The Duty Of Parents

I was thinking about a post my wife just made. Called Me-Centered Children She said.

A child must suffer consequences when they do wrong.

I think that parents can be blind to their children’s discipline problems.

Sometimes we don’t see the child acting wrongly or we ignore it.

I also think that a parent may not know that he/she can discipline and train very little children.

So this is what I say.

I propose that liberalism is, in fact the natural condition of the human heart. It is the duty of parents to train liberalism out of their children, and know one else and that is where the rub begins. Left untrained, children by nature become liberal. For one to become conservative, that is if your parents didn't do their job, takes a couple of things. First, you must realize your natural liberal nature, and second, it will take hard work and a change of attitude. For us to grow into conservatives, we must be trained against our nature. And the same is true for our children. Because our children are born liberal. To be born liberal means that we are born emotional. All of us. We come into the world determined to survive, and we express ourselves to get what we need: Waaa! And Mom feeds us; Waaa! And our diaper is changed; as infants, our strong will can keep us alive and the more outspoken we are, the more our needs are met. And so it continues, unless you have a wise parent who stops it.

My dad was hard on me, but in my opinion he would have done me a favor if he had been twice as hard! And I don't know for sure; but if you ask him, I'll bet my son would say the same thing. So let us clear this up. From birth, we are all driven by passion. We want what we want, when we want it, and we refuse things we do not want. As young children we beg or more often scream for what we want and turn up our nose at what we don't want. By nature we hate having to wait and demand immediate gratification it is in all of us. And we throw fits when we do not get our way. We want to gratify ourselves and loathe the idea of reaping consequences for our actions. That is liberalism. We must fight it. If we don't who will set the example for our children? It is a parents' job to train children to have self-control.

Children need boundaries. A society whose children are not raised to have self-control will be out of control and reprehensible! And we must set the example. We must lead by walking in the truth ourselves. But if you're liberal, this won't be easy, because it takes self-discipline. You will have to say no to self. To walk in the truth is more than to give assent to it. It means to apply it to one's behavior. He who "walks in the truth" is an integrated Christian in whom there is no dichotomy between profession and practice. On the contrary, there is in him and exact correspondence between his creed and conduct. And that will lead to what it means to walk in the truth and being honest with the scriptures.

In light of this how can you not bring your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? Children are gift from God.

"He who withholds correction hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him promptly." (Proverbs 13:24)