The Final Key to Effective Training

Photo by Katie Walker

Scripture: Proverbs 10:9

He who walks in integrity walks securely, But he who perverts his ways will be found out.

Insights: The final key to effective training has three parts.  The key is reinforce the training by doing the following three things.  Firstly, affirm your children.  When your child comes home with a report card with four A’s and one C, on which grade do most parents focus?  The answer is the C.  Ought we not have praised and affirmed them for the four A’s.  We need to be intentional about finding areas to praise our kids so that they know the behavior of integrity we desire for them to perform.  Secondly, we need to attend to our children.  This concept means to be present when you are present.  Unfortunately, all too often in my life when I am with my kids I am thinking about work and vice-versa.  Whatever the activity is in which you find yourself engaged, be all in on that activity.  Make the necessary arrangement to remove all distractions and give all of yourself to the work or play at hand.  Spend the appropriate amount of actual time with them and make certain that the time is rich and full of quality.  Thirdly, we must discipline our children.  I really do not care what our liberal agenda government says.  We need to discipline our children.  One of the reasons we have an integrity problem in our society is because we have a discipline problem.  When a child does wrong, they need to be corrected.  Correction is as equally important as catching them doing the right thing and praising them for it.  Are their people that take both of those options to the extremes?  The answer is obviously yes.  I don’t think we need to affirm every kid that plays a sport with a participation trophy.  At the same time, we do need to praise our children for the good jobs they do while participating in those activities.  On the other end of the spectrum is the parent who flies off the handle at every turn and the child is always afraid of the wrath of the parent.  This extreme is equally as wrong.  We need to model both properly and then watch and be amazed at what the Lord will do.

Questions:

1. Are you your kids and spending time with them?

2. In what ways are you disciplining your children?

Prayer: Father, help me to be fully engaged with my children as I spend time with them.  Help me to find things to enforce their good decisions and let me discipline calmly and not in wrath.  By Your grace, let this be true of me.  Amen.

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