You Are Teaching Your Child Something

Every parent is teaching every child something.

But is it really what you want him or her to learn?

I often hear parents comment on how they struggle to teach their children anything. That is simply untrue. We teach our children something every single day. The greatest pursuit of our lives comes through our speech, actions, and reactions.

Every parent communicates the driving ambition of their lives to their children every day in an effortless manner.

• If education is your top priority, you drive it home relentlessly.
• If reputation is your highest concern, you teach an ethic-based on avoidance of consequences.
• If wealth provides you the surest security, you ensure by your exhortation and example to warn against poverty.
• If athletics is your great love, you have no limit to the hours or dollars spent.

We have a priority, and we are communicating it to our children. Just as the featured image of this post hilariously displays, even Stormtroopers have to learn it from somewhere. 😉

What Do You Love the Most?

Our lives are developing something significant in the lives of our children.

Based on what we pursue or how well we pursue it, we teach our children to repeat or reject our examples.

So, what are you teaching your child? That’s easy to determine. While your bent might focus on a spiritual, emotional, mental, social, or physical trait you prioritize, you are teaching your children something. All of us are.

You teach your child the most whatever it is you love the most.

What Is the Goal of Parenting?

God gave Moses an important lesson about raising children that he shared with the entire nation of Israelites. It was such an important truth that it was passed down through the generations and translated into numerous languages. After years of God’s people worshiping idols within their culture, God taught them that he deserved an unwavering allegiance from them.

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. ⁵ You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. ⁹ You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

After reminding them that there is no other God, he explains that their first point of duty as a result of that truth was to love him. He didn’t command to serve, fear, or obey. He told them to love him.

God knows that if we truly love him, all of those other items fall naturally into place.

It didn’t stop there though. It would be passed on to the next generation. The goal of parenting is to have a love for the LORD so contagious that it passes on to your children. You won’t have to force it either. It will simply come naturally.

Whatever I love the most is that which I will teach the most.

If I truly love the LORD like none other, I will communicate that to my children. That type of love will be so intense that I just can’t do it within a yearly holiday, or a weekly gathering, or a daily prayer. Not even close. I will be talking about and exemplifying it when we wake up, when we go through the tasks of the day, when we eat together, and when we retire for the night.

Our obsession spills over into every area of our lives.

• You love something very much.
• You are teaching that something very often.
• Your children are learning those lessons every single day.

Are you pleased with the lessons they are learning?

There are a lot of good lessons out there, but there is only one great love.