Mother and Father Government

• U.S. government: We know parenting better than you
  Proposals would give Washington unprecedented control over kids
  By Chelsea Schilling
  

"..if you would train your children rightly" -Part 3

J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) From The Duties of Parents

3. Train your children with an abiding persuasion on your mind that much depends upon you.

Grace is the strongest of all principles. See what a revolution grace effects when it comes into the heart of an old sinner, — how it overturns the strongholds of Satan, — how it casts down mountains, fills up valleys, — makes crooked things straight, — and new creates the whole man. Truly nothing is impossible to grace. Nature, too, is very strong. See how it struggles against the things of the kingdom of God, — how it fights against every attempt to be more holy, — how it keeps up an unceasing warfare within us to the last hour of life. Nature indeed is strong.

But after nature and grace, undoubtedly, there is nothing more powerful than education. Early habits (if I may so speak) are everything with us, under God. We are made what we are by training. Our character takes the form of that mould into which our first years are cast.

We depend, in a vast measure, on those who bring us up. We get from them a colour, a taste, a bias which cling to us more or less all our lives. We catch the language of our nurses and mothers, and learn to speak it almost insensibly, and unquestionably we catch something of their manners, ways, and mind at the same time. Time only will show, I suspect, how much we all owe to early impressions, and how many things in us may be traced up to seeds sown in the days of our very infancy, by those who were about us. A very learned Englishman, Mr. Locke, has gone so far as to say: "That of all the men we meet with, nine parts out of ten are what they are, good or bad, useful or not, according to their education."

And all this is one of God’s merciful arrangements. He gives your children a mind that will receive impressions like moist clay. He gives them a disposition at the starting-point of life to believe what you tell them, and to take for granted what you advise them, and to trust your word rather than a stranger’s. He gives you, in short, a golden opportunity of doing them good. See that the opportunity be not neglected, and thrown away. Once let slip, it is gone for ever. Beware of that miserable delusion into which some have fallen, — that parents can do nothing for their children, that you must leave them alone, wait for grace, and sit still. These persons have wishes for their children in Balaam’s fashion, — they would like them to die the death of the righteous man, but they do nothing to make them live his life. They desire much, and have nothing. And the devil rejoices to see such reasoning, just as he always does over anything which seems to excuse indolence, or to encourage neglect of means.

I know that you cannot convert your child. I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God. But I know also that God says expressly, "Train up a child in the way he should go," and that He never laid a command on man which He would not give man grace to perform. And I know, too, that our duty is not to stand still and dispute, but to go forward and obey. It is just in the going forward that God will meet us. The path of obedience is the way in which He gives the blessing. We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana, to fill the water-pots with water, and we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.

"..if you would train your children rightly" Part 2

J.C. Ryle (1816-1900) From The Duties of Parents

Secondly, Train your child with all tenderness, affection, and patience.

I do not mean that you are to spoil him, but I do mean that you should let him see that you love him.

Love should be the golden thread that runs through all your actions in dealing with the child. Kindness, gentleness, tolerance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys—these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily—these are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart.

Most persons, even among grown-up people, are more easily led than they are to be pushed. There is that in all of our minds which rises up against compulsion; we straighten up our backs and stiffen our necks at the very thought of a forced obedience. We are like young horses in the hand of a trainer: handle them kindly, and they will learn quickly, and in time you may guide them with a piece of thread; but treat them and use them roughly and violently, and it will be many months before you get mastery over them—if at all.

Now children's minds are cast in much the same mold as our own. Sternness and severity of manner causes them to be unresponsive and to back away. It shuts up their hearts, and you will wear yourself out trying to find the door. But only let them see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them—that you really desire to make them happy, and do them good—that if you punish them, it is intended for their good, and that, like the pelican, you would give your heart's blood to nourish their souls; let them see this, and they will soon be yours to mold and shape. But they must be wooed with kindness, if you ever hope to win their attention.

And surely reason itself might teach us this lesson. Children are weak and tender creatures, and, as such, they need patient and considerate treatment. We must handle them delicately, like frail objects, lest by rough handling we do more harm than good. They are like young plants, and need gentle watering—often, only a little at a time.

We must not expect everything at once. We must remember what children are, and teach them as they are able to bear. Their minds are like a lump of metal—not to be forged and made useful all at once, but only after a succession of little blows of the forger’s hammer. Their ability to understand what we are teaching them is like the small opening of a wine bottle: we must pour in the wine of knowledge gradually, or else most of it will be spilled and lost. Our rule must be, "Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little here and a little there." The hard stone used to sharpen knives does its work slowly, but frequent rubbing will bring it to a fine edge. Truly there is a need of patience in this training of a child, for without it nothing can be done.

Nothing will compensate for the absence of this tenderness and love. A minister may speak the truth as it is in Jesus, clearly and with all authority; but if he does not speak it in love, few souls will be won. Likewise, you must set before your children their responsibilities to God—you can command, threaten, punish, and try to reason with them—but if love is missing in the way you treat them, then your labor will be all in vain.

Love is the one great secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten them, but they will not persuade the child that you are right; and if he often sees you angry and harsh, you will soon cease to have his respect. A father who speaks to his son as Saul did to Jonathan, saying. "You son of a perverse and rebellious woman! Don't I know that you have sided with the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of the mother who bore you?" [1 Samuel 20:30], that father who speaks like this cannot expect to retain his influence over that son's mind.

Try hard to maintain your child's affections. It is a dangerous thing to make your children afraid of you. Anything is almost better than the coldness and bitterness that will come between you and your children, because they are afraid of you. Fear puts an end to openness between the parent and child—fear leads to concealment—fear sows the seed of hypocrisy, and leads to many lies. There is a great deal of truth in the Apostle's words to the Colossians: "Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged. [Colossians 3:21] Do not ignore his advice.

Bringing Up Children for God

A good word from Edward Payson (1783-1827) on bringing up children.

"Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy -wages." —Exodus 2:9

THESE words were addressed by Pharaoh's daughter to the mother of Moses. Of the circumstances that occasioned them, it can scarcely be necessary to inform you. You need not be told that soon after the birth of this future leader of Israel his parents were compelled by the cruelty of the Egyptian king to expose him in an ark of bulrushes on the banks of the Nile. In this situation, he was found by the daughter of Pharaoh. So powerfully did his infantile cries excite her compassion that she determined not only to rescue him from a watery grave, but to adopt and educate him as her own. His sister Miriam, who at a distance had watched his fate unseen, now came forward like a person entirely unacquainted with the cir­cumstances of his exposure and, on hearing of the princess' determi­nation, offered to procure a Hebrew woman to take the care of him until he should be of sufficient age to appear at her father's court. This offer being accepted, she immediately went and called the child's mother to whose care he was committed by the princess in the words of our text—"Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages."

In similar language, my friends, does God address parents. To eve­ryone on whom He bestows the blessing of children, He says in His Word and by the voice of His Providence, "Take this child and edu­cate it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages." From this passage, therefore, we may take occasion to show what is implied in educating children for God.

The first thing implied in educating children for God is a realiz­ing, heartfelt conviction that they are His property, His children, rather than ours. He commits them for a time to our care, merely for the purpose of education, as we place children under the care of hu­man instructors for the same purpose. However carefully we may educate children, yet we cannot be said to educate them for God unless we [believe] that they are His; for if we [believe] that they are ours exclusively, we shalt and must educate them for ourselves and not for Him. To know that they are His is to feel a cordial, operative conviction that He has a sovereign right to dispose of them as He pleases and to take them from us whenever He thinks fit. That they are His and that He possesses this right is evident from innumerable passages in the inspired writings. We are there told that God is the former of our bodies and the Father of our spirits, that we are all His offspring, and that consequently we are not our own but His. We are also assured that as the soul of the parent, so also the souls of the children are His. God once and again severely reproves and threatens the Jews because they sacrificed His children in the fire to Moloch (Eze 16:20-21). Yet plain and explicit as these passages are, how few parents appear to feel their force. How few appear to feel and act as if conscious that they and theirs were the absolute properly of God, that they were merely the foster parents of their children, and that, in all which they do for them, they are or ought to be acting for God. But it is evident that they must feel this before they can bring up their chil­dren for Him; for how can they educate their children for a being whose existence they do not realize, whose right to them they do not acknowledge, and whose character they do not love?

Rousseau's worldview is alive and well

I wonder how many people realize that many of their everyday educational practices and even their vision of the family came from, or has been greatly influenced by, men like Rousseau who hated the family and abandoned his own children to an orphanage? If you're wondering what in the world I'm talking about, then you gotta read this article by Kevin Swanson!

New at Polemos
Articles, Sermons and Other Writings
Children
Home Schooling/Education
World View

• Reversing Rousseau
  by Kevin Swanson
  

Children.... in the Worship Service?

New at Polemos
Children
Family Worship at Church


Heres another one of the good sermons I had the chance to listen to while traveling here and there on the subway in New York city. A message by an old acquaintance of mine, Pastor Mark Chanski. While I would personally be a little more conservative than pastor Chanski concerning the use of nursery for infants (I would suggest training them to sit quietly from the beginning, they can do it if parents will just take the time to train them), this is an excellent message concerning what the Bible says about children in the worship of the church by a pastor that I have a great deal of respect for.

• Parenting #15: Children in Worship
  Mark Chanski

The Children of Caesar

New at Pol'-e-store
Home Schooling/Education



I just got done watching this two disk DVD yesterday, very good! This is one that everyone needs to watch and then give away to someone else.

Disk one is entitled The Children of Caesar and deals with the subject of what the Bible has to say about public schools.

Disk two is entitled Getting your House in Order and deals with what an orderly Christian Home should look like.

"...justly charged upon their parents..."

One cause of the decay of religion in our day
From the Preface to the Second London Baptist Confession of'1677

“...And that in this backsliding day, we might not spend our breath in fruitless complaints of the evils of others, but may every one begin at home to reform in the first place our own hearts and ways; and then to quicken all that we may have influence upon to the same work; that if the will of God were so, none might deceive themselves by resting in and trusting to a form of godliness without the power of it and inward experience of the efficacy of those truths that are professed by them.

And verily there is one spring and cause of the decay of religion in our day, which we cannot but touch upon and earnestly urge a redress of; and that is the neglect of the worship of God in families by those to whom the charge and conduct of them is committed. May not the gross ignorance and instability of many with the profaneness of others be justly charged upon their parents and masters, who have not trained them up in the way wherein they ought to walk when they were young? But have neglected those frequent and solemn commands which the Lord hath laid upon them so to catechize and instruct them, that their tender years might be seasoned with the knowledge of the truth of God as revealed in the Scriptures; and also by their own omission of prayer, and other duties of religion in their families, together with the ill example of their loose conversation, have inured them first to a neglect, and then contempt of all piety and religion? We know this will not excuse the blindness, or wickedness of any, but certainly it will fall heavy upon those that have thus been the occasion thereof. They indeed die in their sins; but will not their blood be required of those under whose care they were, who yet permitted them to go on without warning, yea led them into the paths of destruction? And will not the diligence of Christians with respect to the discharge of these duties, in ages past, rise up in judgment against, and condemn many of those who would be esteemed such now?

We shall conclude with our earnest prayer, that the God of all grace will pour out those measures of His Holy Spirit upon us, that the profession of truth may be accompanied with the sound belief and diligent practice of it by us that His name may in all things be glorified through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

From the Preface to the Second London Baptist Confession of'1677

The most natural agents

Some more on parenting and motherhood from C.H. Spurgeon

"Fathers and mothers are the most natural agents for God to use in the salvation of their children. I am sure that, in my early youth, no teaching ever made such an impression upon my mind as the instruc­tion of my mother; neither can I conceive that, to any child, there can be one who will have such influence over the young heart as the mother who has so tenderly cared for her offspring. A man with a soul so dead as not to be moved by the sacred name of "mother" is creation's blot. Never could it be possible for any man to estimate what he owes to a godly mother. Certainly I have not the powers of speech with which to set forth my valuation of the choice blessing which the Lord bestowed on me in making me the son of one who prayed for me, and prayed with me. How can I ever forget her tearful eye when she warned me to escape from the wrath to come? I thought her lips right eloquent; others might not think so, but they certainly were eloquent to me. How can I ever forget when she bowed her knee, and with her arms about my neck, prayed, "Oh, that my son might live before Thee!" Nor can her frown be effaced from my memory—that solemn, loving frown, when she rebuked my budding iniquities; and her smiles have never faded from my recollections— the beaming of her countenance when she rejoiced to see some good thing in me towards the Lord God of Israel."

A quote from

Charles Haddon Spurgeon Autobiography: The Early Years 1834-1860 Volume 1
By Charles Spurgeon / Banner Of Truth

A Good Mother

As the old saying goes; “The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the World.” Here are a few words from Charles Spurgeon concerning the role of his mother in the early religious impressions that eventually led to his conversion.

“I cannot tell how much I owe to the solemn words of my good mother. It was the custom on Sunday evenings, while we were yet little children, for her to stay at home with us, and then we sat round the table, and read verse by verse, and she explained the Scripture to us. After that was done, then came the time of pleading; there was a little piece of Alleine's Alarm, or of Baxter's Call to the Unconverted, and this was read with pointed observations made to each of us as we sat round the table; and the question was asked, how long it would be before we would think about our state, how long before we would seek the Lord. Then came a mother's prayer, and some of the words of that prayer we shall never forget, even when our hair is gray. I remember, on one occasion, her praying thus: "Now, Lord, if my children go on in their sins, it will not be from ignorance that they perish, and my soul must bear a swift witness against them at the Day of Judgment if they lay not hold of Christ." That thought of a mother's bearing swift witness against me, pierced my conscience, and stirred my heart.”

From
Charles Haddon Spurgeon Autobiography: The Early Years 1834-1860 Volume 1 By Charles Spurgeon / Banner Of Truth