My sons love adventures!
They’re all about exploring, cracking codes, sleuthing, mystery and all that good stuff.
Evan often draws up plans for future invention ideas.
They want to watch things like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and LEGO Ninjago and they want to be engrossed in the culture that goes with it because they’re boys and they want to live the adventure and conquer the bad guys.
That desire isn’t bad.
How we direct that path and passion as parents is the great challenge.
We have allowed our children to see the things I’ve mentioned above, and we’ve watched them together and discussed what we saw, what character traits we witnessed on the screen, what God’s expectations are for how we live our lives for the whole world to see, how our decisions and actions impact eternity.
Andrew is our builder. If he can dream it, he can build a LEGO model to prove it.
As parents we are responsible for protecting their hearts. While watching all the battles and action isn’t always bad we have to be vigilant about how it effects their hearts.
We have to turn it off when their eyes tempt them to stray from the goal the Lord has set before them.
My boys are on a mom-imposed Star Wars sabbatical right now.
They aren’t very happy about it. But I’m more concerned with obedience to God’s calling than their temporal satisfaction.
Nate embodies the term "precocious preschooler".
Part of my desire for giving them a break from it was that I know too well that the battle they face each day isn’t as obvious as ‘bad-guy’ dressed in dark or morbid clothing with a demonic looking face. That would make our fight easily identifiable.
The battle they really face is a subtle one.
Each day they will make small decisions that have the ability to erode the foundation God calls us as parents to build for them.
“Mom and Dad won’t notice if I eat this piece of gum that’s in the pantry.”
“I can’t watch this show at home, but if it is on at my friends house I can’t really ask them to change it.”
“This word isn’t a cuss word, so it isn’t that bad.”
“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t give all the details.”
Each choice they make has implications for future decision making.
Even with all we are responsible for teaching them it doesn’t mean we want to suck the fun out of childhood and the great adventure!
When I attended the 2:1 Conference I was blessed to meet Kristi Collins. Her family has taken the calling that God has given them seriously and they stepped forward creating a new series Samuel L. Collins and the Search for Biblical Truths. This series is made for 6-12 year old boys to help them deal with the challenges they’ll face in REAL LIFE, not fantasy. We received The Singapore episode to watch. Samuel finds money that someone dropped while sight-seeing and gets faced with making the choice of keeping what he found or finding the rightful owner. He’s armed with key verses and needs to discern how to make the right choice according to God’s word, not his desire. All my children were engaged through the episode, even the girls were giving answers to Samuel about how to choose right!
They watched along while he received his “clues” and learned the verses with him. They got into the fun of figuring out the cipher code, and watched with interest about geocaching (something we’ve never tried!).
Most importantly they saw a real boy make a tough decision that they might easily face tomorrow.
He didn’t choose the popular or easy answer, he chose the right one!
I appreciate the work the Collins family has done in giving additional resources to spur conversations over the episodes too. There is a downloadable file with questions that can be used for family bible study and some research challenges for the older boys.
We’re looking forward to seeing the other episodes that the Collins family creates. I’m making a plan to stop by their booth at the HEAV Convention this weekend to pick up Kentucky and Bali (If you’ll be there be sure to visit them too)! They were gracious to give us a copy of the Singapore episode to share with our friends and readers! Enter for a chance to win the Singapore episode for your family.
How do you provide the chance for adventure for your children?
**Disclosure: We received a copy of Samuel L. Collins and the Search for Biblical Truths : Singapore as a gift for the purpose of review. I was not compensated for the review and this post contains only our honest feedback of the movie. We were given an extra DVD to use as a giveaway prize for our readers**
Would love for our little warriors to see this…..I have a feeling they would be glued and the lessons they would learn would compliment what we are trying so hard to teach them:)
We help instill adventure through creative play (inside and outside), no video games (just a waste of time), lots of reading (books everywhere they turn), simple toys (cowboy stuff, superheroes, Legos, Lincoln Logs, Thomas trains), and constant talking about what a hero really is (truth-defender and protector).
Very handsome boys! xo series sounds awesome. I would love for Matthew, he does love adventures.
Thanks. 😉 Matthew would definitely love this series!
Would love to share this video with my kids. Sounds like an awesome concept!