A lesson in swearing??? Teaching kids to shout obscenities??? What on earth was that teacher thinking?!!!

The article went on to cite a parent who said, “This is a total disgrace. Our children go to school to gain an education, not qualifications in swear words. Most kids had no idea what the words meant and were forced to grow up faster than their parents want. Heads should roll for this.”

The idea of teaching young kids to shout obscenities is absurd, outrageous, and infuriating. That is not the kind of “free speech” teachers should be encouraging.

Don’t get me wrong. We believe in encouraging kids not to “stuff” their emotions inside. In fact, one of the novels we publish is called Violet’s Hidden Doubts, a story about a Victorian teenager who struggles with troubling doubts and fears that she feels she can reveal to no one. (She wrongly believes she is responsible for her father’s accidental death.) When Violet eventually reveals her feelings to her mother, she finally gets the relief she’s long been seeking. In this book, we model for young girls the importance of expressing their inner struggles with parents, trusted friends, and godly advisors. But not through swearing.

When I was about twelve years old, I picked up some nasty language from my peers at school. Like most bad habits, it caught on easily. My mother warned me that she was going to “wash my mouth out with soap” if I didn’t stop “talking like a guttermouth.” One day, which I vividly remember all these decades later, she actually made me stick a bar of soap in my mouth. Guess what? It worked! In that very instant, I learned the virtue of self-control. That was the end of my swearing, and the only “lesson in swearing” that I ever needed.

I am not advocating washing your child’s mouth out with soap. What I am advocating is taking a real hard look at where education is going. Just this week we watched as violence, window-smashing, and fires erupted in London during the G-20 Summit. You can bet that a lot of those violent protestors were shouting obscenities. Perhaps if as children they had been taught self-control, we would not be witnessing such lawlessness.

Rather than explain the actual CPSIA regulations, which you can read about at www.cpsc.gov, for those of you outside the toy industry who don’t understand what the fuss is all about, the following non-toy analogy might help paint you a picture of the magnitude of the challenge people who create or sell children’s products now face.

Imagine if one day, the government passed a law that said that it is illegal to possess any item of clothing that was made in a specific city in China, with each violation punishable by a fine of $100,000. Imagine further that this new law is expressly made retroactive to cover the clothing already existing in your closet.  

Like most people, you have a closet full of clothes made in China, but none of the labels say what city in China the clothes were manufactured in. The chances of their actually having been manufactured in the specific city in China are literally less than one in a million. But under the new law, unless you can PROVE by very expensive ($500-$2500 per garment) laboratory testing that each of the garments you own were made elsewhere, you will either need to toss all of the clothes in your closet (donating them to charity is also a violation under the new regulations) or take the risk that you will never be “caught” by the government or reported by a disapproving neighbor. 

Up to this point, you have always been a law abiding citizen, and it bothers you to be in illegal possession of anything, but you also cannot afford to go out an buy an entire wardrobe of new clothing—not just for yourself but also for your entire family—or to spend the exorbitant amount of money required to prove that each item of clothing complies with the requirement. 

The deadline is fast approaching. What do you do?? 

And, as if this wasn’t a big enough problem, to make matters worse, imagine that another subsection of the government’s new law also makes it illegal to possess any towels, linens, or bedding unless you can PROVE they were not manufactured on a Monday or Friday. 

That’s the CPSIA in a nutshell. All of the “controversy” surrounding it is not because companies do not want to comply with consumer safety regulations covering children’s products. The problem is great complications and expense in implementation of the new requirements.

We are absolutely concerned about child safety and have no problem with the enactment of new standards that improve the safety of consumer products if the standards are applied going forward (not retroactively), are truly necessary based on genuine risks, and if the benefits to society of the new regulations outweigh the harms they cause.

For more Mission City Press comments re-CPSIA, see http://www.alof.com/consumer_safety.html.

So violent video games encourage kids to be more violent. Gee, what a concept. Once again research proves the obvious.

For those of us who have long been concerned about the impact on kids of sexualized toys and tv shows, one has to wonder why such a common sense connection needed ‘groundbreaking’ research to prove it.

FRANKLIN, TN — When Mission City Press, the owners of the A Life of Faith brand, sent out an email with the headline “Hey Moms! Want Your Daughters to Read Great Books and Get FREE Rewards!?” they had no idea it would be so popular.

“We wanted a way to introduce fans of our A Life of Faith novels to the companion books in the line,” said Sandi Shelton, president and publisher for Mission City Press. “We’d never run a reading rewards program, so we decided to give it a try.” But when literally hundreds of responses flooded the Mission City Press offices, located in downtown Franklin, Tennessee, the staff was overjoyed—and overwhelmed. Fulfilling all the prizes was no small task!

The promotion worked like this: “Read any 5 A Life of Faith novels and get a free Elsie or Millie or Violet Daily Diary. Read any 10 A Life of Faith novels and get a free Daily Diary plus an Elsie or Millie or Violet Life Lessons study guide too.” Then, the top level was “Read any 15 A Life of Faith novels and get a free Daily Diary plus a free Life Lessons study guide plus a free Elsie or Millie or Violet activity or advice book, plus a coupon for 50% off any A Life of Faith doll.” The dolls retail for $99.99.

This was no easy challenge that girls had ahead of them. Each novel is at least 224 pages long. The “fine print” of the promotion said that a participant had to provide a complete listing of the A Life of Faith book titles she read over the specified 3 month period, along with the date she finished each book, plus one or two sentences about how each book affected her. Then a parent had to certify the list.

To date, the company has received at least 350 certified responses, most of which were from girls who finished 15 novels during the time period. That means that well over 5,000 novels were read by girls as a result of the promotion. At 224 pages per book, that translates to over 1,120,000 pages of text read by devoted fans in just 3 months!

Girls took away many different personal applications from reading the inspiring A Life of Faith novels. For example, after reading Violet’s Bold Mission, Alea S. from Colorado wrote, “As we begin to travel on the path God has set for us, we will face trials. But we shouldn’t be discouraged. Trials strengthen us and our faith. They are part of God’s great plan for our lives.”

“We absolutely love the responses we got from girls,” Shelton said, “but it was also really exciting to read the unexpected letters we got from parents thanking us for the positive impact of our books.”

The Townsends of Wichita, Kansas wrote: “Here is an example of how these books affected [our daughter] positively: [the other night] I had sore knees from a recent sports injury…with my husband at work and 4 younger children to care for, I felt up against the wall. Hannah, my oldest, took over as servant. She cleaned the kitchen, unloaded the dishwasher, refilling it, sweeping the floor, etc. Then she got everyone ready for bed and sat and massaged my sore legs for me. When I thanked her for her servant’s heart, she responded that Millie [an A Life of Faith heroine] had inspired her, because Millie had little siblings and was a big help to her mom in caring for them. I am thankful that these books are inspiring my daughter to live a life of faith, to serve others instead of self. Thank you!”

“This campaign has been so very successful that we hope to repeat it again in the new year,” said Kathy Needham, marketing director, “but we need a break first to catch our breath. Seriously, we’re not complaining, we love our A Life of Faith readers. They are so passionate about this series, and this promotion is great evidence of that. But next time we will be much more prepared for a landslide response!”

Check out the entire A Life of Faith line at www.alifeoffaith.com.

About Mission City Press

Mission City Press is a non-denominational Christian publishing and communications company that is committed to helping young people develop a strong foundation of faith in God. The company has three main product lines for children—The Beginner’s Bible, which brings the timeless stories of the Bible to life for preschool age children, and A Life of Faith, which provides role models, resources, and relationships designed to help 8-14 year old girls understand, imagine, and experience what it means to live a lifestyle of faith. And Faith and Friends, which brings fun, faith and fashion to girls ages 6-10. For more information, visit www.alifeoffaith.com.