TRAINING YOUR CHILDREN FOR CHRIST

                    Steps For Effective Parenting

.    There are certain things that parents must do indeed, that only
parents can do if their children are to become true servants of God. 
I don't want to hide the fact that what I'm setting before you will
not be gained without considerable difficulty, carefulness and work. 
However, nothing truly good or great is ever accomplished without
trouble.  I am certain that for every intense hour and patient effort
this work demands, parents will be abundantly repaid if they succeed.

                       Things Parents Should Do

.    First, there are some things that must be done if you want to
reach the great goal in the training of children - for them to love
and serve God with a pure heart.

1.  You must keep your goal constantly before your mind.  Look it in
the face and firmly determine to accomplish it.  Don't let the
seductive charms of the world or the temptations of the devil or the
promptings of ease and pleasure turn you aside.  Oh, fathers and
mothers, you must make up your mind to do or die!

2.  You must believe in the possibility of success.  What you desire
has been done with glorious results, and what parents have done
before, parents can do again.  Don't be deterred by the failures of
others though such failures are sadly too numerous.  Say to yourselves
in the face of the breakdowns, "Just because the children of some
professing Christians haven't turned out well - even if some have gone
bad altogether - that's no reason why ours should be lost.  God has
said, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old
he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)  We believe Him, and we
are going to do the training as well as we can, and trust Him to see
to its success.  Have faith in God, and He will come to your
assistance.

3.  Be a holy example.  Create and confirm in the hearts of your
children the assurance that you yourself are what you want them to
become.  Practice daily the same unselfish love and righteousness you
ask from them.  Without this, you will never accomplish the goals you
have set your heart on.

4.  Teach your children what real Christianity is.  Make them
understand it.  Make them admire it.  Explain it as soon as they can
take it in.  Base your teaching on the principles and examples in the
Bible, especially in the life and death of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the examples of His disciples, but don`t limit it to them.

5.  Help your children understand that everything you ask from them is
right and reasonable.  Appeal to their judgment and conscience rather
than to their feelings, although you must not neglect their hearts. 
It is important for them to understand you.  Come down to the level of
their capacity and intelligence.

6.  You must make following Christ a part of your everyday life.  Your
children must feel that you are as religious at home as in the
meetings, on Mondays as on Sundays, in your work as on your knees. 
Without always talking at them about it, your faith in God should be
the atmosphere of the house, so in that atmosphere they can "live and
move and have their being." (Acts 17:28)

7.  You need to aim at a distinct experience of conversion in your
children.  A line divides the righteous from the wicked.  God's own
fingers have drawn that line.  There is a moment when human beings,
adults or children, cease to be the servants of the devil, and become
the servants of God.  That line and moment may be approached so
gradually as to be crossed almost without notice.  But with all who
become the children of God, that moment does arrive and that line is
crossed, and then they pass from darkness to light, from death to
life.  In other words, they are saved.

.    You must aim at that distinct experience for your children.  You
must explain to them its nature and necessity as soon as they can
understand.  Pray for it in your own bedroom, and hand-in-hand with
them also.  Lead them to expect their own conversion, either at the
meetings or at home.  By-and-by you will have the joy of knowing the
great change has actually taken place, and of hearing them testify to
the fact: a joy which is nearer to the joys of the angels than any
other that can come to a father's or mother's heart.

8.  You must make your children kind.  Don't allow cruelty of any sort
in them.  The lack of thought and sympathy for others which is so
painfully visible in the vast majority of people, is nothing more than
a result of their early training in this area.

.    They were practically encouraged - that is, they weren't
corrected - in little acts of unkindness as toddlers.  They pinched the
kitten, frightened the bird, or threw down their toys for some tired
mother or weary servants to pick up.  By-and-by they pulled the legs
off of the spiders, threw bricks at dogs, and went into fits of
pleasure in chasing some poor creature found wounded on their way from
school.  From that it was only a step to sneering at the beggar who
asked for a piece of bread, or mocking the poor and the crippled.  And
now, they are all around us in their thousands, never having a thought
of kindness of a desire to do a kind thing that costs them any trouble
or self-denial.  Set your face against such things, and against the
spirit which makes them possible.

9.  Do everything you can to promote the health of your children. 
Their diet and exercise will affect them in adulthood.

10.  Do all you can for the minds of you children.  You want to make
them wise and thoughtful.  However poor and humble you may be, a
simple education is within your reach.  See that your children get it,
and be sure to take interest yourself in what they learn.

11.  Strive to make your children good workers.  Give them a chance to
contribute work around the house, in the garden, or in the workshop -
something apart from their studies.  Never let them be unoccupied. 
Keep them working or playing all through their waking hours.  Idle
hands are the devil's tools.

12.  Rely on the Holy Spirit to bless all your efforts.  You can
depend on the promises in Scriptures that He will rejoice to help you.

13.  Insist on obedience to all you ask.  You must have this obedience
or all your other efforts will be thrown away.  It's impossible to
overestimate its importance.  Forming the habit of ready and willing
submission to your will prepares them in forming the habit of
obedience to God, which is more important that anything else.

.    Settle it, therefore, from the first vision of your infant child,
from the first kiss you impress upon its little cheek, that, before
all else, you will create in this young soul the habit of obedience. 
How do we do this?

                       The Habit of Obedience.

1.  Begin early.  "Unless you get the dye into the wool, it will be
hard work to get it into the cloth."  It's astonishing how soon the
infant in its mother's arms can be taught that it must do her will,
and not its own.

2.  Don't give too many commands.  But take the trouble to make sure
they obey your commands, or the commands you permit others to give on
your behalf.  How often parents tell their children to do this or
that, without even waiting to see, or apparently caring, whether their
wishes are carried out!  This inevitably leads children to think it
doesn't matter whether they obey at all.

3.  Be careful that every command given is within your child's ability
to carry out.  It's cruel to ask children to do what is beyond their
power, and yet, I'm afraid many parents are thoughtlessly addicted to
the practice.  They would never dream of requiring their children to
carry a huge suitcase they couldn't lift, or read in a language they
hadn't learned - but they will require a little child to sit
motionless and silent for an hour; or forbid it crying when it has
pain; or insist upon its going to sleep when it is excited -
requirements far beyond its ability, if not actually impossible.  Be
tender and considerate in the commands you give your children.

4.  Be careful that your orders are good and lawful; otherwise, how
can you insist they obey you?

5.  Be careful that your commands are understood.  Some people talk
quickly, others don't take the time to explain their wishes.  This is
especially important when you ask your children to do something out of
the ordinary.  In those cases it's wise to ask "Do you understand me?"
particularly if your child shows any hesitancy in obeying you.

6.  Be sure to show your child in a way they can understand, your
strong disapproval of all disobedience.  You cannot pass disobedience
by without notice.  To do so is one of the surest methods of cursing
your child for the present and the future.  In a very real sense, you
are teaching them what their heavenly Father thinks of disobedience.

7.  Give suitable punishment to your children when they disobey. It`s
not likely that you will be favored with children so truthful and
obedient as never to need punishment.  Therefore, it's important that
you have the right idea on the subject of punishment. 

                         PUNISHING YOUR CHILD

1.  Before punishing a child, be sure he is guilty of the deed.
Nothing can be more painful to the parent or more harmful to a child
than discovering that a punishment was not deserved.

2.  Also, before punishing, be sure that the deed was done
deliberately.  If the child wasn't aware he was doing wrong, or didn't
intend to do the deed, then it was an accident, in which case
punishment is not deserved.

3.  If you're satisfied that they deserve punishing, do it right away. 
The sooner the penalty follows the misdeed, the more effective it will
be.

4.  The punishment given must be, as nearly as possible, the kind that
will produce repentance.  Two goals should be before every parent in
carrying out this painful task:

.    When you punish you child, you aim should be to bring him to
repentance.  You want him to realize his naughtiness, to see that
wrongdoing makes misery to be sorry for his sin, and to decide that he
will never do the evil thing again.

.    When he does a wrong thing, his conscience will tell him that he
ought to suffer for it.  When a painful punishment is the natural
outcome of wrong conduct, then wrongdoing and suffering will be
closely associated in his heart.  You should strengthen that
conviction, so that in later life he will know that if he lives and
dies in sin, hell will be his rightful end.

5.  Punishment, painful so that it will be remembered, should be as
short as the offense requires.  This is in favor of the occasional use
of the rod.  A little whipping will be remembered, but will not
unnecessarily prolong the suffering (proverb 23:13-14).

6.  Be careful that you never harm your child's health.  It's possible
to damage a child for a lifetime by too severe or long-lasting pain. 
However naughty, disobedient or cruel children may act, justice must
always be tempered with mercy.

7.  When telling your child to obey you, avoid drawn out conflicts. 
From some strange motive there is occasionally a bland refusal by a
child to obey a direct command.  If he doesn't obey you in a
reasonable amount of time, a prompt whipping is the best thing.  The
unfortunate course adopted by many parents is to try to force the
child to obey, no matter how long it takes, and under such
circumstances a regular battle between the wills of the parent and the
child is a common experience.

                     Things Parents Should Not Do

1.  You must never set things that are earthly and temporary above
things that are heavenly and eternal.  If you do, you can't complain
if your children grow up to prefer the world and its charms, to
following Christ in a life of holiness and self-denial.  Don't ever
allow things that produce the impression on your children's minds that
making money or pleasing ungodly people or winning the praise of men
or gratifying themselves or anything else of the kind is, or can ever
be, of greater value than pleasing God.

2.  Don't fool yourself into believing that if your children are left
to themselves, they will naturally develop into the godly, holy, self-
sacrificing characters you desire - and then be disappointed if they
turn out to be little devils, or grow up to be very much like big
ones.

.    If children don't actually bring evil natures into the world with
them, they certainly acquire selfish and naughty hearts very soon
after their arrival here.  You need to recognize that fact, and to
face it with courage and faith not only for their sakes, but for your
own.  Remember the terrible condemnation which God pronounced against
Eli, the High Priest, in this matter - He said, "I am about to judge
his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons
brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them." I Samuel
3:13.

3.  Don't expect that children who possess any backbone of resolution
and energy will be likely to submit their wills, first to their
parents and then to God, without a great deal of patient and
persevering effort on your part.  There will be exceptions to this
rule.  Samuel seems to have been of strong character, yet he didn't
apparently oppose God's purpose; Josiah was another, Timothy another. 
I have known some myself.  Be that as it may, if you want all your
children for the King, whether their natures are pliable or
unyielding, you must expect to take trouble for their salvation, and
let nothing keep you from persevering.

4.  Don't expect your children to be so naive that they won't see
beneath the cloak of a false Christianity, especially if they find it
in their own home.  And don't think that after they discover its
unreality, they won't despise it.  Don't be surprised if when they see
such hypocrisy, they make it an excuse for neglecting, if not
positively disbelieving, in Christ altogether.

5.  Don't expect your children to be any better character and conduct
than the example set before them - by you, by their own friends, or by
those they spend time with.  If you allow them to associate with half-
hearted church goers, with worldly pharisees or backsliders, then
don't be surprised if they are cursed by those examples, and driven
from God and true Christianity.  Children are likely to suffer more
harm by staying one day in the house of some make-believe follower of
Christ than they would spending a month in a tavern, where they'd be
on their guard because they knew the devil reigned there.

6.  Don't contaminate the love of beauty, which exists in the hearts
of all children, through the destructive vice of vanity.  You will do
this if you give then a taste for expensive clothes, fancy hair
styles, and wearing all kinds of other adornments.  And if you fill
them with the childish conceit that they have prettier faces or
figures than others around them, don't wonder if they should, in later
years, be drawn into the world by the attractions of its fashions and
empty show.

7.  Don't fill your children's minds with the idea of their supposed
superiority, mental or otherwise, over their friends, schoolmates, and
others around them, and then be surprised when they go out into life
as unhappy slaves of an ambition to climb above everyone else, which
will alone be enough to destroy all their real peace of mind.

8.  Don't allow your boys to think that they're more important or of
greater value that their sisters, and then be surprised if they grow
up to look down on and domineer over women generally, and to treat
their own mother or their wives as if they belonged to an inferior
race.  This false idea of superiority, if planted in a boy's heart,
will in later life produce the spirit of real tyranny.

9.  Don't instill, or allow any body else to instill into the hearts
of your girls the idea that marriage is the chief end of life.  If you
do, don't be surprised if they get engaged to the first empty, useless
fool they come across.

10.  Don't pamper or spoil your children, make them whiny or
complaining, and then be surprised if they grow up to be a nuisance to
themselves and a torment to everybody around them unless they're
allowed to have their own way, or continuously waited upon and amused.
(proverbs 29:15)

11.  Don't encourage selfishness in your children.  In their infancy,
children are ordinarily carried away by the desire for self-
gratification.  Your first business is to lead them in the opposite
direction, to make them forget and deny themselves and delight in
serving others.

12.  Parents shouldn't discuss or argue about the conduct or character
of their children while in the children's presence, and then be
surprised if they take sides with the father of mother, depending on
whose ideas are the most favorable to their selfishness.

13.  Don't make favorites among your children, and then be surprised
that those who are not the chosen ones should grow up with a sense of
injustice festering in their hearts, which will very likely make them
forget all the love you have ever given them.

14.  Don't let your children have their own way or give them what they
want merely for the sake of peace, or any other reason whatever, when
it's opposed to your own judgment of what is best for them.  If you
do, you can't be surprised when they argue with you, contradict you to
your face, ridicule your wishes and opinions behind your back, and at
last (to your shame and their own undoing) disregard you altogether. 
Never forget that it's written of your Savior Himself that in His
childhood "He continued in subjection to them" - His parents. (Luke
2:51)

This article was adapted from chapters 22 and 23 of "love Marriage,
and Home" by William Booth, published in 1902