Core Principle # 4: Embrace Your Responsibility to Train Up Your Children
Our culture has really worked to disempower the confidence of many parents. It doesn't" take a village" to raise children, it takes you embracing your God-given responsibility.
Consider Proverbs 22:6:
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old.
he will not depart from it.
he will not depart from it.
Sorry, but there is nothing about a village or the child care professionals in this passage. It is all about you and your children. Unless there are serious developmental problems - you can do this without running to a flock of professionals. Many parents were raising responsible, Godly young people before all the professionals came on the scene. God wants you to have confidence in His ability to guide you.
I am not saying there is no benefit in reading good parenting material, or going to parenting classes, we are simply trying to emphasize that you can have confidence in God's ability to lead you in the process of training up your children.
Core Principal # 5: Diligently apply Biblical Truth through Godly Character and Loving Relationships
There are 3 very important elements here: God's word, Your Integrity and the Quality of your Relationships.
God's word is in the Bible. It is your responsibility as a parent to read it and teach it to your children. It is good to have a strong church and Sunday School programs but that is only for reinforcing what you do at home. It is very important that you start this training when they are young.
Let's now couple this to Integrity. No greater lesson can be taught than when your children see that you are living these Biblical principals. This is how you make it real to them and give them a taste of it.
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men
liberally, and upbraideth not and it shall be given him. But let him ask
in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the
sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man
think he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways.
James 1: 5-8 (KJV)
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Philippians 4:13 (KJV)
liberally, and upbraideth not and it shall be given him. But let him ask
in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the
sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man
think he shall receive anything of the Lord.
A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways.
James 1: 5-8 (KJV)
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Philippians 4:13 (KJV)
I am not saying there is no benefit in reading good parenting material, or going to parenting classes, we are simply trying to emphasize that you can have confidence in God's ability to lead you in the process of training up your children.
Core Principal # 5: Diligently apply Biblical Truth through Godly Character and Loving Relationships
There are 3 very important elements here: God's word, Your Integrity and the Quality of your Relationships.
God's word is in the Bible. It is your responsibility as a parent to read it and teach it to your children. It is good to have a strong church and Sunday School programs but that is only for reinforcing what you do at home. It is very important that you start this training when they are young.
Let's now couple this to Integrity. No greater lesson can be taught than when your children see that you are living these Biblical principals. This is how you make it real to them and give them a taste of it.
O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him.
Psalm 34:8
Psalm 34:8
Child development research is expounds heavily on the power of vicarious learning (or modeling). From the very beginning children begin mimicking and modeling what they see tothers doing.
No other Bible training I have ever received made the impact that my own mother's example gave me. I can recall with vivid clarity how she read her Bible daily, reflecting on and memorizing hundreds, if not thousands of scriptures. While she only had a 6th grade education, her knowledge of the Bible far out-shined many doctoral level theologins that I have known. Her passion for God and adherence to Biblical principles throughout her daily life brought the life of God to me as a young child.
The bottom line here is that if you want to effectively teach it to your children Biblical truth, you must learn it an live it yourself.
To be most effective in training up your children in God's word it is important that the right relational l context be established. Dr. Ed Wheat gives a simple acronym that can be very helpful. Here is how to have the BEST kind of relationships.
B = Blessing: Be attentive and show joyful delight.
E = Edification: Expressing confidence in them, giving prais and affirmation.
S = Sensitivity: Show gentleness, tenderness and real attentive concern.
T = Touch: Loving touch stirs up bonding chemistry in relationships such as oxytocin.
Core Principal # 6: Parents need to get on the same pawge and show a unified front.
Ladies, this is one really good reason why you don't want to have a child without first having a loving responsible husband. The job can go much easier and smoother if mom and dad are both in this thinbg together.
If you want healthy children, be sure you take care of your marriage!
What you must understand is that the family is like a living cell. Every healthy cell has a nucleus with DNA from both partners! Is that an object lesson from God, or what! The DNA in the nucleus is an information and management system for the cell's activities.
This should also be a clue that your marriage is a top priority. It is hard to raise healthy children when the marriage is suffering. Parents who neglect their marriage partners by focussing too heavily their children are hurting the children. Blended families are particularly at risk of this imbalance due to pre-existing patterns sand loyalties. Every family therapist worth their salt knows that behavior problems among children are often symptomatic of problems in the marriage.
A caution to Fathers and Mothers
Too may fathers find it easy to step back in these early preschool years. They later wonder why they can't talk to their kids or why the children look to mom first. Dads get involved from the beginning and stay involved.
Sometimes moms encourage dads to be hesitant by stepping in and telling them they are doing things the wrong way. Moms, unless the baby's life is in clear joapardy, let dad do things his way. He will probably have his own way of feeding, bathing and changing diapers.
Don't sweat too much, he will get the job done one way or another! It might even be more fun for the child!
God holds dad ultimately responsible for the spiritual development of children
And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath:
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4
That being swaid, thank God for the mom's who fill in the gap when dad is delinquent with this responsibility!
Some key parenting tasks and strategies during the preschool years.
One way of keeping your marriage a priority is to begin teaching children to respect parental boundaries. They need to learn at a young age not to interrupt mom and dad when they are talking. You can ask them to place their hand on your arm if they need something but not to talk when you are talking to an adult. You can place your hand on theirs to let them know you realize they are waiting. It is important that they recognize their place in the family structure. They are important, but not in charge!
Give clear directions and preselected options. You might tell them they are to play with the blocks, the puzel or look at the books. One way to keep them interested in their things is to keep several things out of their sight. You might want to rotate toys available in their room.
Once they have some refined motor skills they should be shown how to put things away. Put the books on the shelf for mommy. Put the blocks in the box, etc.
Be sure to praise them when they are playing nicely. This will help motivate them to repeat the behavior.
Staart a token economy
Once they get old enough to understand concepts like politeness, kindness and helpfulness you can start rewarding them for doing specific behaviors relating to these topics. We suggest putting a little chart on the refrigerator and pasting smiley faces or stars each day that represent their good deeds. At the end of the week the talley can be redeamed for some predetermined rewardd (ie. a trip to the dolor store, a visit to the park, etc.)
Be careful not to use candy or food as the rewards. We want them to maintain a healthy view of eating for it's nutritional value, not as an emotional reward.
Use the concepts of Shaping and Chaining when teaching skills.
By shaping, we simply mean that you reward succesive approximations of the target behasviors. For instance if you want them to learn to tie their sho0es. You might first praise them for finding their shoes and putting them on the right feet. That's a good start. After that you can ad crossing the strings and putting one through the loop, etc.
Chaining simply involves teaching them all the specific links in a complex chain or sequence, such as hand washing before eating. Most healthy children can learn to copy complex sequences fairly early during preschool years. Children with developmental disabilities, however, might learn best if each step in the sequence is taught backwards (ie. learning to dry hands on the towel first, before they learn to rinse, etc., etc.) Once they have the final links down, it is easier for them to ad a new step to the steps they already know.
Core principal # 7: Children must be taught to respect Godly authority at this stage.
If they don't start to learn this early on, you wwill live to regret it!
Thre strategies that can be useful here are Extinction, Time Out and Response Cost
Extinction is simpy applied by ignoring silly, anoying behavior that is not really harmful but represents the child's attempt to manipulate parental attention. Children will sometimes make noises or do silly things just to make you stop what you are doing and attend to them.
As long as the behavior is not harming the child (or anything else for that matter) ignore it and it will likely stop after a while. Although the child may try to get louder and more bothersome initially. Don't give in to it.
Time Out - Everybody knows what time out means. Who hasn't watched "Super Nanny" place a child on the "Naughty Mat" or "Naughty Chair"?
Response Cost - This one is very important. Kids are different and knowing what your child
likes or finds most rewarding is the key. When my oldest daughter was a preschooler. Taking her Fischer Price radio and tape player and putting it on the refrigerator for a period of time was a costly consequence. My son found missing out on our Friday movie nights a terrible price to pay for misbehavior and quickly learned to avoid the behavior that encounter such a co0st. Identify things your child greatly values and use them in this way as logical consequences for misbehavior.
Be sure your child knows exactly what he or she must do to get the reward back.
Before you think our approach to preschool parenting is too harsh, realize that life is not going to give your son or daughter everything they want for nothing. If you don't love your children enough to let them experience some healthy disappointment you are not understanding how to fully love them.
A word about spanking.
Yes, this too is part of God's word but should be used wisely as He intended.
Be done with a flat paddle or other instrument that may sting but not cause andy bruises or marks on the child. (The idea is to get the child's attention not casuse any injury)
The rod that mentiopned in scripture was likely a hollow reed. It might sting but would not cause any injury.
We also suggest it be follwoed by some kind of response cost measure. This double whammy is more likely to be remembered.
The real key to helping children learn to respect authority and discipline isto:
Be consistent. Parents who are inconsistent in discipline are actuaslly putting their child on an intermittent rienforcement schedule. That only intensifies the child's misbehavior aqnd tantrums.
Be loving but be strong and in charge of your children. That's God's design for healthy development.
A Final Remark About the Preschool Years
These years are very precious and you may want to capture some of their unique moments. In addition to the usual photos and videos, we recommend you begin keeping a little memory book where you can record some of the classic things your children say and do. You can keep adding new material as your children grow older. Here is one ample from our family archives:
Once while waiting with us in a quiet medical office 4 year old Emily loudly blurted out (much to our dismay!),"Mom, that person is wicked!" Unfortunately the person in reference had a rather large nose that reminded her of the the "wicked witch of the west" in the Wizard of Oz! It was a classic moment but it did result in our wanting to make a very quick exit!
Keeping such an archive of memories can enhance family fun and intimacy over the years.
Once again, these years are wonderful times to celebrate the joy of having children. Please don't let your children's classic moments fade in your mem0ory. Learn to cherish them.
In Christ
Michael J. Miller, MEd, LPC, LCSW
www.christianfamilyguidancecenter.com
References:
Wheat, Ed & Perkins, Gloria; Love Life for Married Couples, Zondervon Publishing, (1983).
No other Bible training I have ever received made the impact that my own mother's example gave me. I can recall with vivid clarity how she read her Bible daily, reflecting on and memorizing hundreds, if not thousands of scriptures. While she only had a 6th grade education, her knowledge of the Bible far out-shined many doctoral level theologins that I have known. Her passion for God and adherence to Biblical principles throughout her daily life brought the life of God to me as a young child.
The bottom line here is that if you want to effectively teach it to your children Biblical truth, you must learn it an live it yourself.
To be most effective in training up your children in God's word it is important that the right relational l context be established. Dr. Ed Wheat gives a simple acronym that can be very helpful. Here is how to have the BEST kind of relationships.
B = Blessing: Be attentive and show joyful delight.
E = Edification: Expressing confidence in them, giving prais and affirmation.
S = Sensitivity: Show gentleness, tenderness and real attentive concern.
T = Touch: Loving touch stirs up bonding chemistry in relationships such as oxytocin.
Core Principal # 6: Parents need to get on the same pawge and show a unified front.
Ladies, this is one really good reason why you don't want to have a child without first having a loving responsible husband. The job can go much easier and smoother if mom and dad are both in this thinbg together.
If you want healthy children, be sure you take care of your marriage!
What you must understand is that the family is like a living cell. Every healthy cell has a nucleus with DNA from both partners! Is that an object lesson from God, or what! The DNA in the nucleus is an information and management system for the cell's activities.
This should also be a clue that your marriage is a top priority. It is hard to raise healthy children when the marriage is suffering. Parents who neglect their marriage partners by focussing too heavily their children are hurting the children. Blended families are particularly at risk of this imbalance due to pre-existing patterns sand loyalties. Every family therapist worth their salt knows that behavior problems among children are often symptomatic of problems in the marriage.
A caution to Fathers and Mothers
Too may fathers find it easy to step back in these early preschool years. They later wonder why they can't talk to their kids or why the children look to mom first. Dads get involved from the beginning and stay involved.
Sometimes moms encourage dads to be hesitant by stepping in and telling them they are doing things the wrong way. Moms, unless the baby's life is in clear joapardy, let dad do things his way. He will probably have his own way of feeding, bathing and changing diapers.
Don't sweat too much, he will get the job done one way or another! It might even be more fun for the child!
God holds dad ultimately responsible for the spiritual development of children
And ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath:
but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6:4
That being swaid, thank God for the mom's who fill in the gap when dad is delinquent with this responsibility!
Some key parenting tasks and strategies during the preschool years.
One way of keeping your marriage a priority is to begin teaching children to respect parental boundaries. They need to learn at a young age not to interrupt mom and dad when they are talking. You can ask them to place their hand on your arm if they need something but not to talk when you are talking to an adult. You can place your hand on theirs to let them know you realize they are waiting. It is important that they recognize their place in the family structure. They are important, but not in charge!
Give clear directions and preselected options. You might tell them they are to play with the blocks, the puzel or look at the books. One way to keep them interested in their things is to keep several things out of their sight. You might want to rotate toys available in their room.
Once they have some refined motor skills they should be shown how to put things away. Put the books on the shelf for mommy. Put the blocks in the box, etc.
Be sure to praise them when they are playing nicely. This will help motivate them to repeat the behavior.
Staart a token economy
Once they get old enough to understand concepts like politeness, kindness and helpfulness you can start rewarding them for doing specific behaviors relating to these topics. We suggest putting a little chart on the refrigerator and pasting smiley faces or stars each day that represent their good deeds. At the end of the week the talley can be redeamed for some predetermined rewardd (ie. a trip to the dolor store, a visit to the park, etc.)
Be careful not to use candy or food as the rewards. We want them to maintain a healthy view of eating for it's nutritional value, not as an emotional reward.
Use the concepts of Shaping and Chaining when teaching skills.
By shaping, we simply mean that you reward succesive approximations of the target behasviors. For instance if you want them to learn to tie their sho0es. You might first praise them for finding their shoes and putting them on the right feet. That's a good start. After that you can ad crossing the strings and putting one through the loop, etc.
Chaining simply involves teaching them all the specific links in a complex chain or sequence, such as hand washing before eating. Most healthy children can learn to copy complex sequences fairly early during preschool years. Children with developmental disabilities, however, might learn best if each step in the sequence is taught backwards (ie. learning to dry hands on the towel first, before they learn to rinse, etc., etc.) Once they have the final links down, it is easier for them to ad a new step to the steps they already know.
Core principal # 7: Children must be taught to respect Godly authority at this stage.
If they don't start to learn this early on, you wwill live to regret it!
Thre strategies that can be useful here are Extinction, Time Out and Response Cost
Extinction is simpy applied by ignoring silly, anoying behavior that is not really harmful but represents the child's attempt to manipulate parental attention. Children will sometimes make noises or do silly things just to make you stop what you are doing and attend to them.
As long as the behavior is not harming the child (or anything else for that matter) ignore it and it will likely stop after a while. Although the child may try to get louder and more bothersome initially. Don't give in to it.
Time Out - Everybody knows what time out means. Who hasn't watched "Super Nanny" place a child on the "Naughty Mat" or "Naughty Chair"?
Response Cost - This one is very important. Kids are different and knowing what your child
likes or finds most rewarding is the key. When my oldest daughter was a preschooler. Taking her Fischer Price radio and tape player and putting it on the refrigerator for a period of time was a costly consequence. My son found missing out on our Friday movie nights a terrible price to pay for misbehavior and quickly learned to avoid the behavior that encounter such a co0st. Identify things your child greatly values and use them in this way as logical consequences for misbehavior.
Be sure your child knows exactly what he or she must do to get the reward back.
Before you think our approach to preschool parenting is too harsh, realize that life is not going to give your son or daughter everything they want for nothing. If you don't love your children enough to let them experience some healthy disappointment you are not understanding how to fully love them.
A word about spanking.
Yes, this too is part of God's word but should be used wisely as He intended.
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child;
but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.
Proverbs 22:15
but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.
Proverbs 22:15
In some sense the previous strategies of time out and response cost are a form of the "rod of correction" to be sure. But there can be a time for corporal punishemt if you observe certain ground rules:
If spanking is to be used at all, it must:
Normally be limited to the age range of about 2 to 6 years of age.
Be done calmly and never by a parent in angry rage (or you will teach the child that behavior!)
- First, the child's behavior is openly defiant and rebellious.
- He or she has not responded to other methods and seems determined to defy your authority.
- The child has been given repeated warning.
- The child's behavior could lead to serious harm to self or others.
If spanking is to be used at all, it must:
Normally be limited to the age range of about 2 to 6 years of age.
Be done calmly and never by a parent in angry rage (or you will teach the child that behavior!)
Be done with a flat paddle or other instrument that may sting but not cause andy bruises or marks on the child. (The idea is to get the child's attention not casuse any injury)
The rod that mentiopned in scripture was likely a hollow reed. It might sting but would not cause any injury.
We also suggest it be follwoed by some kind of response cost measure. This double whammy is more likely to be remembered.
The real key to helping children learn to respect authority and discipline isto:
Be consistent. Parents who are inconsistent in discipline are actuaslly putting their child on an intermittent rienforcement schedule. That only intensifies the child's misbehavior aqnd tantrums.
Be loving but be strong and in charge of your children. That's God's design for healthy development.
A Final Remark About the Preschool Years
These years are very precious and you may want to capture some of their unique moments. In addition to the usual photos and videos, we recommend you begin keeping a little memory book where you can record some of the classic things your children say and do. You can keep adding new material as your children grow older. Here is one ample from our family archives:
Once while waiting with us in a quiet medical office 4 year old Emily loudly blurted out (much to our dismay!),"Mom, that person is wicked!" Unfortunately the person in reference had a rather large nose that reminded her of the the "wicked witch of the west" in the Wizard of Oz! It was a classic moment but it did result in our wanting to make a very quick exit!
Keeping such an archive of memories can enhance family fun and intimacy over the years.
Once again, these years are wonderful times to celebrate the joy of having children. Please don't let your children's classic moments fade in your mem0ory. Learn to cherish them.
In Christ
Michael J. Miller, MEd, LPC, LCSW
www.christianfamilyguidancecenter.com
References:
Wheat, Ed & Perkins, Gloria; Love Life for Married Couples, Zondervon Publishing, (1983).
