Train up children

When I was kid, my parents and I have spent a few years in a remote village in the South of our country. Villagers were good workers but it will not be lie at all to assume that they drink pure alcohol nearly as if they were drinking some water. Thus, in front of their children they could take their drink directly from the bottles without using a cup. One day however, something less ordinary happened. A kid of around four, whose mother used to sell oil, took a bottle containing oil and drank a bit more than an eighth of a liter! For sure, Prospère believed that it was alcohol, which was not less dangerous for him than what he actually drank.

This opens the question of children education. In fact, most people believe that their children should just listen to what they teach them and do exactly as they would have taught. Thus said, parents are very rigorous on treating their children so harshly. They play “the coaches” whereas their children are the “newly recruited” just as it is the case in the army.

But it seems that, in such a situation, parent nearly forget the other side of children education. In fact, our children are more likely to practice what we do than what we instruct them to do. Thus, a liar who teaches his son that lie is not good and even punish his son for having lied would rather stop lying himself so that he can set the pattern for his children. In other word, our habits speak more than our words. By being only an excellent theoretician, we simply teach our children to be hypocrite. After all, if it is not good to smoke cigarette or to drink alcohol, why does Dad do so?

The other trap is that, even if the children fear to replicate the wrong doings of their parents in the presence of the latters, they often decide to try the forbidden when parents are absent. In many cases, it just turns up to be a mere disobedience; but sometimes, it can be fatal to the children.

It may be that in the case of Prospère, his parents used to give him alcohol in small quantity. And if it is so, the situation is worse because by letting him taste the dreadful drink, they would be teaching him to perceive wrong as right and he would be bound to base his life principles upon mere biased theories.

Fortunately, it ended up well with Prospère for a neighbor saw him and brought him to the nearby infirmary where the nurse took care of him.

The Principle is clear: Don’t live other life than the one you are teaching your children to live. It will end up being the greatest harm you would ever do to him. And that is what the Bible wants us to avoid when it states: “Train up a child in the way he should go, And even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

God bless you as you obey his commands