Saturday 6th April. 2019

TODAY’S GROUP DISCUSSION

One major thing parents do on behalf of their children is taking decisions. It is a role they never retire from, it may evolved, get modified or reduce with time but it never stopped. One of such decisions is how much information about their children should be shared with the public, also known as Sharenting.

Collins online English Dictionary define sharenting as “the habitual use of social media to share news, images, etc of one’s children.”

Discourse:

1. What are the immediate or long term benefits of sharenting on the parent who shared the information and the children involved?
2. At what point can sharing personal details, news, pictures of ones children on social media be tantamount to violation of privacy by parents? If children have power to chose will every child agree with everything parents shared about them on social media?
3. From Christian perspective, what are the spiritual implications of sharenting?

Comments and contributions should be made without sentiments, or judging others but in all sincerity coupled with the fear of God, and to the benefit of all.

• Group Admin, 3pG.

Thanks for all the contributions and comments, I will now add my own contribution as follows, though I will zero more on the spiritual implications of Sharenting!

Admin Response on Sharenting:

I strongly advise that parents should be very careful about the information, news, images and details they share about their children. Information is very important – personal details, images, progressive or developmental news about children are sacrosanct. This information speaks a lot about who and what a child will turn out to be in life. There are professional stargazers, who have the ability to add one plus one and get millions; just by looking at the forehead of a child, his/her name and other details, which are often freely given on social media by socially elated parents who, on many occasions, don’t have the ability to see beyond their noses!

I know you might wonder how this can be possible. Truly, spiritual wickedness is smarter, and more detailed in the use of information, than most mortals are. You’re sharing your children’s pictures, news and developmental details in return for likes and nice comments on social media – to fuel your ego, pride and achievement; but at the same time, you’re freely providing vital information for enemies, and you can be certain that not only your friends see them – your enemies and the enemies of your children see them as well.

There are people who never wish you good, who hate you, dislike your children and even hate your unborn descendants. You may not know them, or even know that they exist, but I tell you that they know you more than you could ever imagine. Every spiritual person knows this to be true. There were many stars over the sky of Jerusalem the night Jesus Christ was born; yet the men from the east – specialists in reading stars, knew which of those stars was for Jesus. They were called wise men because they took wise decisions with the information they were privy to not, because they were good men as it were. Stargazers toy with destinies; but in this case, they chose otherwise and God sees that as wisdom on their part.

To think stargazers will be friendly with information you happily provided about your children is to reason from the reverse side of wisdom. Mary kept all she knew about her Son to herself. She pondered them in her heart and let God take care of other issues that nature was bound to reveal about her Son. God did exactly that – He took care of the star and the men who saw it and knew its significance. If she had revealed so much to the world around her, the story might have been different from what we have today. If God is fighting your unseen battles, don’t add to your woes by your careless and voluntary provision of information.

Sharenting, in itself, may not be bad; but how much detail we share, and the reasons we share them, go a long way to count in our defense. If you don’t share those pictures, that news or those details, it will make no immediate difference to your children lives and destinies. As a matter of fact, they will most likely be more protected – like Jesus was kept in the heart of Egypt, far from the prying and preying eyes of locals who were demon possessed and bent on destroying Him. Sometimes, we think the star the wise men saw that fateful night was different in appearance, brightness and size than all the other stars over Bethlehem that night, but that’s not correct. If it were so, king Herod and other inhabitants of the cities around would have seen the same; and the wise men wouldn’t have needed the help of locals or the palace, to locate the Baby whose star gazed over them from the sky.

Jesus’ star was a private revelation to those men – they saw many like it that night, but took note of other remote and sensitive information that it brought their way; and they knew this was no ordinary child. Just imagine how many stars they would have seen before that, and how many destinies they would possibly have toyed with. It took Gods special intervention and warnings in dreams; to ensure that none of that privileged information would be shared with other stargazers, who were more satanic in intention than they were. God may not have done that if that information had been freely shared by His happy parents that night, or in yearly birthday rituals during the following years.

We know in part and we see in part, but there are some people who see and know more than most parents do. Think well about them before your next sharenting episode. If the enemy had all the information that Jacob kept in his heart, they wouldn’t have pushed him to slavery in Egypt. They would have made sure he never survived the well his brothers threw him into, in the first place. Jacob did his best as a single parent to Joseph, and God helped him in the other areas that were hidden from him. Information is crucial – your child’s forehead carries more than you can ever imagine or decode in a lifetime. You don’t see it, but his yearly and progressive pictures, in the hands of the wrong person, is all that is needed to access his identity.

Just imagine if Hannah had provided the yearly progressive information about Samuel, while he was under the tutelage of Eli – sharing unnecessary details about his graduation from one level to another in the school of prophecies, like most parents do about their children’s academic, moral and spiritual achievements today; then she would have brought her son to the notice of Elis wicked sons, whose place in destiny he had come to take. If Elis sons knew who Samuel was – that he would eventually be the young prophet who would declare their disastrous ends by the spirit of prophesies, they would possibly have taken care of him while they still had the power to do so.

If you must share information about your children on social media, please be discreet about it, weigh the gains and the demerits of those actions in the spirit of Christian parenting and take the wisest route available. Christian parenting is about protecting and securing the lives and destinies placed in our care. One careless moment can have in it more damaging effects than we could ever imagine. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: (Acts 17:30). There were things previously done in ignorance, that we who now know better must rethink, reconsider, weigh the gains of, pray about and be sure God is involved in the next time we share those little but vital pieces of information. Sharenting is not just social, – for us Christian, it can be very spiritual as well.

May your heart be nourished in wisdom. Amen!

Olumofin Kehinde Benjamin writes for Praying Parents Prayer Group Christian Ministry (3pG).