"Training is a
possibility long before teaching is. Before a child is old enough to know what
is said to it, it is capable of feeling, and of conforming to, or of resisting the pressure of efforts for its training. A child can be trained to go to sleep
in the arms of its mother or nurse, or in a cradle, or on a bed; with rocking,
or without it; in a light room, or in a dark one; in a noisy room, or only in a
quiet one; to expect nourishment and to accept it only at fixed hours, or at
its own fancy - while as yet it cannot understand any teaching concerning the
importance of the fitness of one of these thing. A very young child can be
trained to cry for what it wants, or to keep quiet, as a means of
securing it" {H. Clay Trumbull}.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it {Proverbs 22:6}.
We trained our
children to sleep through the night in a dark room by the time they were six
weeks old so they all were great sleepers and slept through the night in dark
rooms the entire time they lived under our roof. I trained them to eat salads by starting them off with only wholesome food when they were babies.
They all love to eat salads now. We trained them to go to church on Sundays since we went almost every Sunday since they were babies. They all go to
church faithfully unless they are sick or away. We trained them to
not hold grudges or be mean. As soon as they were mean to one of their siblings, they knew to never do this again. None of our children have ever held grudges or been mean.
When they were older, we trained them to work hard and be faithful in whatever they did by modeling this to them from the time they were young. All
of my children work hard and were even faithful with sports teams or classes that
had mean coaches or teachers. They weren’t quitters. We trained them to love and
obey the Lord by reading the Word to them and praying with them when they were very little. We disciplined them when they were disobedient because we knew if they were obedient to us and not rebellious, they most likely would grow up to obey the Lord. We trained them in love by loving them deeply from the moment they were born in hopes of them experiencing a glimpse of what God's love is like towards them. They all love and obey the Lord, thankfully.
We trained them to love to read so when they grew up, they loved to read. We trained them to not argue and fight with each other by not allowing it the first time it happened. None of them are
arguers or fighters. We trained them to be tough when they were sick or in pain.
Sure, I rocked them when they had fevers and did all I could to make them
comfortable but I wouldn’t allow them to complain. I taught them to suffer in
silence and their spouses appreciate it.
Are there things I
wish I had been better about training them in? Yes, but we covered the most
important bases in raising them; the character qualities. The Pearls don’t have
fat children since they taught them to think before they eat and not eat too
much. {The Bible speaks about a "fat" king so even though this word may be
politically incorrect, it is biblically correct.} “When I was a kid I was trained to eat to live,
not live to eat. I was taught that food makes your body healthy or unhealthy,
lean or fat, that overeating was gluttony and gross. My dad was very pointed,
descriptive, and honest about biblical and life principles, and I am so
thankful for that” {Shoshanna Easling}.
You can train your children to be whatever you
want them to be: fat or a healthy weight, love health food or love junk food, be neat
or messy, be lazy or a hard-worker, be obedient or disobedient, be kind or mean, fight and argue or be a
peacemaker, be joyful or grumpy. This is the power the Lord has given parents in raising their children. The Lord said that one of the purposes of marriage was to raise godly offspring. Take this seriously, women, and raise your children in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord.
