As a child I always loved the Lord. I always wanted to please him. I was a reader and read through the Bible several times by the time I was 12 years old. I didn’t always understand what I was reading and I had many questions.
Adults sometimes let me down. In Sunday School the teacher always asked, at the end of the class, “Are there any questions?” I always had questions, but they didn’t have answers. “I’ll look that up and tell you next week”, was the answer. They never did.
I needed help to put the pieces together. For example – at 8 years old I wanted to join the Boys Club in the neighborhood because I was the only girl. My brother didn’t want me to, so they made a rule that I had to smoke cigarettes and blow 3 smoke rings to be able to join. I checked my Bible (I knew now to use the index & concordances) and no mention of smoking or cigarettes was there.
I next asked my mother why she didn’t smoke, and her answer was, “Christians don’t smoke”. Then who, I wondered, were all those people standing outside the church smoking?
I took the cigarettes they gave me. I smoked and blew the 3 smoke rings. I joined the club. It was someone to ride bikes with, skate with, play kick-the-can with.
One day, as I was reading my Bible, I read the verse in I Cor. 6:19 that said, in essence, your body is a temple for the Lord. Oh no, I thought, I would never smoke in church and if my body is a temple then I am smoking in church! I took all of my smoking materials to my mother and confessed; she cried.
My point is, no one expects a child to think, a yet because my parents taught me to evaluate, reason, and read – I did. I am sure many more children think then they are given credit for.
Now to my point on the importance of guidelines. If the first guideline was brought up when I asked about smoking, I would never have smoked. That first guideline was “honor your Mother and Father”. I didn’t yet know how to connect the dots. I needed help.
If my Mother would have reminded me that they loved me and were interested in my health and safety, I would never have wanted to try smoking.
There are many, many instances when an explanation, an example, or an evaluation as the outcome of my choice had been presented, it would have helped me in my quest to be that child who wanted to please God.
Punishment was never important to me. The thought that I was doing something against my parents, family, or the Lord would have.
My Mother wanted me to ride my bike in the neighborhood. I wanted adventure. I checked my sources and found no argument as to why I shouldn’t take a long bike ride. I rode my bike some 10 miles away. When I came home, I thought that because my Mother didn’t want me to, I should be punished. I thought the punishment made it ok to do what I did. I cleaned my bike off and then announced to my Mother what I had done, adding that there was nothing to be afraid of. There is just a nasty pig farm that smells bad. I told her I would go to my room for time-out as my punishment. She cried.
Talk, talk, talk, to your children. Use the trips to the grocery store, to school, anytime you can be alone. Children do think! They will talk if you don’t judge, preach, or say “because I said so”.
Help your children build reasonable, intelligent guidelines so they have the resources to make good choices. Most important teach them to evaluate their choices. If they can discover what would have been a better choice, and how to make changes, the need to cover up will disappear.
Here is an example on how you can make this work:
When Jay and Jill were 2 and 3 ½ years old we lived in the middle of an agricultural community. There were canals everywhere and every week there was news of a child drowning. Whenever I wasn’t looking Jay took Jill on a “walk”. He insisted it was safe because he held her hand and if she fell into the canal, he would pull her out. No amount of explanation could convince him. I said “Jay, lay on the couch and pretend you are above the canal. Jill, you lay on the floor in front of the couch and pretend you are in the canal”. I then yelled “Jay your sister is drowning – help her now!”. He reached his hand down to pull her up, and then pulled his hand back saying, “no, she will pull me in”. “Do you understand now what I am trying to tell you? I know you love your sister and mean to take care of her bur sometimes I know more than you do and that’s why I want you to listen to me.”
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