THE TRAINING OF CHILDREN.
By L. A. S.
THE problem of training children is, from the standpoint of Christianity, a simple one, so far at least as concerns a knowledge of the general principles of procedure. Christianity sets up before parents a perfect pattern, and they have only to follow it to attain the highest possible degree of success. We should train our children just as God trains His children. To young children, parents stand in the place of God. And only as they truly represent God in their dealings with their children in the years of infancy, will they prepare them to accept and love the ways of God when the years of understanding shall have been reached. How does God deal with His children? The whole Bible gives the answer to this question. Parents who would train their children aright must be students of the word of God. God sets before His children, first, the fact that He loves them. He gives them every evidence that He does nothing to them that is not done in love; that He has in view, in all His dealings with them, no selfish end to be attained, but their own prosperity and happiness. Parents should do the same with their children. The child must be impressed with the fact that discipline is administered in love, and should be trained to look beyond the momentary hardships of the present to the great good that is to be realized in the years to come. God is patient with us, and gives us “line upon line, precept upon precept,” of instruction. So must we be patient with our children, and cease not to instruct them in the way of truth and righteousness. But do not teach them about evil, with the idea that thus they will be led to avoid it. God does not teach us about evil; He would not have our minds dwell for a moment upon evil topics. But He says, “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Phil. 4:8. These are the things to set before our children. These things they must be trained to love; and the love of such things will save them from the inclination to evil. God is slow to wrath. He never flies into a passion; never throws aside the dictates of reason, nor takes pleasure in inflicting punishment. Parents must not chastise their children in the heat of passion, nor be arbitrary or unreasonable in discipline, nor punish to gratify feelings of anger. Children must be made to realize that parental discipline is a necessity for their own good. God does not love His children so much that He never corrects them; in other words, His love is not shown by the withholding of punishment from the transgressor. Parents who love their children so much that they will not punish them for wrong doing, do not love their children enough. True love will spare no pains to keep their feet in the pathway of life; and the idea that children should never be chastised finds no warrant in the example set for us by the Omniscient. God lets us know that He means exactly what He says; and children cannot too early or too thoroughly learn that the parental word is not to be taken at a discount. The parent who does not teach his child that he means what he says, leaves no foundation upon which a proper training can be based. Confidence in the parent is everything to the child, just as confidence in God is everything to the one who looks to God as a parent. Destroy the child’s confidence in the word of its parent, and you have destroyed the foundation for future confidence in the word of God. Teach the child that the parent’s word does not need to be followed strictly, and you have provided for a laxness in following the word of God which will lead to error and trouble in later years. Parental training must precede God’s training, and should be preparatory to it. God knows exactly how to train His children, and His example is the perfect pattern for every parent. No parent need waste time considering theories of child training; we have before us not an abstract theory of child training, but an example—the example of the Almighty. Our success as parents will depend entirely upon the extent to which we put in practice the plain principles approved by God in this respect.