Duty to train and instruct our children

Proverbs 22:6 says “Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not turn from it.” Parents have the responsibility of training their children in matters concerning their lives. This training should start at a tender age so that as the child grows, whatever he/she has been trained becomes part of life.

It should also be known that the proper and good training ground for any child is their homes. A home should have basic principles to be followed by children. Parents should ensure that this training continues until the child walks out of the home to start their own life.

Right from birth, children start showing whether they are strong willed and stubborn or not. Some children will always want their way and scream until they got what they want. But we all know that in this world, no one will always have his or her way with everything. Of course, there is more to children’s natures than the traits above. What they illustrate, however, is that each child has traits which should determine the kind of training the child will respond to or require.

There are other children who are born mothers who have the proper care and expertise required to raise them. However, when it comes to school work they might slacken. Such children need a lot of encouragement in order to strike a balance.

There is yet another group of children who are very good at schoolwork, but are not ready to do any chores. They can hardly look after their clothes, cannot make their own beds and can hardly think of clearing the table after a meal. However, they could be able to read a 200-paged novel within a day!

The second group is that which is ready to jump out of bed to the play ground or into other people’s homes. They are capable of making friends easily and are quite popular. However, sometimes it could be that they are not strong in doing constructive things such as being serious with their studies.

Children have traits which require to be tempered. Children need to be trained, and this should be done with a degree of sternness and a lot of love in order to achieve good results.