One family consists of a husband and wife with one child. The parents are morbidly obese. The house is a mess. They live on junk food. The son gets up whenever he pleases and then watches television or plays video games all day.
The other family has three children. The whole family gets up early, eats a healthy breakfast, and then works out. The children all do their chores without being asked. In fact, if they see something that needs to be done, they do it such as dusting or vacuuming. Their home was very clean and tidy. They are all in great shape. They all work hard and eat very healthy. In their free time, they are outside playing catch or basketball.
One family is training their child to be lazy and overweight, doing whatever he pleases. The other family is training their children to work hard, stay in shape, and eat healthy. They will grow up to be disciplined adults.
The wives change places. The overweight mother tries to get the three children to "have more fun" so she takes the girls out to get fake nails. The girls take them off soon afterwards since they are both volleyball players. She wants to get them to stop doing so many chores. The children enjoy doing their chores. She is stunned.
The other mother starts getting the obese father and son to work out, eat healthy, and start helping around the home. In one week, the father loses twelve pounds and is starting to feel better.
This Wife Swap show was clear that we have the power to train our children in the way they should go. You can actually train your children to enjoy working, eating healthy, and staying in shape. It is a gift you give them that will keep on giving all of their lives.
On the other hand, you can train them to be lazy, only eat junk food, be messy and disorganized, and not enjoy working. They will suffer their entire lives for their lack of discipline unless they can learn to discipline themselves when they get much older but it is so much easier to learn discipline when one is young.
Take your role as parent seriously and raise productive, hard-working children. Everyone benefits, especially the children.
Train up a child in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 21:6
