A Letter to Parents

​Dear Moms and Dads,

As your kids prepare to go back to school, there's one preparation a lot of us forget. It's the reminder that every life counts.
Teaching our kids that every life counts is a reminder to our children to stick up for the kid on the bus or playground someone else makes fun of. It's as easy as teaching our children a simple phrase: "It's not ok to treat anyone that way."

My daughter told me one girl on her bus told another girl, "I can't be your friend if you're going to treat people that way." That's another great line.

Every life counts means finding the lonely kid in the lunch room and asking your friends to sit by him or her. At the very least it is taking the time to make eye contact, smile, and say, "Hello." Even better is saying a quick prayer that God would send a friend to that person.

Every life counts means helping the child with special needs. There was a special needs girl in my daughter's choir class one year. My daughter helped her figure out which song they were working on, and kept her on track.

Every life counts means trying to love the bully. My son was having a hard time with a boy on his bus. The boy made it his chief goal and object to annoy my son the whole way home. I suggested my son get on the bus, ask the boy how his day was, what subject he was struggling with, etc. It's not so fun to pick on a friend, and sometimes bullying is nothing more than a cry for attention.

Every life counts means teaching our children that teachers are people. It can be easy for our kids to discount older teachers who aren't as hip or into technology. It's easy to dislike a "mean" teacher. It's easy to talk badly about the new teacher fumbling around a bit. Now is the time to teach our kids that every teacher deserves our respect and honor and our prayers.

Being pro-life isn't just about caring for unborn babies. It's about caring for and about every life at every age and stage.

God bless your year.

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Author: Amber Swenson

​Amber has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Literature. She has authored four books; two of them (Bible Moms and The Whisper Theory) are in print and two (The Bread of Angels and Ladies of Legacy) are in various stages of publication. Both her Bible studies and her novels are written in an effort to bring single, married, young and older women to a closer relationship with their Savior Jesus Christ. She also authors a weekly blog found on facebook under "Bible Moms" or at "biblemoms.wordpress.com".