Train up a child…

Children Deserve the Truth

Children have a difficult time discerning truth from fiction. They become confused when the adults they are supposed to respect and believe tell them things that are not true. When children are told that something they did was very good when it is not good, they tend to learn to accept mediocre work. When they are told there is a Santa or an Easter Bunny and later find out it is not true, they begin to wonder what else they have been fooled about. Children are vulnerable and when adults amuse themselves at the expense of a child, it is really unfair.

Many adults truly believe they are being kind to children to brag on them or compliment them for substandard performance. It is true that children need to be encouraged, but the encouragement should be truthful. Instead of telling children they did a wonderful job when they really didn’t, we need to select portions of the task to compliment. In this way a child is learning specifics in what is good, so they can repeat the good and eliminate the inferior. There is almost always a part of a task that is good that can be mentioned. Not everyone can be a winner in everything. It is untruthful to lead children to believe that they are all superior and doing a wonderful job. We should not be as one school that canceled an honors program because they felt it would make the other children feel badly. It is wrong, also, to act as though everyone should be honored unless each person truly deserves it.

The myths of Santa and the Easter Bunny really insult the intelligence of children. Most children are smart enough to know better, but they think that it must be true because they are supposed to believe their parents. None of us want to rob children of the fun of Christmas and Easter. This creates a dilemma for adults who want to be truthful with their children but don’t want to have their children feeling left out because all the other children are hunting Easter eggs, etc. My suggestion is to tell the children up front that Santa and the Easter Bunny are part of a game we play that really isn’t true. After telling the children the truth, simply suggest that we pretend they are real and go ahead and enjoy the fun. Children love to pretend and that is great as long as they can distinguish between what is real and what is not real. They will have just as much fun and yet feel more secure. Their minds will not be torn between knowing that what they are being told is impossible and feeling guilty for not believing their parents.

Many adults like to amuse themselves by tricking their children and laughing at them for believing what they are being told. This is taking unfair advantage of children who have been taught to respect and believe adults. Any form of teasing at the expense of a child is not a good thing. Children have very sensitive feelings and those feelings should be respected.

Old habits of teasing children may be hard to break. From the days of “snipe hunting” until now, tricks have been played on children because they are so easy to convince. We shouldn’t take advantage of their vulnerability to amuse ourselves. Doing so will cause children to have muddled ideas of good and bad as well as truth and untruthfulness. We can play pretend with the children and have just as much fun without confusing children.

Train up a child…

Babies don’t come with Life-time Guarantees

How many parents look at their newborns and think, “My baby is going to be perfect”? Probably most of us did when our children were born. Many of us thought, “If I just love my children enough, they are going to turn out to be perfect, upright, God-fearing citizens. Then, as the years pass, we begin to realize that our children are not perfect even though we may be trying very hard to be good parents and loving them very much. Why is this true?

Raising children is a little like gardening. We must start with good seed and provide plenty of nourishment. There is one big difference. Plants don’t have the ability to make choices.

It would seem that the formula for making a good adult is to start with good heredity, provide a perfect environment, and convince the child to make the right choices.

Children are born with tendencies. Some are born with problems due to no fault of their own. Some children have been harmed by botched abortions, parental drug or alcohol use, parental smoking, poor nutrition of the mother, physical harm to the mother, or other causes. Also, children are born with likes and dislikes. Children have varying likes with food and other things as well. Some children like music; some like sports. Some children like art; some children like reading. Some children like math; some children like communication studies. The list goes on and on.

It is helpful if a parent recognizes the tendencies of a child and shapes an environment to develop talents and abilities. Unfortunately, many parents try to mold a child into a likeness of self. You simply can’t make a child be completely different from the way he/she was created no more than you can change a carrot to a stalk of celery. Parents need to provide an environment that nourishes a child physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually. In doing so, the parent can have a clear conscience that every effort was made to train that child.

What about the child who got a good start and was provided a good environment, and yet that child turns out to be a real problem? Many parents tend to blame themselves forgetting that God created each of us with free will. God gave each of us the right to choose good or evil. That is why we often hear of children who grew up in a situation that many would deem deplorable, and yet those children turned out well. Ultimately, no matter what the environment provided by parents, the responsibility of acceptable behavior rests on the child.

Children are a gift from God, the Bible tells us. Sometimes they don’t seem like a gift when they don’t turn out well. We need to remember that where there is life, there is hope. Once we become a parent, parenting does not end at a certain age. We have no guarantee that our efforts will produce what we desired when the child was born, but, with God’s help, we can keep trying. Even if we think we have trained our children, they are not truly trained until they act automatically in acceptable ways. The training continues until death. We do have the promise that if we train up a child in the way he should go, he will not depart from it. We can count on that promise, but there are times along the way when a child chooses not to be trained. We must never give up.

Train up a child…

Dealing with a Child’s Excuses

“Well, Mom, that water just spilled all by itself!”

That was the serious exclamation of my three-year-old niece as she sat with her little tea set on the neatly waxed and polished hardwood floor. Her little hands were gesturing out of rhythm with her words. She was so cute!

As cute as it is at times, children should not be allowed to get by with making excuses. Excuses are really lies. Children should not get by with being untruthful.

To help children learn to face reality and not make excuses, we need to first understand why they want to do so. Irregardless of the reason for doing so, using questions to help the child face facts is a way to help a child recognize the excuse. Once this is accomplished, the child needs to learn that making excuses is not a good thing to do.

Sometimes children make excuses for behavior out of fear of punishment. When a child has been disobedient, that child will often try to talk his/her way out of the punishment. Sometimes excuses are made to avoid having to do something that the child does not want to do such as homework or chores. Pride often causes children to make an excuse because the child doesn’t want someone to think that he/she cannot or did not do something. (I have heard a lot of excuses from my GED students as to why they never learned math, etc. Sometimes they say it was the teacher’s fault or some similar excuse.)

Questions are almost always better than statements when dealing with children because questions stimulate thinking. When we tell a child something, the child thinks, “Maybe that is true and maybe it isn’t!” When we ask a question, the child must think about both sides of a situation. For instance, if a child says there was no time for homework, one might ask, “What did you have to do that took all of your time?” As the child answers, take each thing and say something like, “Was that more important than homework?” Why was it more important than homework? Is it going to help you when you grow up? If you had managed your time better, could you have done your homework as well?” If enough questions are asked, the child will more than likely see the facts of the situation and realize that what was given as a reason was only an excuse.

Children need to be told that excuses are really lies. They need to be told that unless we are honest with ourselves and others, we cannot make real improvement in our lives. When children get by with excuses, they are often fooling themselves as well as others. They are missing the learning they get from facing facts and being realistic with life. They grow up thinking they can talk their way out of responsibilities. They need to realize that God does not accept excuses and even if they can fool many people, it does not work in the end. Honesty is the best policy both with others and with ourselves.