Recently, I was talking with a seasoned headmaster from another ACCS school. It was his second day of school—we had yet to start. He had to cut away from the conversation for a moment. When he came back on the phone, he apologized:

Friend: "Sorry about that we have an angry parent and I am going to have to deal with an issue."

Me: "On the second day?!?!?"

Friend: "Yep. Day two. You know what is funny is that I have never heard from this parent in all the time that their child has been here at school. I have never seen them at events. I have not run into them at class field trips. I have not heard word one…and now we have a big problem."

Our conversation went on from there and taking a more general direction. Both of us are truly blessed. We serve in schools with a very high percentage of extremely excellent parents. Still, the idea of a book came to mind. My working Title is: How to destroy a Classical Christian Education in Five Easy Steps. Every year I could add a chapter or two to it. If I could choose one issue that represents the biggest problem for parents and causes the most damage to their children, it is, without a doubt, the sin of abdication. In this article, I will try to expose some tale tell signs of abdication in hopes that you, by recognizing these patterns, can root them out of your life. If you do, you can optimize the education and training that your child can receive as you give them a classical Christian education.

Before I jump into this topic, I should lay my cards on the table. I empathize with abdicators. I am the father of four daughters. I know the feeling of seeing some ugly sinful pattern in one of them and being shocked by it. As I wade into the issue, I can see that there is a bigger issue—not with my daughter, but with me. Their sins were once little problems that could have been dealt with by simply nipping them in the bud. Now, I, and (sadly) they, am going to have to suffer for my reticence, distraction, and sloth. In summary, I know something about abdication, but all of this knowledge does not come from observation of the sin in others. Finally, I also have played another, trickier role in abdication: the role of facilitator. As a school, we are not a day care center, a church, a restaurant, a semi-pro sports franchise, a health club, or a mall. Sometimes parents would like us to be. Sometimes parents leave us because we are not enough of these things for their tastes or for the tastes of their children. This is fine and well, but, of course, I have to pay people twice a month, so I know and understand the tension that headmasters feel when they try to strike a biblical balance as school. Schools should desire to be a superb social environment with a good athletics program and tasty and inexpensive—a.k.a., pizza—hot lunches (once a week), and it is not bad to have a few super t-shirts that tastefully bear images of our school symbols. We hope to do this without becoming something like a surrogate parent. I live in the soup every day. This article is written mainly to parents. So, with all cards facing you I will begin describing some of the top trends concerning parental abdication. These patters of life destroy the classical Christian education that parents are giving to their sons and daughters:

First, we have the Environmental Fallacy. This occurs when parents falsely believe that parenting is only about finding a good environment and then letting your kids loose in it. These parents are only rumors at your school. To the teacher they might just be the distracted voice on the end of the phone line when they try to communicate to the parent. This type of parent fails to recognize the weight of Deuteronomy 6. In this famous passage, parents—particularly fathers—are required to make sure that Christian education is the air that their child breathers. It happens over doorways, on foreheads, and as you walk, lie down, and rise up. For this type of abdicator, they imagine their job as parents simply to be finding an environment where other people will do all the walking, rising up, and forehead training. This devastates a classical Christian education which is to unite—rather than divide—parents from children (see Malachi 4:6).

Next, we have an odd form of abdication which I call Poisoning the Delegate. Teachers in ACCS schools work with children because the parents of these children have delegated some of their authority for part of the day to the teacher. The teacher then becomes the eyes and the ears of the parent in the classroom. The teacher and the parent must keep lines of communication open and clear. Anything that gums up or distorts this communication should be of utmost concern to parents. At times, parents themselves can so harm this communication that they will inevitably lose some of the benefit of clear, prompt, and transparent communication from their child's teacher. Typically it occurs when an overbearing parent verbally levels a teacher the first time the teacher mentions anything negative about his child. In these sorts of situations the parent would rather keep a distorted view of their child rather than see the child with all of his problems and work diligent to fix them. We have had to (thank the Lord) rarely asked families to leave because of this behavior. It is a form of abdication that refuses to see reality or deal with it biblically.

The third type of abdication might be the most prevalent. It is called Male Pattern Abdication. This started a long time ago in a garden far, far away. It happens when Dad delegates everything education (in the worst cases everything having to do with their child) to mom. Interestingly, I have noted that some dads who follow this pattern are strong proponents of male leadership in the home. They, unfortunately, seem to have read Ephesians 5:22 and 23, memorized it, applied it, and refused to read the next few verses, the Bible, or, I fear, any other literature. That world of words and books is surrendered to the feminine permanently. These dads seem almost disoriented when I talk to them about their child. You might be involved in this type of abdication if you cannot name the academic areas where your child is strong, or where they are struggling.

The fourth type of abdication is the Jane Austen fallacy. Austen writing is great because she shows you what is happening. She does not tell you everything. I tell my students time and again that if you want to write well show don't tell. This type of abdication happens when parents tell their child how important a classical Christian education is and then live as if it is not important. Our personal Statements of Faith eventually shine through our lives. Our kids will know what we value. If you, as a parent, pay lip service to reading the Great Books or learning your times tables, but do not value books or learning, do not be surprised when you child smells hypocrisy. Too often these parents want the fruit of classical education without the roots. We do not give kids a classical Christian education because we want them to have the tools to wield dominion and economic dominance over the world. If Christians are faithful and as they faithfully train up our children, we can hope for God (who already gave us His Son) to supply us with all other good things that we need. The question as we educate our children, however, is: Do we want the tree or only the fruit. We teach them, pray for them, and work with them so that they would be engrafted into God's covenant people (Romans 11:11ff)—not so that we could be masters of the Universe and drive really shiny cars. God calls us to love Him—not the blessings that He gives.

Finally, we come to the most deadly and most culturally pervasive form of abdication: The One Stop Shop Fallacy. This occurs when parents decide that their school should become everything for their child and family. They want a school's devotional life to become a substitute for church. They want the activities and opportunities at school to dominant—yeah, squelch out—all other spheres of life. While schools should be and do wonderful activities, sports, and should have clubs, schools are not churches—and should not be; schools are not surrogates for the family—and should not be. My school has no homework in most of grammar school. We do this so that families can have time to do other things. Schools cannot stop this sort of abdication, but they should be sensitive to it and influence families away from it.

Parenting is hard work. Abdication, at least initially, seems much, much easier. In the long run, however, the abdicator has a dreadful price to pay. The faithful parent who daily heads out to the garden to pull weeds, train vines, and sometimes shovel manure, which will make the ground fruitful later, will see the harvest of thirty, sixty, and one hundred fold. The Bible points this parent toward this final, wonderful blessing in

Psalm 128:3 and 4:

a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the LORD.