Category Two: General Parenting Themes
- The Authority of Scripture
- Children and Play
- Children and Salvation
- Gender Differences
- Giving Children the Freedom to Fail
- Man’s Origin and Nature?
- Peers and Peer Relationships
- Self-Esteem: The Cause or Effect
- The Power of Community
- Training the Heart of Children
- Training and Personality Differences
1. The Authority of Scripture: The Authority of Scripture? Church history records the clear acceptance of the fact that the Bible was given to man from God. Except for heretical divisions that broke away from the church, it has generally been assumed that Scripture was completely authoritative and trustworthy in all of its assertions. Reformer Martin Luther once commented, “When the Bible speaks, God speaks.” We accept the Bible as morally authoritative and sufficient. It is authoritative in that it requires a response to its demands; it is sufficient in that regenerate man can participate in the full grace of God when he abides in the truth of God’s Word.
2. Children and Play: It is almost startling to realize just how important play is to a child’s emotional, moral, and social development. Play is not simply an activity that a child wants to absorb himself in, but is a necessary framework for understanding his world. Play, whether a child does it by himself, in a small group, or with Mom at the park, is one of the most underestimated and often misunderstood components of a preschooler’s healthy developing cognitive world. Play involves many facets and connects children to life in many ways. But this too can be taken to an extreme with the old adage “If a little is good, more must be better.” Play is not an isolated experience in a child’s life, but only one significant component surrounded by other aspects of education. Not all education comes in the form of play. A child will learn from playing with a toy. More important, he must develop specific skills that he can gain only at the hands of Mom and Dad. Sitting, focusing, and concentrating skills are not play, but they are necessary skills for life. While following instructions and being kind, fair, and honest will be used in play, they are not necessarily learned there. The process of learning these skills starts with Mom and Dad’s acute awareness that a three-year-old heart needs training to think about the feelings of others first.
Play creates learning opportunities and experiences that uniquely connect a child to his world that otherwise could not be obtained. Through play a child is first introduced to problem-solving techniques, development of moral and social skills, and improved motor coordination, logic, reasoning, and strategy. In addition, play has educational value and provides therapeutic benefits. Play complements and reinforces gender identification and encourages appropriate risk-taking. Overall, play is the single most important means by which a child connects with his world and the people around him. Think of play as the hub on a wagon wheel. Moving from the center outward, spokes connect to the outer rim of life and learning. Play generates multiple activities that go into shaping the child, reinforcing values, and stimulating learning.
Everything about play accents a child’s understanding of his world. From right and wrong to parental expectations, play reveals in a public way how a child thinks, reasons, and applies concepts learned the day before. Through his imaginative play, he mimics actions, traits, and social expectations by becoming another person, and in this way he gains the experience of self-confidence necessary for proper socialization. By denying a child opportunity to play, a parent is in grave danger of collapsing the bridge connecting a preschooler’s discovery, knowledge, and experience to learning.
Play is your child’s tutor. It goes far beyond simply encouraging learning activities. Through attraction, it becomes a means by which a child stretches himself beyond his present circumstances. He takes chances. When you think about it, play often contains an element of risk. Some risk is involved when a child ventures out on his first steps without the aid of Mom or Dad. Risk is involved when a child shares a new toy with a visiting friend or for the first time reaches out to pet the neighbor’s puppy. Risk is involved when standing on a stage reciting a single line in the Thanksgiving play. He takes risks whenever the group’s activities call for running, jumping, and bumping. Risk is associated with being picked on a team or not picked at all. In this sense, play motivates a child to step beyond the present to a new level of experience.
Play also has significant educational value. During playtime a preschooler picks up, manipulates, and studies toys of all types. He learns shapes, colors, sizes, and textures and how parts of an object fit the whole of the object. His mobility allows the development of life through the games he plays and the contact he makes with others. In time, a preschooler learns to formulate plans, develop strategies, and exercise his assessment skills in problem solving because of play.
Developing socialization skills is one of the corollary affects of education. Through play, children learn that their personal gratification is often dependent on their cooperation with other children. Play teaches children about partnership, teamwork, and fair play. It is through play that a child’s primitive understanding about “rules” is reinforced because most games have rules. Interestingly, while the home environment may be more forgiving or patient with the bending of game rules, it is quickly apparent to your child that his playmates are far less tolerant of a rule being violated. He quickly learns that he must “follow the rules”-or be at the mercy of his peer group.
Play is also therapeutic both physically and emotionally. Physical play releases the pent-up energy stored during times of restriction. That is why recess time at the school yard is so noisy and fun-filled. The child is released to play with others. Physical play is a pressure valve allowing for the release of energy. In the preschool years, play must have some outside activity that has a physical dimension attached. Swinging, chasing after the dog, marching in Dumbo’s imaginary parade, hide-and-seek, or any activity that can get their little hearts pumping, growing legs moving, and developing minds stimulated provide therapeutic benefits.
Imaginative, emotional play is freeing to the preschooler. Such play allows a child to test his desires, fears, and hopes without the risk and hardship of judgments and boundaries associated with reality. He is able to think outside the boundaries of logic, reason, and reality. He is able to manage and direct ideas that only he understands, and he does it in fragmented ways. He can take a big box and a blanket, make it become Davy Crockett’s fort, then a service station for his trucks, followed by a broadcast booth like the one he saw yesterday on television at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. In any event, the child is in control of something he can and should control. Children need to be able to control some things. (Parents too often err in allowing these “things” to be Mom and Dad instead of the events of imaginative play.)
Another aspect of play is the element of repetition. Much more is taking place in a preschooler’s play than what appears on the surface. Repetition gives a child the chance to consolidate skills needed to solve board games and puzzles, to stack blocks, to or connect Hot Wheels tracks. Even though your child appears to be doing the same thing over and over again, his activities are leading somewhere. For example, a four-year-old may have mastered elementary motor skills necessary for running and dodging a ball. Repetitious play advances him to the next level of skills called anticipation, where movements are predicated not as a response to the person throwing the ball, but to the anticipated throw itself. Here again, strategy, thinking, and reasoning skills merge to bring the reward of success. Success and accomplishment reinforce the cycles of learning.
Anticipation is not limited to the realm of physical movement, but extends also to imaginative activity. To have expectations based on the belief of what will happen tomorrow, a child must be able to imagine. Imagining what will happen next, good or bad, is part of the thinking exercise of humanity. Parents give little consideration to the fact that if a child is in any way deprived of imaginative emotional play, either through discouragement or the lack of freedom at self-play, he will equally be deprived of what it is to know hope. For hope itself is not only a measure of the imagination transcending time and space, but of our very humanity. It all comes back to the importance of play.
Play also contains the element of construction. Man by nature is a builder. The Jewish Old Testament gives an account of a man named Nimrod called “the builder of cities” (Genesis 10:6-12). In fact, he built eight mighty cities by which he established his kingdom.
One component of play common among children worldwide is the construction component. Children are builders, and their efforts reflect the knowledge of our day. With their amazing imaginations, they construct buildings, boats, spaceships, mountains, overpasses, and tunnels. They use blocks, sticks, paper, and grass. They erect tall buildings out of discarded oatmeal boxes and bridges out of spare Lincoln Logs. Complete with sound effects, little boys move massive amounts of soil with their powerful diesel trucks, which may be nothing more than a thick piece of tree bark. Little girls also use construction in their play, but tend to make finer and more delicate objects such as doll clothes and paper dolls. They set up beautiful tea parties and arrange their neat little house with a few empty cardboard boxes, a folding chair, and a spare blanket. They love Grandma’s old dresses and play endless hours as a beautiful princess or fancily dressed ladies right out of old Victorian neighborhoods.
It is through the medium of play that a child first develops his sense of fairness and cooperation and it is in play that moral strengths and weaknesses show up. How your child moves the board game pieces, scores his game, follows the rules, and shares with others reflects his developing moral identity. The child that sulks because he didn’t get his own way or bullies, manipulates, or quits a game because he is not winning reveals much about a child’s underdeveloped sense of fairness, sharing, cooperation, and justice. Play not only reveals moral strengths and weakness, but in the right or wrong environments, it can also encourage both.
But such moral attitudes-healthy and not so healthy-develop early and are continually reinforced by moral lessons taught throughout the day. Lessons in right and wrong and consideration for others, drive a child’s social experience. Children do not like bullies and quitters, but they enjoy children who know how to play by the rules and love to share. Your child’s moral sense creates either a positive, rewarding, and affirming response from other children or rejection. Most socialized play will always have a moral component. How well prepared is your child?
3. Children and Salvation: Children and Salvation? The word “salvation” is the all-inclusive word of the gospel. It brings together all the redemptive acts and processes—justification, redemption, grace, propitiation, imputation, forgiveness, sanctification, and glorification. The place where God claims lost people is at the Cross. The Cross is where Jesus died the death that we by all rights should die, and would die, apart from Him. Many children raised in Christian communities have a clear knowledge of God but may not know Him personally. They need to be saved.
Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The Bible tells us that “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:12). Furthermore, the Bible proclaims, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10). Jesus Christ wants your child’s heart not just his head. It is eternally important that you make sure it is not just head knowledge and intellectual assent your son or daughter has given to the Lord. Christ commands a complete surrender of heart and life in order for us to be truly born again. Your child needs to be saved God’s way.
Why? Because parents cannot raise “godly” children apart from regeneration. The Bible warns of this. We know that in the last days there will be those who “hold to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power” (2 Timothy 3:5a). Jesus warned against the false assumption that you can become godly through training. He spoke against the righteousness found in those who trust in themselves as being positionally righteous or justified because of their moral accomplishments (Matthew 23:28; Luke 16:15, 18:9). He taught that the truly justified (i.e., the godly) are those who acknowledge their sin and trust in God for forgiveness and His righteousness (John 14:6; Matthew 23:27-28; Luke 18:9-14; Romans 3:23, 27-28). Apart from regeneration, the fullness and purpose of life will always be in doubt, and both motive and reality of righteousness are always in question. Positionally speaking, becoming godly is a personal decision not a parental one.
4. Gender Differences: Any grandmother knows that if you put a toy car, ball, stick, doll, blanket and bowl in a room, little boys immediately gravitate toward the car, ball, and stick, while little girls drift to the doll, blanket and bowl. It really doesn’t matter where a child is from, whether it is a complex society likes ours or a simple tribal setting in the rain forest. Little boys have a trail of masculine adjectives that distinctly separate them from little girls. Social conditioning? There might be some, but not sufficient enough to alter male and female predisposition embedded in nature’s endowment of gender. The fact is, male and female brains are wired differently. Yes, little boys love trucks and little girls love dolls.
We bring this up as encouragement and a warning. Parents should not attempt to gender neutralize their little boys or girls. A delightful example of this was demonstrated by Dr. George Lazarus, MD an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at New York City’s Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He recounted a mother who gave her daughter a bunch of toy trucks only to find her daughter tucking them into bed! Understanding gender difference helps parents make proper evaluations about their child’s progress rather than make speculative evaluations. For example, when a mother says “But his sister was talking at his age”, she is making a comparison in language development. But research confirms that girls tend to have a verbal advantage over boys early on. They speak sooner and more comprehensively by three years of age than their male counterparts who arrive at the same level of competency by four-and-a-half years of age.
Yet, boys have other strengths including aptitudes for math skills and completing calculations in their heads sooner then girls. Even the construction of their building blocks demonstrates gender predispositions, or lack of, toward engineering tendencies. Boys are also wired for action. That might be one reason they are always on the go, while their sisters are content to sit and play with their dolls or be entertained in a single location.
Finally, take notice how little boys play together compared to how little girls play. Girls are more relational and will work together to accomplish a common goal. Boys however are far more likely to try and do things “on their own.” Of course any wife understands this truth. Just think through the times you may have offered directions to your husband only to hear, “I know where I’m going,” as you’re headed straight for Siberia.
5. Giving Children the Freedom to Fail: Giving your child the freedom to fail almost sounds un-American. In our country, we love winning. At times, I wonder if this love has caused us to abandon our perspective and appreciation for what we can learn from losing. It is a crippling thing for a young creative mind not to have the freedom to fail in front of mom or dad. Reassure him or her that failure is acceptable, as long as he or she makes an honest effort. Your child needs to know that you view his or her failures as the first steps to success. As it is with so many experiences in life, it is better to try and fail than not to try at all.
A wrong perspective toward failure can prevent children from stretching themselves to their full potential. Imagine a child who is afraid to fail because he senses Mom or Dad is not going to be pleased or fears that he will be loved less because he did not succeed. This child will make the status quo his standard. He will not develop the full range of talents and abilities God has given him. He would rather hold back, achieving only enough to get by, than face dad’s lukewarm reaction or angry dissatisfaction if he fails. Each time such an interaction occurs, the relationship slips back another notch.
Your children want you to be pleased and proud of them. If you continually respond to their failure with negative, sarcastic, or hurtful statements rather than turning the situation into an opportunity for encouragement, you will do nothing to build trust. Fathers must look at failure with an eye to the future, realizing that vulnerable moments of learning often accompany times of failure. In the Ezzo household, when our children failed, either in an achievement or a relationship, Anne Marie and I often attempted to help them find the secret blessing. We often said, “Do you realize the number of adults who have not learned the lesson the Lord allowed you to learn today? Do you realize how many people live foolishly because they lack the wisdom you now possess?” Those were not words of condemnation or correction but of encouragement. They were not meant to dismiss the pain of failure, but to help our kids see that out of defeat can come a victory they never expected. We knew they would be tested again in a similar fashion, and when that day came they would be ready to face it with wisdom. They would then turn failure into victory, and when that victory came, dad (and mom) would be there with praise.
We also used Scriptures to teach our children in the midst of trials and failure. Romans 8:28, Romans 5:3-4, and James 1:2-3 are passages we read and explained to our kids in such times. You, too, can use times of failure to instill biblical wisdom. Teach your child about the trials of the Old Testament character Joseph (Genesis 37:1-50:26) and how his right response to each trial allowed God to exalt him.
Your children need to know that you too have failed and can share in their feelings of hurt and disappointment. Your kids need to be assured that your parent-child relationship is based on neither failure nor success. Please note that it is not the fear of failure itself that holds a child back but the fear of failing someone. Often that someone is dad or mom.
6. Man’s Origin and Nature: Man’s Origin and Nature? God did not create man as an animal, nor is he like the animals. The voice of God called animals into existence as part of a universal decree. Every fowl of the air, fish of the sea, and beast of the field, along with all inanimate objects, were placed into perpetual motion by the spoken word of God. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (Hebrew 11:3).
In contrast, God brought man into existence by His breath of life (Genesis 2:7) and made him in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). Those two facts form the central theme of our human identity and dignity. When the Bible says that man was made in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26), it does not mean man became identical to God. God is God; man is man. Rather, it refers to those moral aspects of God’s character and being that He invested in man. God is love; therefore, man can love (1 John 4:7, 19). God is truth; therefore, man can know the truth (John 17:17). God is the author of order not confusion; therefore, man can know order (1 Corinthians 14:33). God is logical and rational; therefore, man can know logic and reason (Ecclesiastes 7:25; Isaiah 1:18).
This image-bearing quality of man sets him apart from the animals as much as it sets him apart from plants. A laboratory rat and a human baby cannot be compared. The rat is personless; man is not. A set of pre-coded instincts order life’s activities. The fact that animals have instincts means that they cannot govern their behavior by reason. Some animals can make limited choices by instinct and can demonstrate preference. Our cat prefers milk over water and will choose it every time, but cognitive reason has no part in her decision.
7. Peers and Peer Relationships: Although socializing with age-peers is a natural part of growing up, it’s not until the middle and early teen years that a child becomes fully aware of what it means to belong to a group of peers. Actually, it is not until this time that parents really begin to understand the full impact of peer relationships.A peer culture becomes a growing influence on how an adolescent thinks and acts because the family is no longer the single influencing voice on the child. And while teachers, coaches, and Sunday school workers all have an influence, none shape behavior with the greatest ease as an age-related peer.
Preadolescence is a time when a child moves from awakening to a full awareness of the significance of the group’s opinion. That is what brings about age-related peer pressure. The child from a distance wants to know, “What does the group think?” Closer up, he wants to know, “What does the group think of me?”
It is a natural tendency to seek social approval. We all feel satisfied to be a part of a group we are seeking. The same is true with our children. Conforming to the peer group’s standards and expectations facilitates a preteen’s and teen’s sense of social belonging and standing. And consequently, a child learns early on that any deviation from the standards of the group could mean nonacceptance, ridicule, and even rejection. Thus, peer pressure finds its genesis in the need to conform.
What is peer pressure? Peer pressure is a socializing force that continually challenges the status quo of one’s thinking and behavior. Peer pressure on children is not always negative and does not become so unless the peer-culture’s values stand in opposition to those of the parents. Complications arise when the standards established in the home strongly conflict with those of other parents and children in the community.
To ensure peer acceptance under such conditions, the teen learns that he must accept the group’s interests and values. He cannot afford to be different because this would jeopardize his status within the group. To demonstrate his allegiance, he acts out his new association and conforms to the group’s identity. This might be represented by choices in hairstyle, clothes, music, and the use of slang or foul language.
The teen must assess and decide what is more significant-the approval of his peers or the approval of his parents-or find a happy medium. Unfortunately, that usually means one set of rules to satisfy the peers and another set to satisfy Mom and Dad. This double life is really a double lie, only leading to conflict and an increase in oppositional pressure to conform to both parents and peers.
It isn’t the power of peer pressure that tears adolescents from their parents, but rather a conflict in values that makes teens more vulnerable to peer pressure. The closer the values between parents and teen, the stronger the allegiance and the less likely that the teen will drift away from his parents. Please understand that the healthy GKGW family does not eliminate normal peer pressure as much as it develops healthy ways to deal with it. This is why it is wrong to blame peer pressure as the primary cause of drug use, crime, rebellion, sexual promiscuity, and the general breakdown of the family. Fundamentally, the problem is a matter of incompatible values.
8. Self-Esteem: The Cause or Effect: Self-esteem! It’s one of those issues that gets blamed for just about everything. Some educators put forth the belief that a lack of positive self-esteem is the root cause of teens doing drugs, experiencing academic failure, participating in gang violence, becoming sexually active, and rebelling against their parents. It seems that in , self-esteem enhancement is everywhere. We read about it, hear it over the radio, watch it on sitcoms, learn it in the classroom, and move to its music. Contemporary sociologists, psychologists, and educators alike say that a child’s happiness, success, physical coordination, and, yes, even IQ hinge upon a healthy self-esteem.
In an attempt to define the contemporary concept, two additional sets of words come to mind: self-approval and self-validation. Both are fairly descriptive titles of what educators are hoping to accomplish with children through self-esteem training. As used in our modern vernacular, esteem as a noun means “favorable opinion.” Self-esteem means “favorable opinion of self.”
The idea that children will possess an abiding favorable opinion of self, and that this leads to a better life is popular. And for sure self-esteem plays a role. A teen who feels worthless is likely to act out in any number of disruptive ways. (On the other hand, a teen who feels superior to everyone else is just as unpleasant to be around.) But wait: Does a poor self-esteem excuse defiant, disrespectful, or illegal actions? Should someone be acquitted of a crime because he was feeling bad about himself when he committed it? Is feeling good the prerequisite for doing good?
Parents working under the theory that self-esteem is the Holy Grail of child-rearing become slaves to whatever it takes to make the child feel good about himself. They work tirelessly to ensure that children have the right activities, the right clothes, the right car, the biggest party, a “cool” dad who lets anything go, and the “supermom” who strives to create utopia for the kids. Parents feel they must maximize the child’s pleasure and minimize his pain, or he’ll end up being a menace to society.
If the child’s got to feel good before he’ll act correctly, all misbehavior is really the parent’s fault. If he throws his cereal bowl on the carpet, it’s because Mommy hasn’t made him feel happy. If she looks right at you while doing something you told her not to, it’s your fault somehow. No wonder parents are enslaved to keeping their children appeased: They perceive misbehavior as parental failure.
To be fair, most parents who ascribe to this theory love their children greatly and sincerely think this is the way to help them succeed in life. Parents often strive selflessly to make sure their children have what they need for healthy self-esteem. But gallant as this effort may be, we still have to ask if it was necessary in the first place. It may seem heroic to dive into a pool after a drowning child, but any lifeguard will tell you that using a long pole would have been smarter.
Does good self-esteem produce healthy development in children, or does healthy development produce within children a satisfying sense of self? If it’s the former, then mainstream is right in its efforts to enhance warm fuzzies. But if the latter is true, if indeed the effort to raise self-esteem is actually contributing to ’s teen problem, then we need to change course in a hurry.
Gary Ezzo and Anne Marie Ezzo offer a second Opinion
The word esteem is used twenty-three times in Scripture, in four different tenses. It is interesting to note that it is never used in reference to loving or approving of oneself. However, it is used in reference to considering others. This was Paul’s intended meaning when he said: “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself” (Philippians 2:3).
A biblical anthropological view of esteem conflicts with conventional wisdom. Although the goal is noble, we believe modern self-esteem proponents reverse the equation in insisting that feeling good is the precursor to doing good. According to that assumption, parents should build healthy self-esteem into their children before requiring anything of them. We take an approach that would liberate these parents.
We believe that doing good leads to feeling good. Right behavior leads to right feelings, and the accumulation of right feelings leads to a healthy view of self.
We say that because we believe that doing right and consequently feeling right is rooted in a right relationship with God and His Word and in doing what is required of each of us. When a teen–or a child of any age–lives life in agreement with God’s moral mandates, when his or her actions are aligned with God’s relational precepts, that teen’s conscience bears witness that his or her behavior is in keeping with the ultimate giver of life, Jesus Christ. Only when we are rightly aligned with God are we rightly aligned with self.
When you do the right thing, you feel approved, appreciated, virtuous–even when no one is looking. That’s because your conscience, the silent witness of your soul, speaks to you either by affirming or accusing you regarding your actions. This is the basis for the statement, “Do something good; feel something real.” When you do a good deed or perform your civic duty or return to pay for that item you accidentally walked out of the store with, don’t you feel good about yourself? Doing right leads to feeling right.
We speak with confidence regarding this subject. We have found that parents who place a greater emphasis on how a child feels than on how he acts experience a higher rate of teenage rebellion. It makes sense, though, doesn’t it? If the highest good is a child who feels happy and pleased with himself, then anything that detracts from that feeling would be considered bad.
So, when Mom asks thirteen-year-old Chris to take out the trash, Chris lets her know that such a chore would make him feel neither happy nor pleased with himself. Mom feels guilty pressing anything on him that will wound his fragile self-esteem, so she relents. Or else she forces him to do it, which elicits great defiance from Chris. And why not, since he’s come to believe that life is all about what makes him happy and that his parents’ job is to see that he’s kept that way?
9. The Power of Community: The term community can mean many things to many people. We use it to refer to a group of families sharing common interests, values, and a significant commitment to an ideal for the mutual benefit of the individual and the collective membership. In other words, to quote the Three Musketeers, “All for one and one for all!”
Why is it important to have a community? Because a community does something that nothing else can—it establishes a sense of “we-ness” in the group that encourages members to work toward a common good. It provides a sense of belonging and association. As can be seen in large cities, where virtually everyone is unknown to everyone else, the absence of we-ness causes accountability to disappear—and with it common morality. That will always be to your children’s detriment. Where there is no common standard to strive for, there will be limited expectations on your children.
Since members of your community will teach your child—directly or indirectly—it is vital that you surround yourself with people who are like-minded and share your standards of virtuous training. In a moral community, you will find people who are striving to demonstrate respect and honor as part of their daily life and to instill in their children moral awareness and consideration for others. These are the people who can provide a support group for you, Mom and Dad.
Many years ago we lived in lovely, but cold New England. Our home was extensively insulated, including floor, ceiling, and interior and exterior walls. People insulate like this because they do not want the elements to disturb the healthy environment on the inside. But the insulation didn’t keep all the chilling elements out. Yes, it slowed the process of cold coming into our house, but it didn’t keep the wind from rushing in when the door was opened. It was also true that we couldn’t stay in the house all the time. It was necessary and important for us to go out into the world around us. The insulated house did, however, provide a place where we could find safety and warmth.
In the same way, a like-minded moral community will insulate your children against unfriendly elements. Through association with like-minded peers, your children will see family standards reinforced by others who share the same values. The strength they draw such peer associations is the very thing that will make it possible for you to let them participate in activities such as a community soccer league. Encourage like-minded friends to enroll their child in the kinder-gym class with your child. When all other children are running around, it will be easier for your child to sit as the teacher has instructed if he has a buddy who will sit with him. The support of a moral community allows our families to be a blessing to others because we know that the moral strength we draw from them allows us to present something very beautiful to the world.
Your children will find their friends in your community. You want those friends to be moral kids—kids whose moms and dads are working to instill values in their hearts just as you are. As your child works through the preschool years, his interests will broaden and his attachment to friends will become more meaningful. Over time he will become morally and relationally emancipated and self-reliant. That is why the moral community you belong to will be either friend or foe to your family values.
Children do better when the community they grow up in reinforces the values their parents are trying to instill. The greater the disparity between your family’s values and your community’s (from which both you and your child will draw peers), the greater the conflict within the home. The opposite is also true—shared values between community and home result in positive peer pressure on your child.
This was a societal fact many years ago. For example, during the 1950s, if a child had a negligent parent, neighbors, teachers, Little League coaches, and the community at large provided the moral direction he was lacking. This happened because communities operated from one set of values. All values had common meaning; nothing was relative. Our society today believes that values and virtues are relative. As a result, common moral communities are virtually nonexistent. That is why today you can be a good parent and still turn out a wayward child.
Being immersed in a like-minded moral community is absolutely necessary if you hope to have your values reinforced. When your child’s peers come from this kind of group, he or she will be reassured of the importance of family values. Furthermore, confidence in you—Mom and Dad—will be strengthened. Once your child finds friends in your moral community, those friends become a source of positive peer pressure and healthy groupthink.
10. Training the Heart of Children: Training the Heart of Children? The primary consideration in early parenting is the child’s heart and not simply outward behavior. There is something about the human heart that requires attention, and that is the focus of early training. We know that the heart is the center of all of life and behavior. Psalms 139:23 tells us that the heart is that portion of man that God looks upon and searches. In Matthew 12:34-35, Jesus said that all behavior and words have their origin in the heart. Proverbs 4:23 warns us that in the heart the impressions of a young life are molded, and that the issues of life flow from it. Proverbs 6:18 speaks of the heart’s ability to devise wicked plans. Proverbs 22:15 tells us that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child. There is something in a child’s heart to which parents need to direct their attention.
The general goal of heart training, the portion that parents can impact, is to help a child gain personal self-control. Self-control in turn helps the child with controlling his tongue (Proverbs 13:3, 15:2) and his actions (Proverbs 14:29), handling negative emotions (Proverbs 25:28), and making sound judgments (Proverbs 1:3). Biblical discipline guides a child to an honest life (Proverbs 10:9), is non-offensive (Proverbs 16:7), and is filled with righteous deeds (Proverbs 1:3). Most importantly, the effects of biblical training bring about the peaceable fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 12:11).
11. Training and Personality Differences: The training of children should be characterized by the same standard of moral excellence regardless of their personality, temperament, or gender. We do not lower the standards for the child but bring the child to the standard. Many parents are guilty of dismissing the need for virtuous training based on their child’s peculiarity. They will say to us, “Oh, but my child is different.” The “Oh, but my child is different” is not a legitimate exception clause in the ethical scheme of the Bible.
We recognize that all children are different. Brothers and sisters can be as different from each other as the child next door. Every child has a unique temperament and personality combination that distinguishes him or her from all others. However, personality development and moral training are not the same activities. Personality is like the various sizes and styles of homes offered by a single contractor. Moral training is the consistent standard of craftsmanship found in each home regardless of style. Regardless of the personality distinctions found in your children, persistent moral training should not vary from child to child because Scripture’s requirements for moral craftsmanship do not vary.
Your children all represent different personality types. But which personality type does the Bible exempt from demonstrating kindness, patience, self-control, gentleness, humility, endurance, obedience, respect, honesty, integrity, or other virtues? None, of course. We strongly encourage parents to recognize and appreciate the uniqueness of each child, but understand that uniqueness does not change the standard of ethical training. Temperaments, personalities, and even gender (“He’s all boy”) cannot be used to excuse wrong. The virtues and values of life are the same for all and apply to all at all ages regardless of gender or temperament. The duty of parents is to continually bring their children to God’s standard and not lower the standard to suit the child.
