I’ve been thinking about this lately – from the book Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung.

Diagnosis #4: You Need To Stop Freaking Out About Your Kids

He writes, “We live in an age when the future happiness and success of our children trumps all other concerns.”  Thus the term Kindergarchy – rule by children.

“Parenting has become more complicated than it needs to be.  It used to be, as far as I can tell, that Christian parents basically tried to feed their kids, clothe them, teach them about Jesus, and keep them away from explosives… Now, it’s much more involved.  There are so many rules and expectations.  Parenting may be the last bastion of legalism, not just in the church but in our culture.”

“As nanny parents living in a nanny state, we think of our children as amazingly fragile and entirely moldable.  Both assumptions are mistaken.  It’s harder to ruin our kids than we think, and harder to stamp them for success that we’d like.  Christian parents in particular often operate with an implicit determinism.  We fear that a few wrong moves will ruin our children forever, and at the same time assume that the right combination of protection and instruction will invariably produce godly children.”

“One of the best things we can do for our kids is to find a way to stop being so frantic and frazzled… We must make parental sanity a higher priority.”

Right.  No more parental craziness.  The end of the cruel kindergarchy – no more rule by the children.  Relax.  Now, how do we do that?!