By David Wright
My Sunday morning message (“Training Children Isn’t Rocket Science”) identified four parenting guidelines found in Ephesians 6. The last of these, be a teacher, was suggested by Paul’s admonition to bring up children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (v. 4). But do little ears pay attention to everything mom and dad say?
On September 27, 2004, Donald Joy was a guest on the radio program “Focus on the Family.” In his conversation with the show’s host, Dr. Joy told an amusing story about his grandson. When the boy was two or three years old, he saw his grandfather remove his hairpiece. “Grandpa,” Jason said, “take my hair off too.” Dr. Joy replied, “You are young. Your hair doesn’t come off.” The little guy felt his head and then said, “Well, when I’m a grandpa, I’ll take it off.” Hearing of Jason’s childish desire to imitate his grandfather—even in doing something Dr. Joy found distasteful—reminded me of the great responsibility laid upon parents and grandparents.
Children come into the world with few preconceptions about right and wrong. In their innocence and trust of beloved adults, they assume that whatever parents and grandparents do is good. This means that my conduct, whether worthy of imitation or not, is shaping the value system of the child in my family. In a psalm attributed to Asaph, the Bible says that the Lord “established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children; that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments” (Ps. 78:5-7).
The parent or grandparent who thinks that verbal communication alone satisfies the need to teach “the next generation” has misunderstood how children learn. Small ears do hear part of what we say. But little eyes watch everything we do!
