Hannah Coulter said, "When they were young I suppose all my thoughts about the children started with knowing that they were mine. Because they were mine, I had to think of what I should do for them, of what we could do for them to get them started in the world. Of what they needed." (Wendell Berry)
Solomon said, "Train up a child in the way he should go...."
Training isn't merely telling a person something. It isn't just hoping they catch it by observation. Its repeated telling, repeated demonstration. Its age appropriate. Its creative. It includes ides that one gets from God Himself and by observing other families that have learned how to do this on one way or aother.
So we begin with what our children will need built into them before they leave home and then work back to where they are now.
I am going to being with only four basic topics here. I may get around to some others.... Anyway, Staying connected to God. Money. How to fail and then to get back up again. Relationships.
1. How to stay connected to God. This will serve them every day of their glorious and inglorious life. Let them see this because it is in your life in maturing stages.:
He is an invisible God who is all around them
He is sovereign
He is good
He satisfies
He hears us when we pray. He ALWAYS answers us. Sometimes with a 'no'.
Be satisfied in Him. Let Him heal you of your addictions and idols. Live transparently because your children are seeing your life more than your words.
II. Money
Give them money to save and spend. Talk about money. Read them from Proverbs about money and how god sees it. Let them hear you converse together and how you decide to buy things. Let them know (appropriately to their age) when things are tight and how it affects your spending. If you are greedy or materialistic, ask God to HEAL you.
High schoolers: give them in cash what you would have spent on them clothes, entertainment, personal hygiene, fast food, etc. (if you normally would expect them to get a part time job for their own list of things that they want to own, then encourage them to do that) Teach and demonstrate savings, charity. Spending and no debt.
If this is a weakness for you, then repent and ask others to help you mature here. This is not a good time to stay stuck in such a crippling mindset. Your kids could be FREE, if you desired to be free yourself.
III. You fail, I fail, we all fail, we will fail. Don't panic! Hannah Coulter said, "When you have gone too far, the only mending is to come home." What is the way back? Its easiest to teach them when they are small, but its never too late to speak healthily and gratefully of repentance. John Piper says instead of Christians being known as 'good works doers' we should be better known as 'repenters'.
When accidents happen, or there is a failure, don't panic! If you ever over-react, and punish and scream and yell, then REPENT. Get the non-reactive parent to show you how it could be done. When you terrify the child with your reaction you make it a scary place to confess faults. Or a child that is afraid to ever make a mistake. We have seen way too many examples of mad-parent syndrome.
Don't judge others. Teach them to not judge. Be very careful not to think judgmentally because it will come out in words. If you are free from a judgmental posture it will be easier for you to own up to your own sins and mistakes.
Maturity is not to ever need someone's help ("I am 18 now and can make my own decisions, and live my own way"...) but rather its to know when and where to ask for help. We never stop needing community and help from others.
IV. Relationships. Gazillions of personality types. But basically your kid is either a thermostat or a thermometer (thermostat: has a ability in its design to control the temperature of a room. It tells the furnace or air conditioner and fan when and when not to activate. Thermometer only measures the temperature of the room. Has no ability to alter what it finds.)
Allow your kids to think things out for themselves. Don't react when they utter nonsense. They need to learn to discern and that comes from weighing in on both sides. You do not want your kids to merely parrot you, but to discover how to compare new ideas with what is unchangeable truth. So bring up topics to discuss. Don't shy from controversy. The other adults in your children's lives might have different (but not wrong) views. That's not a bad thing.
Your kids were given their breath of life by God in order to bless and share and nurture and provide and lead and correct and celebrate and be the light that leads the lost home. If they are God's then they already have the fulness of the Spirit within them. So beginning small and growing stronger and stronger they can be trained to repent of any hint of being a taker, a predator, a passive conspirator, a defiler.
Make Kindness and Wholesomeness a celebrated trait. One that you value in them more than your desire for them to be a good student, athlete, a good wage earner, obedient or popular.
Proverbs 31:12 is written about a woman but the truth applies to men as well. Use it as a yardstick to let your children measure themselves. To do the spouse good and not evil all the days of their life. Like right now, no matter how young or old they are.
