultural insanity has taken you by surprise; after all, seemingly overnight we went from “we just need to pee” to the president of the United States endorsing the amputation of children’s healthy sex organs. It’s easy to feel ill-equipped because most of us went into this parenting gig believing all our kids needed was food, shelter, and love, not a daily dissertation on the moral superiority of the free market. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what 2022 American parenting requires.

Become an Expert

So step one is to become an expert. We know, you’re tapped out by work and carpool and all those darn school Parental Involvement Program hours. But if you don’t want your children devoured by the woke beast, this is a must. On socialism, abortion, sexual ideology, critical race theory, evolution, and all the other hot issues, you need to have the facts straight. So if you are clueless, it’s time to educate yourself.

For social issues, one of the best resources is CanaVox. Join one of their reading groups to study controversial subjects from a natural law perspective. They teach the why behind what God says.

Start listening to the BreakPoint podcast every day, with your children if possible. For a deep dive into the founding of America, check out the Wallbuilders podcast. For a defense of Western civilization using classic literature, follow Young Heretics. Once you know how to critically think about the culture, you can train your child to follow in your footsteps. 

Your training must start early, be taught daily, and be applied creatively. Take a page from the woke playbook’s ability to weave sex and gender theory into “literature classes, math classes, social studies classes, P.E. classes, and art.” Find ways to connect as many moments throughout each day to biological, economic, and historical reality. 

See a dad throwing a baby in the air? It’s great how dads use their physical strength to offer both fun and protection to their kids. 

Walking behind a biracial couple? I love how our country welcomes people from all over the world. 

Your kid sees your frustration at the gas pump? Go down a YouTube rabbit hole together watching lectures by the great economist Milton Freedman. 

Becoming an expert emboldens you to live out Deuteronomy 6:7, teaching the truth “diligently to your children … when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Elementary School Parents, Read This!

For elementary school kids, parental daily training must focus on truth and beauty. Classical educators call this the “grammar” phase of learning, where kids sponge up everything they see and hear. Their learning revolves around absorbing and memorizing information that will set them up to engage critically with ideas as they mature. 

During these tender years, children are less able to filter out damaging and distorted messages. So until about age 10, your main job is to teach them the rules of our natural world. 

Show and tell them about the beauty of male and female differences, the value and dignity of every race, and the goodness of our founding principles. You can incorporate children’s content from the likes of the Tuttle Twins and Prager U Kids, but those books and videos are only supplements to the main program: you.

The left is writhing over Florida legislation that outlaws teaching kindergarteners through third-graders distorted ideas about sex, precisely because they understand that in the “grammar” phase kids unquestioningly accept whatever comes out of the mouth of adults they like. Don’t miss out on this developmentally optimal phase to construct their right-side-up worldview from the adults kids like the most: mom and dad. 

The grammar phase also involves answering children’s questions with brief, honest, age-appropriate answers:

• Mommy, my teacher read a book about a girl with two daddies. Nobody has two daddies. Some kids are parented by two men, that’s true, but everyone has exactly one mom and one dad. The phrase “two daddies” means she isn’t being raised by her mommy, and every child needs, wants, and deserves their mommy. 
• Daddy, my teacher said we stole this land from Indians. Did your teacher mention which tribe they stole it from? And what about tribes before them? Native Americans were a fierce culture that was overwhelmed by a changing world, guns, and an influx of people. The same thing has happened in all cultures all over the world from the beginning of time. It’s in the nature of human beings. Tribal leaders signed treaties to end disputes. That’s politics, not theft. 
• Mommy, my teacher says that boys can wear dresses. Is that true? A boy can put on a dress, but that doesn’t make him a girl. Your body makes you a boy or girl, not what you wear.

Middle School Parents, Read This!

Once your kids are in middle school, your training tactics must shift; they have entered into the critical-thinking “logic” phase of learning. They are ready for arguments for and against various ideas. So instead of filtering out damaging ideologies, you need to introduce your kids to them.

We’ve heard it referred to as the “founders principle”: Whoever gets to your kids first will automatically be considered the expert in your kids’ minds. In this worldview battle, it’s critical that the expert in your child’s life is you. That requires you, mom and dad, to be the first person from whom they hear about any controversial topic.  

The left will introduce these topics in ways that distort the truth and destroy your children’s innocence — through drag queen story hour or by valorizing Che Guevara. Thankfully, resources like whatwouldyousay.org and PragerU can help make your kids wise while keeping their innocence intact.

Once you have introduced your kids to abortion, socialism, or transgenderism, you need to offer regular “brush-ups.” The best way to revisit challenging topics is to pull your kids into what you are already reading, watching, listening to, and doing. 

• When your daughter walks into the kitchen: Honey, I’m listening to the most amazing interview of a woman who “detransitioned,” and then pop one of your AirPods into her ear. 
• I just read this horrific article about full-term aborted babies. It makes me angry and sad. Can you read this and help me draft something I can share on Facebook?
• Weren’t you just telling me about your teacher lamenting that women make three-fourths of what men make? A friend sent me this video on the gender wage gap. Would love to hear your thoughts.

You should have no illusions about the ideological war raging against your child. When it comes to ideas that will destroy your child’s heart, mind, and body, the other side has no intention of surrendering. The only way your kids survive the left’s assault on their childhood is if you are engaged in the battle with them. 

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