How Should a Child Be Trained?
J.C. Ryle
Table of Contents
Preface
In reprinting this pamphlet on the much-needed subject of how a child should be trained, one feels it is important to remember, first of all, that nothing can be done aright unless the parent or parents are true children of God. If an unsaved parent has picked up this booklet, our desire is that you may accept the Lord Jesus as your Saviour.
You may have a well-ordered house according to human standards, but remember God says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Heb. 11:6). As you think of those dear children God has committed to your care, with their precious, immortal souls, it behooves you to make sure that you yourself are right with God. It was for lost, helpless sinners like you that the Lord Jesus died.
He alone can wash away your sins, and this He will do if you come to Him now, pleading only your guilt and the value of His precious blood to cleanse you from every stain before a holy God (1 John 1:7). Then, having become one of God’s children, you will be able — and indeed you will desire — to bring up your children for the Lord and His glory.
Until truly saved, parents cannot set a proper motive before their children. The thought of the natural man can never rise higher than himself, and even in training their children, unconverted parents will set self before them. They will teach their children to tell the truth because they do not like lies. They will teach them to have good manners in order to make their children likeable and popular. They will tell them that their friends will not like them if they do certain things, and therefore they ought not to do them. Indeed in all their training it will be a self-centered motive; it cannot be otherwise.
Now even a Christian, if unwatchful, is likely to copy these worldly ideas. Such motives appeal to our natural hearts, as well as to our children’s, but they are not of God. Bringing up our children “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4) is the very opposite of this. We should teach them to tell the truth because they are responsible to the Lord, and He hates lying. We should teach them to be courteous because the Lord says, “Be courteous” (1 Peter 3:8), and they ought to seek to please Him. We should teach them to seek always to do what is right, not to be well thought of (for they may be despised for it sometimes), but just to please the Lord. This is the very opposite of man’s viewpoint, but it is the only right way, if we would seek to train our children according to God.
One feels he should remark here that our confidence in training our children, as in everything about which we can have confidence, must be in the Lord, not in ourselves or our methods. “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves . . . but our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:5). No parent could ever say that he had trained up his children in every way as he should. God makes us conscious of our weakness and failure so that we may turn to Him and own that we owe all to His grace. May the Lord give grace to each and all of the dear parents who read this booklet that they may seek from Him the needed grace, wisdom and strength, which He alone can supply day by day, to bring up a family for Him in these last days.
H. E. Hayhoe
How Should a Child Be Trained?
“Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
How little is this text regarded! We live in days when there is a mighty zeal for education, new schools rising on all sides, new systems and new books of every description for training the young. These things may well give rise to great searchings of heart. The subject is one that should come home to every conscience; there is hardly a household that it does not touch.
This is preeminently a subject in which we can see the faults of our neighbors more clearly than our own. We need to suspect our own judgment. I have sometimes been perfectly astonished at the slowness of sensible Christian parents to allow that their children are in the fault or deserve blame.
Come now and let us have before us a few hints — words in season. Reject them not, because they are blunt and simple.
First, If We Would Train Our Children Wisely, We Must Train Them According to the Word of God.
Remember, children are born with a decided bias toward evil. Therefore, if we let them choose for themselves, they are certain to choose wrong.
The mother cannot tell what her tender infant may grow up to be: tall or short, weak or strong, wise or foolish; he may be any of these things or not — it is all uncertain. But one thing the mother can say with certainty: He will have a corrupt and sinful heart. It is natural to us to do wrong. “Foolishness,” God says, “is bound in the heart of a child” (Prov. 22:15). “A child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame” (Prov. 29:15).
If, then, we would deal wisely with our child, we must not leave him to the guidance of his own will. We must think for him and judge for him, just as we would for one weak and blind, but we should not give him up to his own wayward tastes and inclinations. It must not be his likings and wishes that are consulted. He knows not yet what is good for his mind and soul, any more than what is good for his body. Do not let him decide what he shall eat and what he shall drink and how he shall be clothed. What shameful scenes at the table might be avoided if parents would seek divine wisdom as to what is best to put on the child’s plate.
If we do not consent to this first divine principle of training, it is useless to read any further. Self-will is almost the first thing that appears in the child’s mind, and it must be our first step to resist it. The best horse in the world had to be broken.
Train up Your Child With All Tenderness, Affection and Patience.
I do not mean that you should spoil him, but I do mean that you should let him see that you love him. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys — these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily; these are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart.
Sternness and severity of manner chill them and throw them back. It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door. But let them see that you have an affectionate feeling toward them, that you really desire to make them happy and to do them good, and that if you punish them it is intended for their profit.
Children are weak and tender creatures, and as such they need patient and considerate treatment. We must handle them delicately, like sensitive plants, lest by rough fingering we do them more harm than good.
We must not expect all things at once. We must remember what they are and teach them what they are able to bear. Their understandings are like narrow-necked vessels; we must pour in the wine of knowledge gradually or much of it will be spilled and lost. Line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little must be our rule. Truly there is need of patience in training a child, but without it nothing can be done.
Nothing will compensate for the absence of tenderness and love. You may set before your children their duty — command, threaten, punish and reason — but if affection be wanting in your treatment, your labor will be in vain. Love is the one grand secret of successful training. Anger and harshness may frighten, but they will not persuade the child that you are right, and if he sees you often out of temper, you will soon cease to have his respect. Fear puts an end to openness of manner; fear leads to concealment; fear sows the seed of hypocrisy and leads to many a lie. There is a mine of truth in the Apostle’s words to the Colossians, “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21).
Train Your Children Diligently, Remembering the Importance of Right Training.
Early habits (if I may so speak) are most important under God. We are made what we are by training. Our character takes the form of that mold into which our first years are cast, not forgetting, of course, what the grace of God can do for those who look to Him.
God gives our children a mind that will receive impressions like moist clay and will trust our word rather than a stranger’s. He gives us, in short, a golden opportunity of doing them good. See that the opportunity be not neglected and thrown away.
I know that you cannot convert your child. I know well that they who are born again are born, not of the will of man, but of God. But I also know that God says expressly, “Bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and He never laid a command on man which He would not give man grace to perform. The path of obedience is the way of blessing. We have only to do as the servants were commanded at the marriage feast in Cana — fill the waterpots with water, and we may safely leave it to the Lord to turn that water into wine.
Ever Bear in Mind That the Soul of Your Child Is the First Thing to Be Considered.
Precious, no doubt, are these little ones in our eyes, but if we love them we will think often of their souls. No interest will weigh with us so much as their eternal welfare. No part of them should be so dear to us as that part which will never die. The world with all its glory shall pass away, but the spirit which dwells in those little creatures, whom we love so well, shall outlive them all, and whether in happiness or misery (to speak as a man) will depend on us. This is the thought that should be uppermost in our minds in all we do for our children. How will this affect their souls?
To pet, pamper and indulge our child, as if this world were all he had to look to, and this life the only season for happiness — to do this is not true love but cruelty, and it is not fidelity to Christ either.
A faithful Christian must be no slave to fashion, if he would train his child for the Lord. He must not be content to do things merely because they are the custom of the world, and especially the religious world with its popular but unwarranted traditions, such as Christmas and Easter (Gal. 4:10; Rom. 12:2), nor is it protecting them by allowing them to read the vain comics and books of a questionable sort, merely because everybody reads them. What can bring the world into the home more than television? He must not be ashamed to hear his training called singular and strange. What if it is? The time is short — the fashion of this world passes away. He that has trained his children for heaven rather than for earth — for God rather than for man — he is that parent that will be called wise at the last. “He that doeth the will of God abideth forever” (1 John 2:17).
Train Your Child in the Knowledge of the Bible.
We cannot make our children love the Bible, I allow. None but the Holy Spirit can give them a heart to delight in the Word. But we can make our children acquainted with the Bible, and be sure they cannot be acquainted with that blessed Book too soon or too well. Let the simple Bible be everything in the training of their souls, and let all other books take second place.
See that your children read the Bible reverently; it is in truth the Word of God. See that they read it regularly.
Tell them of sin — its guilt, its consequences, its power, its vileness — we will find they can comprehend something of this. Tell them of the Lord Jesus Christ, His love and His work for our salvation — His cross, His shed blood, His resurrection, His ascension and His soon coming again. You will find there is something not beyond them in all this.
Train Them to a Habit of Prayer.
Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. As the first steps in any undertaking are always the most important, so is the manner in which our children’s prayers are prayed, a point which deserves our closest attention. Few seem to know how much depends on this. We must beware lest they get into a way of saying them in a hasty, careless and irreverent manner. Reader, if you love your children, I charge you, do not let the seedtime of a prayerful habit pass away.
Train Them to Assemble in a Scriptural Way With the People of God.
Tell them where the Lord’s people are gathered together in His name, there the Lord Jesus is present in a special manner and that those who absent themselves must expect, like the Apostle Thomas, to miss a blessing. “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is” (Heb. 10:25).
Do not allow them to grow up with a habit of deciding whether or not they want to go to the meetings.
I do not like to see what I call a “young people’s corner” in an assembly. They often catch habits of inattention and irreverence there which it takes years to unlearn, if ever they are unlearned at all. What I like to see is a whole family sitting together. “We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, . . . for we must hold a feast unto the Lord” (Ex. 10:9).
We should not lightly esteem the Lord’s Day by turning it into a day of recreation and self-gratification.
Train Them to Obey You Without Always Knowing Why.
We should teach them to accept everything we require of them as for their good.
I have heard it said by some that we should require nothing of children which they cannot understand; we should explain and give a reason for everything we desire them to do. I warn you solemnly against such a notion. I tell you plainly that I think it is an unsound and unscriptural principle. No doubt it is absurd to make a mystery of everything we do, and there are many things which it is well to explain to children, in order that they may see that they are reasonable and wise. But to bring them up with the idea that they must take nothing on trust — that they, with their weak and imperfect understandings, must have the “why” and “wherefore” made clear to them at every step they take — this is indeed a fearful mistake and likely to have the worst effect on their minds.
Set before them the example of Isaac, in the day when Abraham took him to offer him on Mount Moriah (Gen. 22). He asked his father that single question, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” And he got no answer but this: “The Lord will provide Himself a lamb.” How or where or whence or in what manner or by what means — all this Isaac was not told, but the answer was enough. He believed that it would be well because his father said so, and he was content.
Train Them to a Habit of Prompt Obedience.
This is an object which it is worth any labor to attain. No habit I suspect has such an influence over our lives as this. Parents, determine to make your children obey you, though it may cost you much trouble and cost them many tears. Let there be no questioning and reasoning and disputing and delaying and answering again. When you give them a command, let them see plainly that you will have it done. It is the mark of well-trained children that they do whatsoever their parents command them. Where indeed is the honor which Ephesians 6:1 enjoins, if fathers and mothers are not obeyed, cheerfully, willingly and at once (Eph. 6:14; Col. 3:20)?
Early obedience has all Scripture on its side. It is said in Abraham’s praise, not merely he will train his family, but “he will command his children and his household after him” (Gen. 18:19). It is said of the Lord Jesus Himself that when He was young He was subject to Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:51). Mark how the Apostle Paul names disobedience to parents as one of the bad signs of the last days (2 Tim. 3:2).
Parents, do you wish to see your children happy? Take care then that you train them to obey when they are spoken to — to do as they are bid. Believe me, we are not made for entire independence; we are not fit for it. Even Christ’s freemen have a yoke to wear — they “serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:24). Children cannot learn too soon that this is a world in which we are not intended to rule and that we are never in our right place until we know how to obey. Teach them to obey while young, or else they will be fretting against God all their lives long and will wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control.
You will see many in this day who allow their children to choose and think for themselves long before they are able, and they even make excuses for their disobedience, as if it were a thing not to be blamed. To my eyes, a parent who is always yielding and a child who is always having its own way is a most painful sight — painful because I see God’s appointed order of things inverted and turned upside down, and painful because I feel sure the consequence to that child’s character in the end will be self-will and self-conceit.
Train Them Always to Speak the Truth and the Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.
God is spoken of as the God of truth. Less than the truth is a lie. Evasion, excuse-making and exaggeration are all halfway houses toward what is false and ought to be avoided. Encourage them in any circumstance to be straightforward and, whatever it may cost them, to speak the truth.
I urge it also for our own comfort and assistance in all our dealings with them. We will find it a mighty help, indeed, always to be able to trust their word. It will go far to prevent that habit of concealment which so unhappily prevails among children.
Train Them to a Habit of Always Redeeming the Time.
Idleness is the devil’s best friend. It is the surest way to give him an opportunity of doing harm. An idle mind is like an open door, and if Satan does not enter in himself by it, it is certain he will throw in something to raise bad thoughts in our souls. We must have our hands filled and our minds occupied with something, or else our imaginations will soon ferment and breed mischief. “This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her” (Ezek. 16:49). Verily, I believe that idleness has led to more sin than almost any other habit that could be named. I love to see them active and industrious and giving their whole heart to all they do.
Train Them With a Constant Fear of Overindulgence.
I know well that punishment and correction are disagreeable things. Nothing is more unpleasant than giving pain to those we love and calling forth their tears. But so long as hearts are what they are, it is vain to suppose, as a general rule, that children can be brought up without correction. Spoiling is a very expressive word and, sadly, full of meaning. Now it is the shortest way to spoil children to let them have their own way — to allow them to do wrong and not to punish them for it. Believe me, you must not do it, whatever pain it may cost you, unless you wish to ruin your children’s souls.
“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Prov. 13:24). “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying” (Prov. 19:18). “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell” (Prov. 23:13-14). “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul” (Prov. 29:15,17).
How strong and forcible are these verses! How melancholy is the fact that in many Christian families they seem almost unknown! Their children need reproof, but it is hardly ever given; they need correction, but it is hardly ever employed. And yet this book of Proverbs is not obsolete and unfit for Christians. It is given by inspiration of God and profitable. Surely the believer who brings up his children without attention to its counsel is making himself wise above that which is written and greatly errs.
Fathers and mothers, I tell you plainly that if you never punish your children when they are at fault, you are doing them a grievous wrong. I warn you that this is the rock on which the saints of God, in every age, have only too frequently made shipwreck. I would fain persuade you to be wise in time and keep clear of it. See it in Eli’s case. His sons Hophni and Phinehas made themselves vile, and he restrained them not. He gave them no more than a tame and lukewarm reproof, when he ought to have rebuked them sharply. In one word, he honored his sons above God. And what was the end of these things? He lived to hear of the death of both of his sons in battle, and his own gray hairs were brought down with sorrow to the grave (1 Sam. 2:12-34; 3:10-18).
See, too, the case of David. Who can read without pain the history of his children and their sins — Amnon’s incest, Absalom’s murder and proud rebellion, and Adonijah’s scheming ambition? In the account of Adonijah, in 1 Kings 1:6, “His father had not displeased him at any time in saying, Why hast thou done so?” There was the foundation of all the mischief. David was an overindulgent father — a father who let his children have their own way, and he reaped according as he had sown.
Parents, I beseech you, for your children’s sakes, beware of overindulgence. I call on you to remember that it is your first duty to consult their real interest and not their fancies and likings — to train them, not to humor them — to profit, not merely to please.
You must not give way to every wish and caprice of your child’s mind, however much you may love him. You must not let him suppose his will is to be everything and that he has only to desire a thing and it will be done. Do not, I pray, make your children idols, lest God should take them away and break your idols, just to convince you of your folly. Learn to say “No” to your children. Show them that you are able to refuse whatever you think is not fit for them. Unrequired school activities and entertainments require firmness, lest your children become swept into the current of Satan’s allurements.
Show them that you are ready to punish disobedience and that when you speak of punishment, you are not only ready to threaten, but also to perform. “Forbearing threatening.” Fewer punishments, but really and in good earnest, are better than frequent and slight punishments, but do not allow disobedience to pass unpunished. When disciplining your children becomes needful, it is imperative that the parents stand together in loving cooperation.
Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed, under the idea “it is a little one.” There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any. Leave them alone and they will soon be great. Reader, if you do not trouble with your children when they are young, they will give you trouble when they are old.
Train Them, Remembering Continually How God Trains His Children.
If you would train your children wisely, mark well how God the Father trains His. He does all things well; the plan which He adopts must be right. God’s children would tell you, in the long run, it was a blessed thing they did not have their way, and that God had done better for them than they could have done for themselves. Yes, and they could tell you too that God’s dealings had provided more happiness for them than they ever would have obtained themselves.
I ask you to lay to heart the lesson which God’s dealings with His people are meant to teach you. Fear not to withhold from your child anything you think will do him harm, whatever his own wishes may be. This is God’s plan. To be indulged perpetually is the way to be made selfish, and selfish people and spoiled children are seldom happy. Reader, be not wiser than God; train your children as He trains His.
Train Them, Remembering Continually the Influence of Your Own Example.
There is no substitute for godliness — reality with God in the lives of the parents. Instruction, advice and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest and really wish them to obey you so long as your actions contradict your counsel. We little know the force and power of example. Children see our ways; they mark our conduct; they observe our behavior. Never, I believe, does example tell so powerfully as it does in the case of parents and children. Fathers and mothers, do not forget that children learn more by the eye than they do by the ear. What they see has a much stronger effect on their minds than what they are told.
Strive rather to be a living epistle of Christ, such as your children can read, and that plainly. Be an example in words, in temper, in diligence, in temperance, in faith, in kindness and in humility. Think not your children will practice what they do not see you do. You are their model picture, and they will copy what you are. Your reasoning and your lecturing, your wise commands and your good advice — all this they may not understand, but they can understand your life. As you enjoy Christ for yourself, they will believe it is something real. Children are very quick observers, very quick in seeing through hypocrisy, very quick in finding out what you really think and feel, very quick in adopting all your ways and opinions, and you will generally find that as the father, so is the son.
Train Them, Remembering Continually the Power of Sin.
This will guard you against unscriptural expectations. It is painful to see how much corruption and evil there is in a young child’s heart and how soon it begins to bear fruit: violent tempers, self-will, pride, sullenness, passion, idleness, selfishness, deceit, cunning, falsehood, hypocrisy, a terrible aptness to learn what is bad, a painful slowness to learn what is good, and a readiness to pretend anything in order to gain their own ends. You must not think it strange and unusual that little hearts can be so full of sin. It is the only portion which our father Adam left us; it is that fallen nature with which we come into the world.
Never listen to those who tell you your children are good and well brought up and can be trusted. At their very best they want only a spark to set their corruptions alight. Parents are seldom too cautious. Remember the natural depravity of your children, and take care.
“Cast thy bread upon the waters,” says the Spirit, “for thou shalt find it after many days” (Eccl. 11:1). Many children, I doubt not, shall rise up in the day of judgment and bless their parents for good training, who never gave any signs of having profited by it during their parents’ lives. Go forward then in faith, and be sure your labor shall not be altogether thrown away. Three times did Elijah stretch himself upon the widow’s child before it revived. Take example from him and persevere.
Train With Continual Prayer for Blessing on All You Do.
Look upon your children as Jacob did on his: He tells Esau they are “the children which God hath graciously given thy servant” (Gen. 33:5). Look upon them as Joseph did on his: He told his father, “They are my sons, whom God hath given me” (Gen. 48:9). Count them with the psalmist to be “an heritage of the Lord” (Psa. 127:3). See how Manoah speaks to the angel about Samson: “How shall we order the child, and how shall we do unto him” (Judges 13:12). Observe how tenderly Job cared for his children’s souls: He “offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all,” for he said, “It may be my sons have sinned, and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually” (Job 1:5).
Parents, if you love your children, go and do likewise. You cannot name their names before the mercy-seat too often.
Fathers and mothers, you may send your children to the best of schools and give them Bibles and fill them with head knowledge, but if all this time there is no regular training at home, I tell you plainly, I fear it will go hard in the end with your children’s souls.
Children have mixed the bitterest cups that man has ever had to drink. Children have caused the saddest tears that man has ever had to shed. Adam could tell you so; David could tell you so. There are no sorrows on earth like those children have brought upon their parents.
Oh, take heed lest your own neglect should lay up misery for you in your old age.
“Pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward Him for the life of thy young children” (Lam. 2:19).
We cannot close this little pamphlet without a word of warning against two innovations of recent years — radio and television — which the devil is using to bring the world, with all its degrading influences, into the home. Television, with its corrupt programs, is surely his latest masterpiece, and Christian parents are warned to be on their guard.
The Mother’s Trust
“They shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house. . . . It is the Lord’s passover. . . . The blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Ex. 12:3,11,13).
Beneath the blood-stained lintel
I with my children stand;
A messenger of judgment
Is passing through the land;
There is no other refuge
From the destroyer’s face —
Beneath the blood-stained lintel
Shall be our hiding place.
The Lamb of God has suffered;
Our sins and griefs He bore:
By faith the blood is sprinkled
Above our dwelling’s door.
The Lord, who judges righteously,
Has given that sacred sign:
Tonight the blood-stained lintel
Shall shelter me and mine.
My Saviour, for my dear ones,
I claim Thy promise true:
The Lamb is “for the household” —
The children’s Saviour too.
On earth the little children
Once felt Thy touch divine;
Beneath the blood-stained lintel
Thy blessing give to mine.
O Thou who gave them, guard them —
Those wayward little feet,
The wilderness before them,
The ills of life to meet.
My mother love is helpless,
I trust them to Thy care!
Beneath the blood-stained lintel —
My place is ever there.
The faith I rest upon Thee,
Thou wilt not disappoint;
With wisdom, Lord, to train them,
My shrinking heart anoint.
With all my children, Father,
I then shall see Thy face —
Under the blood-stained lintel —
The token of Thy grace.
The Mother’s Care
Mothers, be patient.
I know full well that you have much to bear,
But speak not harshly to the little ones
Who bring thee care.
A little child,
A fragile, tender plant that holds your heart
With love so strong, which you will only gauge
If you should part.
Noisy? Tis health,
And yet it needs but just a sudden chill,
A few sad hours upon the rack,
And all is still.
So still! So still!
The darling face is white; your eyes are wet,
Although the echo of the pattering feet
Is with you yet.
What would you give
To see those eyes with laughter lit once more!
To hear those feet go bounding overhead
And shake the floor!
Then think in time;
Prize well the worth of child life with you now,
And never meet the merry shouts of glee
With fretful brow.
And, more than all,
With song and joy to cheer, to you is given,
(Then let the joy be wise, of Christ the song),
And lead to heaven.
Great is your trust;
Oh, let the reaping of the after-years
Be of the sowing of your patient love
And many prayers.
Look up for strength;
The God who placed that child within your
care
Will give you all you need to teach of heaven
And guide it there.