Training Children: 5 Keys to a Christian Home (Part 2)

• Love. In part 1 of this series is the first essential key of child training: all must be wrapped in love. A child must be drawn by affection, knowing he is fully loved, before he will follow the Lord through his parents with a pure heart. It is the essence of raising them in the nurture of the Lord. Some of the following “keys” could be quickly turned to cruelty by a lack of love.

• Know Whose They Are.

“The first thing implied in educating children for God is a realizing, heartfelt conviction that they are

His property, His children, rather than ours. He commits them for a time to our care…However carefully we may educate children, yet we cannot be said to educate them for God unless we believe that they are His.” -Edward Payson, A Theology of the Family

This reality motivates us differently. If they are His, given to us much as the talents were given to the servants by the Master, all our energies are put to directing them to live for His glory. That chief end is the force that drives us and supplies us with endurance.

• Train Them in the right way. This point will be fleshed out in future parts, but its primary point is that children are inclined toward sin (Prov. 22:15) and we have been given the job of training them in the way they should go, not in the way they would go.

• Expect and enforce respect and obedience. A seemingly simple and unneeded reminder, yet unfortunately lost in many homes. If a child would learn to survive in the world at all, he must learn how to submit to authorities in his life. I’ve seen the trend that villainizes parental authority. I would say it is not a “trend” but a rebellion couched in compassionate (deceitful) language. The Bible says that a parent hates his child who does not undertake to discipline him in love, requiring obedience as God has commanded. (Prov. 13:24)

• Read the Bible & pray with them. It cannot be underestimated the power God’s Word has on our lives. It is living and breathing and able to transform. Make them thoroughly familiar, from a young age, with the Gospel. Talk of sin, our need of a Savior, the glorious story of our Redemption and the gratitude and love that should overflow from it. Let them see you pray and encourage them to pray as well. We should model the privilege of being able to commune, with reverence and yet affection, with the Creator of the universe.

As I study The Theology of the Family (edited by Scott Brown and Jeff Pollard) and The Duties of Parents, I am encouraged, convicted, but mostly renewed and strengthened to keep about this task of parenting. It is wonderful and it is hard and it is worth it.

Personal disclaimer:

I know from experience, that too often others looking in, reading a blog where ideals are presented, can easily perceive the author has arrived and therefore she does everything right and her children are perfectly behaved. I need you to know this is not the case here. I fail as a parent on a regular basis. sometimes my children argue, sometimes they disobey, and some have struggles too hard to mention here for the sake of privacy. These ideals are for all of us, as we walk together, praying for our children, asking God to sustain us through some very hard days, and trusting His infinite mercy and sovereignty in it all. That’s me, being real.