Training Children Part 2

VII. Consider how critical home life is to the proper training of children. A. Family is the first form of society and government to which children are normally exposed. B. Parents are the first educators of children. What is or is not learned in the home has great implications for a child’s development and adult life. 1. Home is where a child should first learn of God, His love, His will. 2. Home is where a child should first learn language skills. 3. Home is where a child should first learn basic health and hygiene. 4. Home is where a child should first learn of submission to authority: by the example his parents set and by the boundaries his parents impose upon him. God Himself in the incarnation was subject to His earthly parents. LUK 2:51. 5. Home is where a child should first learn that his will is not preeminent. 6. Home is where a child should first learn of discipline, i.e., the need to restrict and focus ambition. 7. Home is where a child should first learn of the painful consequences of lawbreaking. 8. Home is where a child should first learn responsibility: being responsible for assigned tasks and accepting responsibility for incompletion and disobedience. 9. Home is where a child should first learn cooperation and social skills. 10. Home is where a child should first learn of nurturing and giving. 11. Home is where a child should first learn economics. 12. Home is where a child should first learn dietary nutrition. 13. Home is where a child should first learn about physical exercise. 14. Home is where a child should first learn about sex (from parents, not the television or internet). 15. Home is where a child should first learn of work and merit-based reward. 16. Home is where a child will first learn to prioritize. But what? 17. Home is where a child WILL learn. The question is “What?” C. Piety (habitual reverence to God, devotion to religious duties; faithfulness to the duties owed to parents and relatives) begins at home (1TI 5:4). Parents must train by example and command the value of Scripture, true religion and family honor. D. Provision begins at home (1TI 5:8). Parents must train by example and command a work ethic that prioritizes family need over self-indulgence, sloth or unrighteous claims by others on the fruits of one’s labor. E. Abraham is the prototypical man of faith. ROM 4:3. 1. He was singled out for blessing because of faithfulness in family matters, including the commanding of children. GEN 18:19. 2. By contrast, his nephew, Lot, was a terrible example of a parent. 2PE 2:6-8 c/w GEN 13:8-13; 19:8, 12-14, 30-36. 3. The difference between Abraham and Lot (who were both children of God) is the God-blessed life v. the God-blasted life. Don’t be a Lot. F. Many personal and societal ills can be traced back to some form of dysfunction in the home: spousal abuse, child abuse, self-indulgent parents, absentee fathers, disconnected fathers or mothers, lack of natural affection, unsubmissive wives, sexual impurity in a parent, rejection of God and religion, lack of child restraint, lack of instilled respect and reverence for authority, etc. 1. Research and experience show that sodomy, lesbianism and dysphoric tendencies can develop as a backlash to poor parental role models. 2. Child abuse can be the result of the lack of timely, measured discipline of children which sets up powder-keg reactions from a parent when children are out of control. 3. Lack of respect for leadership or submission to authority in public arenas (school, workplace, before the law) starts with the lack of the same in the home. 4. Lack of self-discipline in adult life is often the continuation of a behavior developed and tolerated in the home. 5. Unrestrained behavior in public can be because of the same in the home. 6. Healthy family life = healthy public life and healthy adult life. G. A married couple's relationship will teach either fidelity or futility to children. 1. If Dad and Mom can be faithful to God and each other in how they relate, the prospect of positive interaction with others is seen as an attainable goal by children. 2. If Dad and Mom just can't seem to get along and home life is one of dark clouds and acrimony, positive interaction with others may seem unattainable to children. H. Consider Eli and David. 1. Eli was God's priest to Israel. But Eli did not restrain his own appetites, nor did he restrain his sons which corrupted the priesthood. 1SAM 2:24; 3:13; 4:18. 2. David was a good king. But David's lack of Vitamin “N” (No!) bred trouble in his children and trouble for Israel. 1KI 1:6. I. Against the over-permissiveness of Eli and David is the parent who insists on absolute rigidity without consideration to a child’s basic need to be heard out or allowed to do something which may not be profitable but not injurious. 1. Parents should not provoke children to wrath by inconsiderate mastery. EPH 6:4. 2. EPH 6:4 contrasts provoking children to wrath and bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. a. The nurture and admonition of the Lord will of necessity show both the goodness and the severity of God. ROM 11:22. b. A healthy, balanced knowledge of God’s dealings with His own children is valuable to training a child. God is love (1JO 4:16) and that love includes rebuke and chastening. REV 3:19. 3. provoke: To incite or urge (a person or animal) to some act or to do something; to stimulate to action; to excite, rouse, stir up, spur on. 4. nurture: Breeding, upbringing, training, education (received or possessed by one). b. Moral training or discipline. [O.E.D. cites EPH 6:4 here). 5. admonition: The action of admonishing (putting in mind of duties); authoritative counsel; warning, implied reproof. 6. Common sense tells you that children who are tyrannically beaten into compliance or are as demeaned as Jonathan was by Saul are likely going to react defensively, angrily. 1SAM 20:30-34. a. Such parenting may be the sin of “Without natural affection...” (2TI 3:3). b. God’s children are precious to Him. ISA 43:4; MAL 3:17. c. Parents should cherish (hold dear, treat with tenderness and affection) their children. 1TH 2:7-8. 7. Parents may provoke their children to wrath by not bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. A child learns from the school of hard knocks the realities his parents should have taught him and ends up bitter and hateful. 8. Parents may provoke their children to wrath by being not themselves regulated by the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and this breeds frustrated anger. NOTE: children will note, inventory and be ready to chamber every bit of “double- standard” ammunition you provide them. 9. For some children, bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is the very thing that provokes them to wrath, not because the model is wrong but rather the child thinks he is God Whose will is sovereign. a. Do not fall for this form of idolatry, and administer the antidote early. PRO 13:24. b. Per MAL 3:17, sparing is for obedient children, not defiant ones. c. Further, “...let not thy soul spare for his crying” (PRO 19:18). d. For the sake of our salvation, God did not spare His only begotten Son, and even made Him to learn obedience by the things He suffered. ROM 8:32; HEB 5:8. e. Beware of the error of results-directed reasoning. NUM 20:7-12. (1) Parents may reject Scripture’s commands and end up with a compliant child. But this is like betting you can make it through a minefield without following a detailed map of where the mines are. (2) If results determine the method then electro-shock therapy, drugs or brain surgery might be proper ways to produce a compliant child.