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Certainly, our times bring into sharp focus the need to
clarify our thinking, and to apply some rules regarding the proper
rearing of children. We are witnessing the results of the abdication
and abandonment of responsibility by too many parents to correct and
train their offspring. Someone has wisely written: "Every generation
faces the task of educating an onrushing horde of barbarians--its
own children."
Let me say at the outset that I am young enough, and my children
are young enough, that I may still qualify as an "expert." I heard
one man say that he started out speaking on this topic as an expert;
then as his children grew older, he merely became an authority; then
an astounded spectator; and finally as his children became
teenagers, he stopped speaking on the subject altogether!
I am quite sure that I need not belabor the point that a
tremendous lack of training in the home is evident from the fact
that over one million children under eighteen years of age were put
in U.S. jails last year; or from the fact that young people are
committing suicide at the rate of one every hour and a half. Nor
that youthful lawlessness is outstripping the population growth
seven times to one! A noted criminologist recently said, "Unless we
find a way to curb this rising tide of juvenile lawlessness, the
time is soon coming when we will prefer to be destroyed by atomic
bombing than to continue to live in extreme peril of life and
property." I am not a prophet, or a son of a prophet, but I fear a
scourge similar to that of the Red Guard in China. Fort Lauderdale,
Florida, and other places of riot scenes are but rehearsals of what
the future may hold.
The magnitude of the home's decay is seen in the phenomenal rise
in crime in our country. It is a startling fact that over one-half
of our population now is under age twenty-eight! By the year 1975,
it is said, one-half of this country will be under twenty-five years
of age. When you consider that we are going to turn this country
over to these young people, and put awesome weapons in their hands,
the matter of home training assumes immense importance. Now, by
training is meant the systematic act of "bringing up, of educating,
of rearing and instructing, done by both word and deed." By home, we
intend to designate the place where the affections and interests of
the family are centered, the seat of domestic life, the abiding
place of the heart's affections, the haven and sanctuary where the
family abides together in common and mutual ties and love. Many a
man has paid rent all his life and owns his home, while many a man
has bought a house and owns only that under our definition.
The inducement toward our subject is found in Proverbs 22:6,
wherein the wisest man who ever lived wrote, "Train up a child in
the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from
it." Any home, to be the haven it ought to be, must found its
precepts upon a recognition of, and love for, the authority of GOD.
It is doubtful whether there is an age when children are not
highly receptive to stimuli, and when they are not capable of
learning and being influenced. One of the fundamental tenets of
Communism is to indoctrinate children as early in life as possible.
The theory is that impressions made on the pliable minds of
youngsters, ranging in age from three to twelve years, are likely to
remain and become more ineradicable as the children approach
adulthood. The teaching of Christian truths and training in
Christian disciplines is a continuous process, and must begin early
in life! Then let us examine some specific advice about the training
of children.
1. TEACH THEM ABOUT GOD AND THE JUDGMENT. 2. TEACH THE YOUNGSTER TO BE PROUD OF HIS HERITAGE AND LINEAGE.
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