Be a Student of Your Children

Now you may be looking at the title of this blog entry and thinking, "Be a student of your children? Aren't my children the students?" Yes, they are the students in many ways. They look up to you to teach them everything from how to eat to how to walk to how to read to how to drive a car. But, I believe we are also to be students of our children.

One of the most quoted verses when it comes to parenting is Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Upon further study of that verse, I have learned 2 things:
1) It is a principle, not a promise, and
2) It doesn't just mean to train them up in the LORD (which is the most important thing), but it also means to train them up in their special and specific callings and giftings from God.

What I mean by it being a principle and not a promise is that we do not have a 100% guarantee that if we train them up in the LORD that they will always follow Him. That in no way means that we should not train them up in the LORD (see Deut 6:4-9 and Eph 6:4).

Again, we should train them up in the LORD, but we also need to train them up in their special callings and giftings from God. How do we know what those specific callings and giftings are? By being a student of our children. This means that we are actively involved in their lives and watching to see their God-given bents, interests, gifts, and callings. If we see that our child shows more interest in history than math, we should help them look into a path that involves history (ie teacher, lawyer, politician) and not push them into engineering just because we are an engineer and think it is the best career ever. If we see that our child is more into music than athletics, we should encourage and equip them in music and not push them into football just because we are a die-hard NFL fan. These are simple examples, but so many parents make goals for their children that have nothing to do with each individual child.

Be a student of your children and train them up in the LORD and in the bents, interests, gifts, and callings He has given them, and when they are old, they will not depart from it.