Kids are not the ‘adults of the future’. I wince when I hear some

church elders use this expression. To say this is to deny kids any

status or value in the present. They exist now as persons in a

specific developmental stage. They may be in another developmental

stage in six months’ time. Sometimes kids are aware of this rate of

change. Sometimes they find it frightening. What they need is to be

valued, loved and discipled right now. It is not healthy to infer that

they will be valued at some later stage (when given adult status).

Ted Endacott, ‘Discipling Kids’ in On

Being, Vol.20, No.5, June 1993, p.31