8 Lessons to Teach your Children

Introduction

I was reading a book this week by Howard Sala (one of Pastor Karsies books) that I would highly recommend for those with younger children or just starting out called Train Up a Child and be Glad you Did. But in the book, Dr. Sala tells the story of Dr. Suzuki Shinichi of the Matsumoto School in Japan. Dr. Shinichi believes that the early years are the best time to teach a child a musical instrument. His method introduces children to music between the ages of 2-4. Basically, the earlier they are exposed to music, the better a musician they will be later in life. If you play an instrument, you are probably familiar with some of Dr. Shinichi’s work in the Suzuki method.

Some of the most formative years of our child’s lives are before the age of 6 and that is when the most important training is done. As we mentioned last week, Proverbs is really a parenting book written from a Father to his Son. If you have missed out on training, during those formative years don’t despair. Because training our children is a life-long process and while you may have missed the best time to train some of these things, you can still raise children for the glory of God. Tonight we want to focus on what should we be training our children. This list is long and it could be longer. I will be handing out a sheet of recommendations from Denis Rainey on the 40 things they have tried to teach their children. Every point in my message tonight will come from the book of proverbs.

Love God

Proverbs 8:17 “I love them that love me; And those that seek me early shall find me.”

Often times we find it is easier to teach behavior than to reach the heart of our children. We excuse our lack of effort to teach this principle by saying something like this:

“I can’t force my children to love God, so I will teach them to obey, because I can require that.”

While we cannot make our children love God, we can train them to love God and create a thirst for God in their lives. Remember the word for train from last week involved putting juice or oil on the palate to prepare the infants mouth for breastfeeding. In that sense, our training takes on the form of creating thirst or developing the spiritual disciplines of a relationship with God. Putting them in the right place where they can fall in love with God.

I start here because Proverbs begins with this statement:

Proverbs 1:7 “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: But fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

Every other part of our training flows out of this. If God does not have their heart, all the training in the world will be worthless. Our kids will only continue in their walk with God if they know what it means to love Him.

The heart of your child is not neutral. It is either pursuing idols or God. Psalm 58:3 “The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.” Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.” teaches that from the moment of birth we pursue sin. We have gone astray. Don’t fall prey to this thinking that they are just good kids but they don’t have a heart for God. They will only go one direction or the other. What is most important is not where a person is now but what direction their feet are pointing.

Prov 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.” Life flows from the heart; that is why this first principle is the most important. So How do I do that? Understand these are mostly my suggestions or those of people I have read, but it is important to see how you do this. Some of this will also overflow into next week’s message:

Model before them what it looks like to love God- It is very important that your kids see you loving and walking with God on a daily basis. Do they know that you pray and read your bible? Better, do they know that you have a passion for God? Remember your kids can smell a phony a mile away. Is your relationship with God real?

Model before them what God’s love to them looks like- Show them God’s love in the way that you interact with them. A good rule of thumb to ask when parenting is “what would God do?” Is there mercy in your parenting? Forgiveness? Holiness?

Talk with them about the Lord often- tell them what God is teaching you in the word and praise God with them when He does something good in your life.

Pray with them- Bring them along into your real prayer life. Not just the meal prayers and the devotions prayers; but bring them into the presence of God. Again you can’t do this if your prayer life is mediocre.

Worship God together by making church a priority and family devotions. We will be talking about family devotions next time, but do your kids know that church is a priority over other activities. Where does the worship of God fall on your priority list?

Encourage them to show their love by obedience

Avoiding the Fear of Man

Proverbs 29:25 “The fear of man bringeth a snare: But whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.”

One of the biggest struggles that children have is the struggle with peer pressure. Teens especially fall prey to this sort of thinking. Our habits and customs are largely developed by the culture we live in and the group puts a lot of pressure on us to fit in. Some of us are perfectly fine being individualistic, but not most. Peer Pressure can be a good thing when it is used for good, but often it is not used for good. When we give in to worries about what other people will think or say about our actions, we are giving into the fear of man. As we saw in the last point we should fear God.

The opposite of fearing man in this verse is trusting God. Can we trust God to be with us and help us when we must do something that others will not understand, like or agree with?

We need to train our children not to give in to the fear of man. The best way to do that is to repeatedly have conversations about peer pressure. Help them work through situations where they are or are being tempted to give in to peer pressure. When you see your kids pick up habits that you know came from their friends but aren’t right. Sit them down and talk with them about it. Point them to the word of God.

Then if necessary come up with a plan to train better habits into their life. As parents, we are responsible for molding our children and we cannot assume that will happen by accident.

How to receive instruction and criticism from others

Proverbs 12:15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: But he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.”

Pro 15:32 “He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: But he that heareth reproof getteth understanding.”

Correction seems a little bit easier when the children are small and this is why training them to be correctable is so important in the early years. If they are not corrected, they will grow older and fight every decision that you make. The child must be taught to submit the will to authority. Submission is the conscious choice to place your will under the authority of another will. It is surrender.

The opposite of submissions is rebellion. When a child is used to their parents giving in to them when they scream, whine and yell; they learn to be a rebel. They will do what they can to get their way. According to Jim Berg, there are three types of rebels:

the assertive rebel- says “I won’t obey” These are the one’s we identify the easiest because they refuse to do what they are told.

the compliant rebel says “ I will obey since it gets me what I want” but when it doesn’t get me what I want I will not obey

the passive rebel says “I forgot to obey” or “I can’t obey” or “I didn’t know to obey” or “I just wasn’t thinking”

The best way to train this is by consistent correction and then dealing with improper responses. A child should be disciplined for wrong action, but also wrong attitudes.

Guard your heart

Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.”

Teens especially struggle with an emotional quagmire boiling deep inside. It is often difficult to learn how to deal with out emotions.

Be understanding- I am too quick to to shut my kids down because of wrong behavior or wrong attitudes. Listen and understand why they feel the way that they do.

Communicate with them openly and clearly about the feelings they are having. Show them what you expect and why. Cary Schmidt says, “Nurture them through the logic.”

Expect compliance- you are the authority in their life so you can’t back off from holding them accountable for their actions and reactions.

For teens who are getting into the dating years, encourage friendship over dating until they are ready for marriage. Help them build relationships with people of the same gender and watch out for danger signs like : isolation, extended time with one boy or girl and too much physical contact.

Don’t take breakups and emotionally stressful situations in their lives lightly.

Build guardrails into their lives to protect physical and emotional purity.

It is important your child knows it is alright to feel, but they must be guided on how to deal with those emotions and how to act on those emotions. Parents are responsible for helping them learn how to protect their heart.

Prov 16:32 “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.”

Proverb 25:28 “He that hath no rule over his own spirit Is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.”

The Importance of Good Friends

Proverbs is filled with lessons about the right type of friends and the influence that they can have. Sometimes I think we slip into thinking that our children should be allowed to hang out with whoever they want to hang out with. But friends are probably one of the most significant factors that can determine the direction of our children. I have seen families that had some of their children turn out and others of their children walk away into the world because of the influence of friends.

1. A friend can be a safe place when times are hard. Proverbs 17:17 “A friend loveth at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.”

2. A friend can speak hard truths when they need to be heard. Pro 27:6 “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”

3. A friend can help us grow spiritually. Prov 27:17 “Iron sharpeneth iron; So a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.”

The key to making friends is going out of your way to being a friend. Prov 18:24 “A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” This is always harder in the beginning because it means you have to go talk to someone who you don’t know. I have a very distinct memory from when I was a kid on base in North Dakota. We had just moved into a new house after our last one burnt to the ground. My mom kicked us out of the house and told us to go make some friends. We needed that kick to just get out there and make a friend.

But not all friends are good. Some can have a bad influence on our children. 1 Cor 15:33 “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”

It is important that while you can’t keep your kids away from everyone, there are different levels of friendship:

acquaintance

casual friends

close friends

intimate friends

Those who are not healthy for your kids to be around should be limited to the acquaintance and casual friends level.

How to handle failure

Another important lesson to teach our children is how to handle failure. What do you do when you mess up or don’t succeed. Proverbs gives us guidance for what to do in those scenarios.

Get up again Proverbs 24:16 “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: But the wicked shall fall into mischief.” Don’t quite and give up. Keep on trying. Thomas Edison took 2, 774 attempts to create the light bulb. He didn’t quite. There may be a time to quite something that is unhealthy, or a bad situation, but for the most part, we should keep on trying.

2. Have hope even when things look dark- Proverbs 14:32 “The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: But the righteous hath hope in his death.” When kids fail, there usual response is to get angry or depressed. They stomp, argue, complain, fight when they didn’t win. We need to redirect their thoughts away from the loss. Teach them to control their emotions and they remind them there is hope they might succeed if they try again.

3. Don’t go back to doing the same failing things over and over again- Prov 26:11 “As a dog returneth to his vomit, So a fool returneth to his folly.” This verse is primarily about returning to bad behavior, but it concludes that a fool returns to his folly. The definition of insanity has been said to be doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you don’t want to fail, you have to try something different.

How to handle sexual Temptation

Proverbs 5:3 “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, And her mouth is smoother than oil:” and following verses

Especially in the Teen years, sexual temptation becomes stronger. Our culture is filled with sexual images, movies that promote wrong lifestyles and a culture that believes there is nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage. So how do we teach our children to deal with sexual temptation?

We have to have those talks with them sooner rather than later. Proverbs 5:1 Our culture is teaching them the wrong things at an earlier age and the only way to combat that is to give them the right information early. When is that is between the parent and God, but in our family we progressively give more information. At an early age, we did talk about boundaries with their bodies. and then we started around 10 years and then went into more depth around 11 as they began to change. We give a Christian book with all the information at 12 years old. We have a book that we plan to give them during their engagement before marriage that details more specific issues.

Teach them to see through the lies of sexual temptation Proverbs 5:3 “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, And her mouth is smoother than oil:” The temptress uses use her words to draw him in. The lies of temptation are “No one will ever find out” But we love each other, and we should be able to act on that love” “We know when to stop” The lies seem to be sweet like honeycomb and smooth like oil.

Consider the consequences- Proverbs 5:4 “But her end is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a twoedged sword.” Read list from Cary Schmidt

Encourage them to renew their mind- Proverbs 5:6 “Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, Her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.” Temptations strength is the result of constantly thinking about the temptation. Young people when they are tempted in this area, sneak around. If you have to sneak around and hide something, you are most likely doing something wrong. Unless its a surprise birthday party. Remind them of what God’s word says.

Stay away from her- Proverbs 5:8 “Remove thy way far from her, And come not nigh the door of her house:” The NT tells us to Flee Fornication. If you want to avoid giving in to sin, you need to avoid the circumstances that will put you in that position. If a boyfriend or a girlfriend is pressuring you and even inviting you to sin, you need to avoid that person. They are not healthy for you.

Remind them of their future spouse- Proverbs 5:18 “Let thy fountain be blessed: And rejoice with the wife of thy youth.” This young man was not married yet, so the Father’s command is to think about the spouse you do not yet have and think of the joy you could have knowing you kept yourself pure.

Remind them that God sees everything- Proverbs 5:21 “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, And he pondereth all his goings.”

Remind them that sexual sin is a bondage- Proverbs 5:22 “His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, And he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.” 1 Cor 6:18 “Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.” Because sexual sin is the combination of a physical and an emotional act; it can become an addiction. This is why those who are hooked on porn are addicted to it. They don’t just get victory over porn because they came forward in an invitation one day. Not usually. But it is hard to break off a relationship that has been physical because of the same addictive tendencies.

The Importance of getting counsel

Prov 19:20-21 “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, That thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. There are many devices in a man’s heart; Nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand.”

Children when they are young generally believe what their mother and father tell them. As they get older, they get into phases where they think they know more than their parents. They might say things like, “You just don’t understand” or “That’s not how my generation does it” (This statement assumes the new generation knows the best way to do something) so they reject the wisdom of the parents and others.

Solomon in leaving this manual for parenting challenges us to teach our children the importance of getting counsel from wise counselors.

We should get multiple counselors. Don’t just follow one person’s advice. I know people who latch on to one teacher and everything that person says is gospel truth. Proverbs teaches us that there is safety in a multitude of counselors.

We should get counsel from older, wiser people. Wisdom is intended to be found in the hoary hear (grey head) because they have more life experience. This isn’t always the case, but find those people in whom it is true.

Teach your children that their own opinions on things are not necessarily true. Probably the best way to do this is to talk to them about what they are missing in their understanding. Help them see other points of view.

Conclusion

There is so much more I could have said tonight. I chose these points because they are some of the main themes of the book of Proverbs. I have a sheet of 40 things that Dennis and Barbara Rainey suggest trying to teach your children. They are not necessarily based solely on a bible passage, but I think they are helpful guidelines. I have been working on teaching them during our family devotions, so I can be more intentional about what I teach my children.

Parenting doesn’t happen by accident as you just live your life with your kids. They will learn something, but generally it will just be all the wrong things. I pray that tonights message will be a help in giving you some practical guidance on what to teach your children.