Reasons Why A Child Should be Conditioned for Positive Character Traits in Formative Years.

Unless a child is taught first of all by loving parents, chances are that he would be influenced by delinquent children out there in the neighboring environment and actually become delinquent himself, deviant, violent, angry, deformed or outright lost to extremism, cultism, or terrorism. This fact alone should ginger every parent to heed God’s desire for them to “direct their children and their household after them to obey his commands and follow his ways”. In God’s own words, “to keep the ways of the LORD by doing what is right “. (Genesis chapter eighteen, verse nineteen). Keeping the way of the LORD thereby doing what is right and just is the only way to guarantee peace and security in any and every society. Peace, we all know, is paramount for any society to thrive or develop. The child’s best place to learn is the family home where God intends that the child should be cared for and nurtured by loving parents in his formative years. We need to note that formation here is more about behavior and character and not just physical and other forms of development. In a sense everything we need for life and godliness has been provided us by God’s divine power. The knowledge of God makes it possible for us to learn and teach children to develop along these desirable virtues of life. We have discussed the how, where, when and what to teach the child in previous chapters of this concise book and readers are encouraged to consider the concepts canvassed and apply them as strictly as possible because there is a guarantee that the ideas are working for those who seriously follow them and apply them wisely. God is the one that gives the guarantee as we find in his word. We have also stressed the fact that the most important formative years are between ages one to three, to five years when on average more than fifty percent of the character traits of most children is formed. Bearing in mind that being formed suggests that they will not be easy to deform we can see the wisdom in the instruction of the wisest preacher to the effect that we should “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it”. (Proverbs chapter twenty-two, verse six). For the wise parent then, the way the child should go must be that of the LORD, as God, himself told Abraham. Consider the lifestyles in different societies in different countries of the world, observe that in most peaceful and progressive as well as prosperous places, people have chosen to live according to the way of God the creator. We have earlier posited that it is God the creator who has the right of ownership of man, hence authority to decide how mankind should conduct themselves in his world. These, then, are some of the reasons why we must take the issue of parenting very seriously and ensure that we apply these working ideas we have been considering carefully in other to be on the safe side both with God and mankind. There is no gainsaying the fact that good societies derive from good parents who have chosen godliness as their way of life and bad societies likewise derive from bad parents who have not considered the ways of the LORD as directed by God himself hence they are ungodly. We have established the fact that God as the creator of the world and all that live in it has the right of ownership over man. Hence, he has demanded for a pattern of living consistent with his nature as a holy, righteous God. He made man reproductive and gave responsibility of upbringing of the offspring to the parents who are the agents of procreation. The influence of parents over children is a mystery which derives from this concept of God and his creation of man and authorizing parents to train their children. Hence, no parent can be excused for failure to bring up their children in line with God’s will. The child needs to be taught as a result as they are ignorant at birth except that they have in-built potentials to learn right from the point of birth. The child having these potentials to learn portrays this interesting curiosity to learn as demonstrated in their immediate attempts to explore their environment right from the outset. Unfortunately, the environment the child has found himself is already polluted owing to the fall of man early in creation and hence, the natural bent, which tends toward doing the wrong things. The child would copy every pattern of behavior available to him if left on his own or tend toward the natural bent. Proper behavior must be inculcated in the child through the process of teaching and training in the family setting which is the child’s basic environment. Teaching, in this sense, means demonstrating right conduct for the child to copy. Then as the child grows he associates with others in religious groups, schools and the larger society where he reinforces his character and behavior or allows them to be corrupted depending on the degree of reinforcement by the parents within the child’s formative years. How can they learn unless they are taught? This is the inquiry of leaders in the religious world who were stressing the importance of teaching and proper training in every one’s life. The child is ready made to learn. Let each parent take responsibility to give him proper teaching and training to be useful members of society. Failure of parents to fulfill this God-given role is the cause of the deviant and delinquent behaviors and other obnoxious characters plaguing our society today. We can be assured that just as God is pleased with those who are partnering with him to train their children in his will he will not find the opposite guiltless. Let us take advantage of God’s provisions to bring up our children in the will of God. Blessings are abundant for those who succeed in this wonderful task both from God, the society, and the children. The converse is equally sure: Parents who fail in their God-given responsibility to train their children according to the will of God will no doubt reap what they sow. Your guess is as good as mine, bearing in mind countless examples of such experiences in our contemporary society. We can take the decision and responsibility to be the kind of parents God himself would be proud of, like his friend Abraham. We can make God happy and boast of us to others as well. We can contribute our own quota to engendering peace and tranquility in the society we find ourselves. Good parents who bring up their children properly are in high demand by God and mankind as they are surprisingly few. We can avoid indulging in the blame game of who is responsible or who is not for the moral failure in the society due to ill brought up children disturbing the peace of the society. Let God count on you to ensure that the purpose he gave children parents is not defeated. Satan is alive and well on our planet earth and is ever ready to deceive ill brought up children to fall prey to his stealing, killing and destroying of peoples and societies in our contemporary world as he has been doing before now. We must join forces with God the creator and rightful owner of mankind to stop Satan by ensuring that our children are well brought up. We cannot afford to fail in this solemn responsibility!