Cute Kid, originally uploaded by Joe Lencioni.
So I was asked to do a little post on milestones and kids. Generally the Milestones that we associate with kidmin are:
- Dedication
- Salvation/Baptism
- Preparation for the teen years
I know the last one is fringe probably between kids and students. But we’ll just put it on our list 
I’d really like to focus on a specific aspect of the milestone for this post. You see milestones are generally used to provide reference points along the journey. They are should be viewed in a way that allows families to say, “Ok we’re on the right track”. They provide focus and guidance for parents. But honestly, I also think they can be tough to understand. If we see them a reference points then they hold the correct place in the realm of a child’s life. However, when they are skewed as goals or items on a checklist then the results could be ineffective.
The purpose of milestones is to give people a picture of the long term, the overall life experience of a child rather than isolated singular events. Why is this small thought important?
From Dedication forward parents begin to put pressure on themselves to perform well as parental units. By casting the vision of a journey rather than getting to salvation/baptism or to the teen years without error, we hope to see parents take some pressure off themselves and their kids. Not only that but provide proper opportunities for kids to question and grow in their view of God and Christ.
Over the next few posts I’ll talk about how I feel about the milestones mentioned above and also a couple more thoughts.
