Photo by Boxed Water Is Better on Unsplash
Being a parent is not an easy task, its a non stop process. On going learning and acquiring wisdom to raise a child.
An African proverb says “It takes a village to raise a child .” Meaning that it takes an entire community of different people interacting with children in order for children to experience and grow in a safe environment.
I am thinking of what should parents teach their kids starting at the very young age. Those precious minds that watch and learn from us. As soon as the baby opens their eyes and sees us, I think their learning process begins.
I remember when I was in high school, one of my teacher said that a child’s brain is like a sheet of blank plain white paper. And all the learning that the child acquired until he grows up, are the writings on that sheet of paper. All the things that’s been written on that paper, remains in it, stored in the memory.
We’ve heard it “Monkey see, monkey do”. Our children are watching and learning from what ever we do. That is why we have to be very careful in what we teach our young ones. They learn from us by our example, how we live.
Here are the basic lessons that we can teach our children.
1. Teach them about God.
We are to teach our children about God, about spiritual matter. That God created us and HE loves us. It is very important that we show them how to trust in the Lord always. And we must help them to build a strong faith on our heavenly Father. Bring your children to church, teach them to pray and read the Bible.
I was born and raised on Sunday School, and I am very thankful to my parents for raising me that way.
2. Loving others
Teach your young ones to think about others, to be kind. To be generous to other people. Show them how to lend a helping hand to your neighbor. To reach out to someone in need and to be considerate about others.
3. Obedience
Firstly teach to obey you. Obedience out of love and respect, not out of fear or just to avoid spanking or consequences.
Also teach them to obey people in authority, their teachers and the older persons and leaders in the community.
4. Honesty
It’s hard to be honest sometimes, but still we have to. Tell your kids to always be truthful and be honest. Speaking the truth always and staying honest no matter what.
5. Forgiveness
Forgiving others is one of hardest thing to do. Tell your kids and show them how to forgive. Teach them that we all make mistake sometimes and we all need to have a forgiving heart.
These are some of the basic lessons that we can teach our young children.
But they learned from what we do, how we practice what we preach. We are the models, they do what we do. We as parents need to be very careful on what we show them.
Teaching them is not only telling or lecturing them, but its through showing them by our action.
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go,
[a]And when he is old he will not depart from it.
