Child Training

What to Teach Children

How should parents train their children?

“Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” Proverbs 22:6. “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4.

How diligently should parents teach children God’s Word?

“These commandments that I gave you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” Deuteronomy 6:6,7; 11:19.

What high ideal should be placed before the young?

“Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the unbelievers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.” 1 Timothy 4:12. 

What duty does God require of children?

“Honor your father and your mother.” Exodus 20:12.

Correcting Children – Caution to Parents

How should the youth be taught to regard the aged?

“Rise in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:32.

What are some good fruits of proper child training?

“Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul.”

Proverbs 29:17.

What will happen if correction is withheld?

“The rod of correction imparts wisdom, but a child left to himself disgraces his mother.”

Verse 15.  (See also Proverbs 22:15.)

Is there a danger of delaying correction too long?

“Discipline your son, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party to his death.”

Proverbs 19:18. (See Proverbs 23:13, 14.)

Does proper correction evidence a want of parental love?

“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.”

Proverbs 13:24.

Note – One Christian mother writes concerning the importance of child training: “Children who are allowed to come into manhood or womanhood with the will disciplined and the passions uncontrolled, will generally in after-life pursue a course which God condemns. The neglect of parents to properly discipline their children has been a fruitful source of evil in many families. The youth have not been restrained, as they should have been. Parents have neglected to follow the directions of the Word of God in this matter, and the children have taken the reins of government into their own hands. The consequences have been that they have generally succeeded in ruling their parents, instead of being under their authority. False ideas and a foolish, misdirected affection have nurtured traits which have made the children unlovely and unhappy, have embittered the lives of the parents, and have extended their baleful influence from generation to generation. Any child that is permitted to have their own way will dishonor God and bring his father and mother to shame.”

Whom does the Lord chasten?

“Because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.” Hebrews 12:6.  

Note – From this we may learn that all child training should be done in love, and that proper child training is an evidence of true love.

Against what evil should fathers guard?

“Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.”

 Colossians 3:21. 

Note – Correction should never be done in anger, for anger in parent’s stirs up anger in the child. It is well to pray with a child before correcting him, and frequently mild but faithful instruction, admonition, and prayer are all the training necessary – are in fact. The best training that can be given. But in any case of perverseness, stubbornness, or willful disobedience the correction, whatever it may be, should be persisted in until the child yields submissively to the will and wishes of the parent. It is best generally, that correction should be done in private, as this tends to preserve the self-respect of the child, a very important element in character building. No correction of training should be violet of abusive, or given for the purpose of breaking the will of the child, but rather to direct the will, bring it into proper subjection, and the child to a realizing sense of what is right and duty.

How are the present effects and future results of God’s chastisements contrasted?

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained for it.”

Hebrews 12:11.

Why did God reprove Eli?

“At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against his family – from the beginning to the end. For I told him that I would judge his family forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible, and he failed to restrain them.” 1 Samuel 3:12,13. 

What is to be one of the prominent sins of the last days?