"Teach Your Children Well"

"Teach Your Children Well" God gave man will power. "Will" is force, and, like all other forces, it must be controlled, or it will do harm. About the first quality noticeable in a baby, aside from instinct, is its kicking against restraints. This is not an. indication of inherent perversity; it is merely an unrestrained will asserting itself. But by many bumps and bruises the child learns restraint, which is another way of saying that he learns self-control - which is a primary lesson obedience. If he does not learn self-control he will eventually destroy himself. Some well-intentioned parents are inclined to spare their children the lessons that are meant to be learned through the bumps and bruises caused by a lack of self-control. They rush to protect them from the discipline of their spouse or of their teachers and sometimes from the congregation. I have no doubt that they mean well, but in reality their actions contribute to the destruction of the child. One of the purposes of discipline is to teach that there are consequences to one's actions. If the child does not learn those lessons - if he continues to kick against such discipline he is fool and because of him what is written in the Proverbs will be fulfilled: "A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him" (Prov 17:25). "The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother" (Prov 29:15). Parents we must work to teach our children to control their wills when such lessons are relatively easy for them to learn. For the scripture also says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it" (Prov 22:6). It is nothing but rubbish for men to say that we need to teach our children to express themselves. They do this naturally! What children need to be taught is self-repression, self-restraint, self-control. Our jails are filled with people who never learned this. Original thoughts by R.L. Whiteside, edited and revised by Kieran Murphy