3. GIVE HIM THE GIFT OF LOVE.
Let him see a father
who loves his mother, and vice versa. The greatest gift any parent
can bestow on a child is the gift of love. Children need the
assurance that comes from a loving home, where daddy is in love with
mother, and mother is in love with daddy. It is thus imparted to the
children. I rather doubt that you could rear normal children in a
starved and parched desert-like atmosphere where there is no
affection and love. Home cannot be a happy and serene place without
love. The Bible urges mutual love explicitly. Paul, writing by
inspiration, admonished, "Husbands love your wives, even as Christ
loved the church and gave himself for it." Likewise, he said,
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."
He concluded the fifth chapter of Ephesians by saying, "Let every
one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the
wife see that she reverence her husband."
4. LINE UP AND LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE IN EVERY WAY CONSISTENT WITH
THE IDEALS WHICH YOU ESPOUSE AND TEACH YOUR CHILDREN.
Our
children need examples which will inspire them to live above the
crowd, and they need the examples especially from the parents. One
of the most asinine and absurd specimens you will ever see is the
parent who teaches one way and lives another. That method fools no
one! You can't get by with teaching your child to be honest and
letting him hear you lie, or see you cheat on your income tax. You
can't successfully teach your child to obey the laws if he sees you
violate traffic laws, and hears you speak contemptuously of law
enforcement people. You cannot carry him to Bible school on Sunday
morning, leave him there, and go back home to your comic strips and
television. Life is not ordered that way. You can't say, "Don't do
as I do--do as I say do." Children are intelligent and they see
through the cheap pretense and hypocrisy of parents who demonstrate
by their lives that even they don't believe what they teach.
Parents, you first need to determine whether you really live the
life you profess. Do not try to teach young people a way of life you
will not live. It will not work.
5. DISCIPLINE YOUR CHILD AND DO IT SIMPLY AND CLEARLY.
You
can't teach a child to respect an authority that isn't there. Lay
down some ground rules of conduct for your child and consistently
apply them. Punish the child if he violates them and praise him for
things he does well and for respecting authority. Any child likes to
know what the rules are. You wouldn't live in a place or under
circumstances where you didn't know what you could or could not do.
What kind of a mad-house is it where you find out the attitude of
authority by testing it by trial or error? Both father and mother
must present a solid front and united mind on discipline. The Bible
tells us a soft answer turns away wrath. Speak softly and kindly to
the child. You need not bluster and storm about as though you were
staving off the charge of a lion or something. Maintain your
composure, speak softly, yet with firmness and decisiveness.
6. DO NOT RUSH YOUR CHILD INTO ADULTHOOD BY UNREASONABLE
EXPECTATIONS.
Don't build up pressure against the child by
expecting unrealistic performances from him. I think I will never
forget my own experience in this area. When my oldest son was only
five, he spilled a glass of coke on the carpet. My own father was
present, and he rebuked me for the attitude I had taken with the
boy. He said, "Son, he's only a little boy, and you cannot expect a
man's behavior from him." He had performed just as you would expect
a five-year-old to do. Why break your child in pieces expecting
unreal performance from him such as that he be precocious like
Albert Einstein, or a dramatist like Barrymore, or a singer like
Caruso? To be sure, draw out his strengths and talents, but do not
try to recast him and make a distortion of him. Let him be himself.
It is shocking to see mothers pushing their twelve and
thirteen-year-old daughters into the whirl of social activities,
dating, dining, and who knows what else, equipped throughout with
all the clothing of adult womanhood. What in the world are people
thinking of? Here is a child who ought to be close at home, studying
nature, thinking about herself and her world. She should be getting
restful sleep, and reading books and learning to "keep the house."
Later there will be time for these social activities when she is
more mature and can deal with problems that arise.
7. DO NOT SCRAP AND FUSS WITH THE CHILD OVER YOUR
AUTHORITY.
There is a great tendency abroad on the part of
employees to run business, students to run schools, minority groups
to run everybody, and children to run the home. Do not permit it for
one moment! There is a clearly discernible inclination on the part
of children to argue and cavil with parents about their judgments
and decisions. Do not permit it! It corrupts and confuses authority
and rule. If the parents' directions are subject to debate and
quibbling on the part of the child, then the parent does not have
the authority he ought to have. I am not contending that the parent
should be like a dictator, make a rule and stifle all comment, just
ramming it down the throat, but I do emphatically advise to state
the rule clearly, kindly, and hear any reasonable comment on it, but
do not permit arguing and disputing to continue over your authority.
The child will wear you into weariness and permissiveness if you are not careful.
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