Parents judge their children

I attended a women's conference this weekend, and one of the teachers said something in passing that got me thinking. She said "As we judge our children righteously, they will learn to put on the whole armor of God."

Part of me thought "I am not my children's judge." In a way, that is true. Our Lord is their final judge. But I am their teacher. A teacher must judge her students' progress in the assigned subject. A teacher must assign work that will teach basic concepts, then observe the students' work, offer critique and encouragement and finally test the students' knowledge in that subject.

Parents are professors of Life 101. We teach our children how to interact with others, how to make choices and decisions, how to set and live by values and goals. We teach them how to become contributing members of society, how to love, how to fail and overcome.

The trick is to judge righteously. We've all had good teachers and not-so-good teachers. We have good parents and not-so-good parents.

I want to be a good parent. I want to be a righteous judge.