Don't hang out with the Kool-aid Drinkers! - Wise Friends #1/ Teachable MOMent #4

    Most of us were just toddlers when the cult leader Jim Jones convinced 913 of his 1100 followers to commit group suicide by drinking poison kool-aid. Yet, we still have heard the saying, "Don't drink the kool-aid!"

    Our kids probably haven't heard this, and most of them are too young to even get what this saying means.  However, it is at this young age that they are going to start building friendships that are going to impact their life choices now and in the future. Get involved with helping your child choose good friends.

     Only 17% of the people at what is commonly referred to as the Jonestown Massacre mentioned above did not drink the kool-aid. That was some serious peer pressure! I would like to suggest that it may be easier to teach your kids not to hang out with the kool-aid drinkers than it is to teach them to have the strength and decision making skills to "not drink the kool-aid" when 83% of the people they are around are drinking the kool-aid.

      Proverbs 13:20 teaches us, "Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm."

     Our kids are old enough to understand the principle that if you hang out with someone long enough, they will start to rub off on you. Use kool-aid or any sugar free drink mix (Wal-mart's version of Crystal Light's Raspberry Ice is my favorite yummy and very staining drink.) to illustrate this. It stains everything. We took this picture to left on Sunday night and they still had a subtle mustache on their way to school on Monday.

     Sometimes the things our friends convince us to do have silly, temporary affects like our lips, tongue, and red mustache. Unfortunately, some consequences of unwise decisions have more permanent consequences such as your favorite shirt will never look the same, your teeth will become cavity-filled down a sugar-filled drink everyday,  or as serious as the kool-aid drinkers at the Jamestown Massacre.

Do whatever you can to help your kids build relationships with positive peers who are "non-kool-aid drinkers." Do you have any ideas about how we can help our kids make friends with positive peers?