Training
Children
First, you need to realize that children are little people. They
are people, just like you and me, they're just shorter, and they
don't have as many years of experience. But they do have a spirit,
and they do have a mind, and they do have a will, and they do have
emotions. Many years ago, people used to say, "Children should
be seen, not heard."
This is how you build rebels: by ignoring them, letting them just
kind of grow up by themselves, do whatever they can find to do every
day to get into trouble. The book of Proverbs (in the Bible) says
that "a child left to himself brings shame."
Children Can't Train Themselves
So, the first mistake is: don't think that since you don't know how
to train children, and you don't know what to do, you just leave
them alone, letting them run around to do whatever they want. In
the first place, you're violating the Scripture, which tells you
not to do that. We understand that you feel helpless, that you don't
know what else to do, which is why we're creating this worksheet,
to give you some ideas of what you can do.
The Bible does say to "bring up your children in the nurture
and admonition of the LORD." So, we do have a responsibility.
It also says in Proverbs, that if you "train up a child in the
way he should go, he will not depart from it." Now, in the original
Hebrew of that passage, what we've learned is that the "training
up a child" actually means "to touch the palate" of
the child. The palate is the top of your mouth, if you put your finger
in your mouth, inside your mouth is the palate.
The Hebrew mothers
would put some food on their finger and then put the finger in the
child's mouth, touching the top of the mouth, to get them to want
to eat, by giving them a sample of how it tastes.
We've got to train a child by touching their palate, giving them
a taste of what's good for them, which will make them want to imitate
it. Now, if you're really paying attention, you'll see that this
also could mean that we have to train them by giving them a taste
of what it's like to live by their watching us, and they will get
a taste for "How do mommy and daddy handle a crisis?" "What
do mommy and daddy do when things go wrong?"
There's a saying, "More is 'caught' than taught," so really
most learning that is picked up by watching someone else.
Children Are Imitators
So, really the most important way we're training children is by
just being an example; we
don't say to them, "Do as I say, not as I do." No,
because they're watching us, and
whatever we do, that's what they're going to do. In fact, there
are some very compliant
children who will do exactly what you do, including cussing.
So, what we're mostly
talking about today is the problem child, what we've started
calling in America the
strongwilled child. So the place to start in training a child
is by being an example
yourself.
If Bible reading or prayer or sharing your faith is not
part of your family life then you are
not raising a family which is walking with the Lord. You may
go to church but the kids
know that God is “just for Sunday.”
Children Need Structure
The next step would be to have a schedule. You will learn the
hard way that if you don't
have a schedule and the same routine that you do every day, the
kids have nothing to
look forward to, there's no organization in their lives. They
can wake up at 8 a.m., 9
a.m., 10 a.m.---whenever they feel like waking up---and they
can read books, watch TV,
whatever they feel like doing. This desultory lifestyle breeds
the notion in the child's
mind that there's no reason to do anything, which results in
their whole life being
wasted. This affects their outlook on life: "Why should I
do anything? Why should I do
anything anybody tells me to do?" They're really not going
to be ready for when they go
to school, or when they go to get a job, because they're going
to think, "Well, if I feel like
it, I'll do it; if I don't, I won't." So having a daily
schedule with activities is absolutely vital.
First thing is, when you get up in the morning, you want to be
sure to brush your teeth
and comb your hair. Now, there are some cultures where these things
are not so
important, but in this society, you need to know that when your
kids go to school, the
other kids are going to laugh at them; because your kids'll have
bad breath from not
brushing their teeth.
God only gives you one set of adult teeth, and once you've destroyed
those or
destroyed your gums, you don't get another set. When you cut yourself
on your finger,
the skin grows back, but your gums never reproduce themselves;
the tissue on your
gums, once you've destroyed it, does not grow back. Taking care
of your teeth is very
important, so the kids need to be taught, and also this needs to
be modeled for them
(meaning you, the parent, need to do it as well). And you might
need to come up with
some rewards.
So, we've got
scheduled activities when we get up in the morning, and then
we eat
breakfast, and then it would be a good idea to have some kind of
Bible time, even a
short Bible story with some pictures; and pray: pray for daddy
at work, pray for
grandma & grandpa; just pray about everything. "The family
that prays together, stays
together." These are crucial things to model for the children.
Singing is a very important part of life; people who don't sing
or have no interest in
singing are not happy people. So singing songs is good (of course,
kids especially love
songs that have motions and activities to go with the song).
So you might have your devotional time, then some teaching time,
then some arts and
crafts time. By then, it'll probably be time for lunch. Usually
after lunch it's a great idea
to take a walk, because you can always turn everything into a learning
experience:
"
What kind of an animal is that?" "What kind of a bird
is that?" "What does that big
machine do?" "Can we find our way down the street and
then find our way back
home?" It's a good time to just talk about what's going on
around you. By the time you
get back from that walk, it's time for a nap (maybe a little snack
later in the afternoon);
you can have some more activities, maybe reinforcing what you did
in the morning.
Daddy Must be Involved
Then, the grand climax of the day is Daddy Coming Home, with supper
and then family
Bible time that Daddy leads after supper. If Daddy thinks this
is important, then the
Bible must be pretty important; if Daddy doesn't think it is, why
should anybody else
think it is?
Children Need To Be Molded
Regarding discipline,
the most important thing to remember is: the kid has a will,
and
he wants to do what he wants to do. All kids, from the moment of
birth, will start crying
immediately, demanding "I want to be fed!" "I want
this!" "I want that!" You need to first
of all understand that their will is going to be challenging you
from the moment they're
born, every day; that they want things their way; that they see
themselves as the center
of the universe.
So we have to break their will, but the challenge is to break
their will without breaking
their spirit. You don't want your children to become slaves who
look down at the floor,
and when you snap your fingers, they do whatever you say, but only
because they're
afraid of you, or because their spirit is broken, and they just
have a totally defeated
attitude: that's not what we want.
We want a kid
who's mastered what we call "deferred gratification," which
means
they've learned how to wait for things, they don't demand something
immediately to be
their way. This is called self control. In Proverbs 21, it says "A
person who has no self-
control is like a city that's broken down without any walls" (meaning,
the Enemy can
come in and out anytime he feels like it---and believe me, the
Enemy---Satan---wants
your children!).
So, we're going to break their will, but how? We break their will,
when a disagreement
comes up, by not giving them what they want. If we do give them
what they want,
they're running the house, and now they are the king or little
queen of the universe, and
you'll have a house that's a hell on earth.
Children Need More Than Just Words
There's a way
of discipline which is called "the rewards
system." It works like this: "If
you will finish eating your supper/stop hitting your sister/stop
throwing things against the
wall" (whatever), "Then we're going to go to the park," or "We're
going to go get ice
cream," or something similar. But the key to making that work
is: you MUST follow
through. If they don't change their behavior, you simply tell them, "Sorry,
you didn't do
what mommy said, so we can't go get ice cream." So, if you're
going to use the rewards
system, you've got to be consistent.
Children Need Lots of Interaction With Parents
Probably the
most important thing in any discussion about childrearing is,
you need to
spend time with your children. As I mentioned earlier, in America
it used to be that "
children are to be seen, not heard." If you don't want to
spend time with your children,
you're living in disobedience to God. I see people of other cultures
who, if they have
something to say to their children, it's just correction, it's
never encouragement.
Your
kid needs you so much: kids who grow up without parents end up
in jail. Many of them
have become very hardened criminals: they're on drugs, they're
into immorality and all
kinds of bad things---all because they never got a kind word
from their parents, or
because they were totally ignored.
So, we're not just talking about a nice idea here, a little suggestion.
We're talking about
the difference between life and death: your kids need you, they
need your
encouragement. You need to spend time with them; especially Daddy,
when he comes
home, needs to get on the floor and play, rearrange the furniture
and make a tent with a
sheet and a blanket over the top of the couch and hide under there...and
play hide-and-
seek, and read stories and play games.
Parental Implementation Is Key
You either will use the ideas on this sheet in some form, or you
will LOSE your kids,
that's all there is to it. You either want a family that is being
destroyed, or you want a
Godly family. Really it's up to you, there's no worksheet in the
world, there's nobody in
the world that can help you if you don't love your children in
the first place, and if you
don't want to spend time with them.
Children Need To Be Good At Something
The last thing I'll say is, you need to as soon as possible get
your kids into some kind of
activity, like sports. There're all kinds of things you can do,
like the YMCA, and the
sooner, the better. They need something they can be good at: if
a kid has nothing he
can say he's good at, then he'll just get into trouble. A word
to the wise, he who has ears, let him hear.