How East Lake Academy Has Changed Our Family – by ELA Mom Amanda McDonagh
When I think about how East Lake Academy has impacted our family, I realize that it has been about so much more than our children’s education. It has changed the way our entire family thinks about what it means to raise children. My husband and I have always wanted our children to grow into kind, responsible, successful adults, but East Lake has continually reminded us that our ultimate goal is something much greater: to help our children become disciples of Jesus Christ. The school has given us a community and a language for putting our faith at the center of our family life.
One of the biggest ways this has changed the way we parent is in how we think about discipline. We don’t want discipline to simply be about correcting bad behavior or teaching our children to follow rules. We want it to form their hearts. We try to teach our children that discipline is ultimately about becoming disciples—disciples of Jesus who learn to choose what is good, even when it is difficult. We want them to understand that every small act of obedience, sacrifice, kindness, forgiveness, and self-control is an opportunity to become more like Christ. Instead of simply asking, “How can I get my child to behave?” we are learning to ask, “How can I help form this child’s heart to know and love Jesus?”
East Lake has also deepened our understanding of what it means to cultivate Christ in our children’s hearts. As parents, it can be so easy to become focused on grades, accomplishments, sports, activities, college, and eventually careers. Those things have value, but they aren’t the measure of a truly successful life. We want our children to be good stewards of the gifts God has given them—not simply successful according to the world’s definition of success. We want them to recognize that their talents, time, relationships, and opportunities are gifts that ultimately belong to God. Our job as parents is not just to prepare them to make a living; it is to prepare them to make a life centered on Christ and ordered toward Him.
Perhaps the greatest lesson for our family has been realizing that true happiness comes from doing God’s work and living according to His will. The world can tell our children that happiness comes from achievement, recognition, comfort, or having more. Our faith teaches us something entirely different. We want our children to know the joy that comes from serving others, loving sacrificially, using their gifts for God’s purposes, and knowing that their lives have meaning because they belong to Christ. We want them to leave our home not just as successful adults, but as men and women who know who they are, whose they are, and what they are called to do.
For our family, that is what makes East Lake so special. It has helped reinforce the belief that education is not simply about filling our children’s minds—it is about forming their hearts. And as parents, it has challenged us to look at our own hearts and our own example, because we cannot ask our children to become disciples if we are not striving to become disciples ourselves. We are grateful for a school that partners with us in the most important work we will ever do: raising children who know, love, and serve Jesus Christ.