That we are made in the image of God is the doctrinal tenet by which Christians understand what it means to be human. Marshaling the claim from Genesis 1:27 that “God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them,” supported by the weight of the New Testament (see 1 Cor. 11:7, Eph. 4:24, James 3:9), Christ followers maintain that every person bears the imago Dei. Then I met my son Augustus, who was born with Down syndrome. Gus overturned the assumptions of my theology.

Parents are responsible to provide and care for their children. We are the primary disciplers of our kids. But parents are most fundamentally stewards. Though we’re called to faithfulness with our kids, they ultimately belong to a promise-keeping God who is more faithful than we are.

“Initially, helicopter parenting appears to work,” says Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of How to Raise an Adult. “As a kid, you're kept safe, you're given direction, and you might get a better grade because the parent is arguing with the teacher.” But, ultimately, parents end up getting in the child’s way.

The better-educated, better-paid parents who embrace free-range parenting aren’t preoccupied with questions like these. A major shortcoming of their otherwise well-intentioned movement is that the people who have the most to gain from it—poor and working-class parents—will find themselves held to a different set of expectations.

After months of speculation, evaluations, and dread, our firstborn was diagnosed with autism. Just like history is divided into BC and AD, so was our family narrative neatly bisected into two distinct eras: Before Autism and After. Before Autism, my hazy impression of special needs parents was that they were a rare breed of human, noble souls preternaturally gifted with patience and oozing with otherworldly enlightenment. That’s why God picked them. Ordinary persons were not worthy of so lofty a calling.

NPR's Anya Kamenetz offers three simple rules to help foster an environment that allows for technological creativity without shutting off the outside world.

Every parent I know wants to raise kids who are at least as successful and happy as we are--more so, if we can pull it off. But something disturbing has happened in the last few years to radically reduce how happy kids in middle and high school are.

Although we serve an all-powerful, all-good God, some great things never come. Maybe a naked ring finger reminds you of this; you’ve sought the Lord patiently for decades waiting for a spouse that never came. Maybe a new cradle lies in the middle of a freshly painted room, empty. With every new day picking at the wound, how can we begin to hope again?

My philosophy, when it’s come to raising a child with Down syndrome — when it comes to raising any child — is the deepest learning and greatest therapy takes place in daily life.

Football injuries are big news these days. So how are we as parents to decide whether we should allow our sons to play football? In light of the risks involved, let me unpack three reasons I chose (and would still choose) to say yes.