Teach Them Diligently

One of the verses that my mother based her parently philosophy on is Deuteronomy 6: 7 (KJV).

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou riseth up.

No matter what we were doing, my mother and father were able to find some teachable moment in it.  And there were times when I thought, "I already know this," but it was that constant repetition that made those lessons stick.

When I became a teacher, I found myself doing the same thing with my students- finding teachable moments throughout the day and using God's Word to teach them a life lesson.

Now that I am a mom, the lessons that I am finding myself teaching my daughter are more simple and foundational, but still so very important.  All lessons need a foundation to build upon later.

As I was looking through my notes the other day, I saw a note about "the boys" and I remembered a teaching time that Addie and I had late last year when my mom-in-law and I went on one of our grocery shopping trips with Addie.

I'm sure you remember the tragic story of the three little boys who were missing near the Ohio border.  My mom-im-law casually asked me if I had heard about the little boys as we were loading our groceries into our vehicles.  I hadn't, so she began to tell me about them missing. At that point everyone thought they had been kidnapped.  After loading the groceries we headed over to McD's- she in her vehicle and us in ours. 

That is when Addie spoke up. 

"Mommy, what happened to the boys?"

Gulp!  It was right then that I realized that it was moments like this that my parents had used with me as a child to teach me the important lessons.

I told her that someone had taken the boys from their mommy and daddy, and if anyone ever tried to take her away from Mommy and Daddy, she needed to yell, "Jesus help me!", kick, and scream.  We even practiced in the car while we were driving to McD's. 

For about 2 weeks after that, Addie talked about our conversation non-stop.  And even now, every once in a while, she will bring it up.  Although, at the time, I didn't think I was prepared to talk to her about that, I'm glad now that the situation came up and that we were able to talk. 

Make the time to talk to your children and even use the situations around you, whether it is in the news or in personal situations, to teach your children about what God's Word teaches to give them a Biblical perspective on life and the world around them.