March 6, 2009 - TRAIN UP A CHILD

Several weeks ago we had Stake Conference and several of the speakers used the same scripture in their talks: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it". This got me thinking. We can say this in a different way. "As a child is raised, so shall he be". And in many many instances this is the case. We can see it in the world. This is why it is so hard to break cycles in family generations. A child who learns (usually from example) to hate, to bully, to tease, to envy, to abuse will find it hard to not continue that behavior. On the other hand, the child who learns (usually from example) to love, to be grateful, to respect, to be polite, to act with honor, will also find it hard not to continue that behavior. Which kind of behavior do we want our children to find it hard not to continue? Have we ever really considered the idea that to keep our children from a certain bad trait we must root the bad trait out of ourselves? Many years ago, in a parenting class, it was pointed out that sometimes children who lacked confidence were simply modeling their parents behavior. From that moment I began a great effort to stop belittling myself in front of my children. I didn't want them to pick up that bad trait. It is very hard to change certain traits within ourselves but wouldn't we really rather change them in ourselves thus making it more probable that our children never have to change them because they will not have absorbed the bad trait to begin with? For some reason, changing because we love someone as much as we love our children is easier than simply changing because we should. Though we have all heard the phrase "do as I say, not as I do" (and I have used it myself), it just doesn't work. Children will "do as we do", so if we want our children to be trained up in the way they should go, we must be going that same way.
March 6, 2009