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.