Preacher's Kid Syndrome

We’ve all read the statistics and heard the stereotypical stories about ministry kids. They often experience stress and unreal expectations as a result of the ministry position of their parents. Some of those children even develop deep feelings of isolation, emotional or spiritual conflict, and resentment. Segen’s Medical Dictionary actually names this effect “Preacher’s Kid Syndrome.”

Eugene Peterson once wrote, “If succeeding as a pastor means failing as a parent, you’ve already failed as a pastor.” Jesus commanded us to love God first, then our neighbor as ourselves. Since our family is literally our closest neighbor, how are we doing with the second part of that commandment?

Are there some things we as ministry parents are doing or not doing that could be contributing to those ministry kid statistics? Maybe we should reflect on some of our negative practices like the ten below to help us answer that question.

•   We often ask how things might impact our ministry before asking how they might impact our family.

•   We move to a new church or ministry every couple of years.

•   We consider phone calls or visits from church members as divine appointments but phone calls or visits from our children as disrespectful interruptions.

•   We never remove our ministry hat to wear our parent hat.

•   We attend conferences in exotic locations but never have enough time for family vacations.

•   We easily justify missing ballgames and concerts to attend meetings.

•   We don’t defend our children from unfair and unrealistic church member expectations.

•   We rarely show affection to our children while at church.

•   We are constantly reminding our children how their actions can reflect negatively on our position.

•   We expect them to have the same passion and willingness to sacrifice for our calling as we do.

If ministry requires us to sacrifice family, we have to ask if what we are doing is really ministry. There are other churches but we only have one family. So, even though our ministry leading responsibilities seem never ending, those missed opportunities with our children can never be recovered.