Train up a child: 10 things

May 8, 2009

Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. 

So often I’m ruled by fear in my parenting — fear that I’ll damage them beyond repair, fear that they’ll make horrible choices and land up in horrible circumstances, fear that I’ll be picking up the pieces of my children’s broken lives all because I just plain screwed ‘em up.

I know they are fears, and (mostly) irrational ones. But still.

Train up a child…

Children need to be trained, not just told. That was an epiphany of sorts for me recently. I suppose if I ever stopped to think about it, it’s not a profound conclusion to come to, but I think I’ve missed it to a large degree. (Thank goodness for Brian who is an amazing teacher.)

So often I think we adults assume children know what we mean when we say things like, “Go clean your room,” or “Help your brother get dressed,” or directions of any kind really.

I have one child who melts into a puddle when I say, “It’s chore time so please go clean your room.” For a long time, the puddle-melting of this child made me crazy; I just assumed they were trying to get out of their work. It didn’t dawn on me until (I hate to admit it) only recently, that the response to the direction to “clean their room” was not because they were disobedient but because they were uninformed; they didn’t know how to clean their room. Consequently, they felt completely overwhelmed. And really, if you think about it, cleaning one’s room is a learned skill, not something one knows how to do innately.

Well, after a few “training sessions” in the art of cleaning one’s room, we have less puddles to deal with. So it is with other things we deal with regularly.

Like any good trainer — coach would be a good term to use too — I have to remember to:

1. Train or teach them. Don’t just tell them, show them. Multiple times if necessary. I generally don’t learn something after seeing it only once either.
2. Explain what needs to be done in a way that’s understandable and makes sense to a person who hasn’t learned it previously.
3. Model doing it myself. In other words, practice what I preach.
4. Be kind but firm in my approach. (Hat tip here to Positive Discipline by Jane Nelsen. I love this book.)
5. Don’t shame them for not knowing.
6. Train patiently & genuinely, not with an air of disgust or frustration.
7. Put myself in their shoes. How would I best learn if I was them? How would I like to be trained if I was the one learning?
8. Accept that I’m not a perfect mother and despite my best efforts, I will make mistakes and there will be gaps in my parenting.
9. Pray that God would fill the gaps.
10. Know that these children are much more God’s than they are mine.

Related posts:

1. What to do with a perfectionistic child?
2. Friday Favorite: Positive Discipline A-Z
3. Are you a parent?
4. Determined Children
5. Overheard at our house

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