At Home – by Rudy Gray

Proverbs 22:6 says, “Train up a child – .”

Rudy Gray

The idea in God’s word seems to be teaching and modeling godly truth and behavior to a child. Training is not a one-time experience but a process. When parents are involved in training their children, they are helping them to grow in maturity and character. Training a child includes teaching them to be responsible, influencing them to be respectful to other people, and instilling in them the importance of delayed gratification.

An 11-year-old was out of control. When he did not get what he wanted, he threw temper tantrums at his parents. His mom thought he just needed to get in touch with his feelings and express them. She tried to soothe him when he misbehaved. A close friend told her, “You are training him to be a rage-aholic.”

She and her husband set up some boundaries. They laid the plan out before him. “You get angry. Things bother you. You want everything to go your way. When you get mad, instead of screaming you can tell us what is bothering you and we will listen. Yelling, cursing, stomping and throwing things are unacceptable. If you do those things, you will go to your room with no phone, no computer, no video games, no TV and no music until you can behave calmly. The next time you disturb the family, you will do that many extra minutes of housework. We want to help you.”

Things went well for awhile. Then, the boy went ballistic over something. The mom and dad stuck to their strategy. His behavior got worse! After a few more episodes of bad behavior and consistent response from the parents, the son’s tantrums became few and less intense. He eventually learned he could talk about his problems, confess his feelings, and not express his anger. He learned to practice self-control and personal responsibility.

One key issue in the development of our children is for them to know that behavior has consequences and that we are responsible for our own behavior. Discipline is important. Spanking is effective with younger children.

Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother.”

Training our children is a process that enables them to grow up with character.