Teaching and Training

Nowdays we neither teach nor train our children. Most people like it that way. We off-load the teaching onto someone else (school teachers, the media, even at a pinch teh church - though we don't like those 'religious' people having too much influence) and we ignore training altogether.

Teaching is important. It is vital that our children know truth, specifically the Truth. We need to teach our children that God's Word is the key to ALL of life, not just for two hours on Sunday. We need to teach them the Truths of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation.

But how much more important is training?! Teaching refers to the mind, but training to the character. And the mind is important for living life as God intended it, but how much more so character! It has been said that if you teach a child to be the best accountant in existence, but neglect to give him morals, all you have done is create an embezzler who can never be caught.

And today no one bothers to train children. Obedience is not learnt, manners are not learnt, and above all, morals are not learnt.

And yet it is easier to feed the mind than to retrain character. I should know. I was nearly 22 when I became a Christian. And I can honestly say that overcoming the opinions of evolutionists, feminists, and other 'experts' was easy. Memorising Scripture is easy. But applying it - using it to shape my character, which had gone largely untended - THAT was hard.

How much easier it is to train a child! Proverbs 22:6 states: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." How accurate! Children are wayward from their youth, but it is so much easier to root out the sins before they become ingrained habits. None of us are going to be perfect this side of paradise, but we make things easier or harder for ourselves and for our children.

Perhaps this is one of the most significant things about the homeschool movement. Not in the improved academics (though there certainly is that, and that is wonderful too) but in the abilitiy for the consistent work of parents towards a strong Christ-like character to be developed in our children.