To Parents . . . . .

E.R. Hall Jr.

  Most of us who are parents have at times no doubt felt that the job of rearing children would not have been so great if we had lived fifty or a hundred years ago. We feel a great sense of anxiety regarding the problems that prevail in our permissive society. Yet there are some very real principles that never change. From generation to generation they are the same. Let’s consider a few things that we need to try to be and do as parents today.

  1. We need to try to make our homes a place of peace and security for our children. Our home life together should cause our children to want to come home. They should know that we want them to be at home and we want home to be a happy contrast to the vicious world of sin outside.

  2. We should try to have one parent at home all the time when our children are there, and two parents there as much as possible. A house without a parent in it is not a good home for children, and a house where the children see only one parent at a time for five days and nights a week is far from being the best home for our children.

  3. We should try to accept no employment at would prevent us from having a close association with our children. It would be better to live in a humble cottage and be a real parent to your children than to live in a beautiful mansion and fail our family.

  4. We should try to provide the best possible associations for our children. We should teach them to choose wisely among the children at school and in the neighborhood. We should try to have them be with other children from the faithful families in the church. We should even try to have them know such children from other congregations and make it so that they might have opportunity to engage in some form of recreation with them. We should especially guide them to choose educational opportunities that would help and not hinder their moral and spiritual development. Our children should be taught by word and example that a job is not the all important thing in life but rather, everything should revolve around God and His word.

  5. We should try to train our children so that we never have to require them to attend services of the church. They would go because they wanted to do so. We should remember that it will be easier on them and us if they willingly attend. If we are successful at instilling this attitude in them, they will be at ALL the services by their own choice and not because of force or threat for that will only be sufficient to get them to come once a week.

  6. We should try to train them to so behave during services that both parents and children could be happy there. This means that young mothers should not allow other mothers, grandmothers, or other children or teenagers to play with their babies before services. Such activity only stirs up the little infant and produces trouble for the mother during services. If you play with a baby before services, how is the baby to know when services begin and playtime is over?

As parents, we should not be taken in by the tricks our older children sometime play on us; like having to go to the rest room at least once during every service. Unless our child is sick or has some sort of kidney or bladder problem, they should have no trouble going for an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes without using the rest room. As parents we need to insist on this. If they must go, let’s teach them to do it as quietly as possible. Nothing is more disturbing than running, loud walking, doors shutting, commode lids banging, and commodes flushing after the bathroom door has been opened. All of these noises can be eliminated if we train our children to give proper attention to these matters before services begin.

  1. We should try to take our religion home with us. In other words, what would be better than to gather our family together and sing, pray, and study our Bible at home, too? Let us try hard to demonstrate the same character at home that we do at the services of the church.

All of the items that have been mentioned in this article will not constitute us as a good and successful parent, but they will help. If each of us does our part, God will give us wisdom to be and to do what He wants. As parents, let us not forget to pray for God’s help that we may always do and say those things that will make our children what they ought to be. May God help us as parents.