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.