Real life Christian parenting: Chaos, questions and the occasional fake angel

Christian parenting isn’t all peaceful devotions - it’s more often about chaos, tears, and unexpected laughter - John Reynolds explains why making space for honest questions (and the odd prank) matters more than perfection

You know those parenting moments you have where you’re not sure whether to laugh or actually be quite cross? How it usually goes down in our house is I want to laugh…and then I look over at my wife and her face quite clearly tells me that I should be quite cross. 

We had a moment like this recently when my 9 year old, Elijah, pranked his younger sister, Areli, in a way that, I’ll be honest, was probably tantamount to spiritual abuse.

like the wholesome and respectable christian family that we are…it was absolute chaos

We were at the Christian festival, Spring Harvest, last month and my kids were sharing a room - so naturally, like the wholesome and respectable christian family that we are…it was absolute chaos.

One evening my wife, Jade, and I were out leading one of the evening sessions while Jade’s parents had the kids for us. We got back at around 9:30pm to find they were still awake and very hyper. The kids I mean, not the in-laws. The in-laws were also awake, just a lot less hyper.

Not only were they still awake and hyper, but my daughter was ……