What is a child? How does he learn? When should you begin to teach him? These are some of the fundamental questions of child rearing. We’ll outline the basic principles of how to train your children – and when to begin.
“Congratulations!” say all the friends, relatives and greeting cards to the beaming parents! And what a tremendous moment it is – bringing a newborn child into the world – introducing him around.
And what a responsibility! Youthful couples, carefree and unencumbered, suddenly become aware of a great responsibility! Let’s begin to see just how great – and come to understand some of the most vital principles in sound child training.
A Plan of Action
Countless thousands of little babies are carried into homes where exists the naive assumption that all the knowledge and understanding necessary for the care and training of children has come to exist automatically by virtue of the arrival of the infant.
There are many mechanics, engineers, artists or musicians today who are competent in their fields merely because they had the tools, machinery or instruments near them as a part of their environment. Many mechanics are grown-up boys who began “tinkering” with machines and automobiles – learning by trial and error – taking them apart and seeing how they were put together again.
This, sad to say, is the identical type of training course pursued by most parents in the art of child training. Simply because the baby is near at hand, and is now a wanted or unwanted inheritance of the family, parents blithely assume the child will develop just as they desire.
“Competent parenthood is looked upon generally as a sort of magic endowment that makes study unnecessary. No grasp of the responsibilities and no vision of the great possibilities are considered essential when entering the career. Sometimes there is no special desire for children – merely a lucky accident… No special thought that is given to new character problems that arise from day to day. No plan of action is outlined” (As the Twig Is Bent, Hohman, p. 2).
What, then, are the new parents to do? From all sides come the hue and cry that the oldest profession on earth – that of rearing children – is facing abysmal failure. There are seemingly countless books on child study, child feeding and care, child training, child rearing, child psychology, and just about “child everything!” The parents are assured that no one today really knows HOW to rear children properly. Where are they to turn? The books, articles, and other trivia dealing with the subject are confusing, to say the least.
And so – where does the parent turn to learn of this strange new life, this squirmy, wriggling, crying, giggling, tiny reproduction of themselves?
Observe a marvelous “mechanical brain.” Here is a phenomenal machine, filled with thousands of miles of intricate wiring, complete with a complex panel so dizzying, so technical as to stupefy the average layman. However, in observing how this machine functions, a little of its outward looks, and watching one or two repair operations, one of the laymen takes it in his head to write a book advising other laymen to exactly what this machine is all about!
But wait! Which would you rather read? The book written by the recent observer – or the manual published by the inventor and manufacturer? Has no one ever thought of going to the inventor of children? He is God!
“And God said, let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon earth.
“So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth…” (Gen. 1:26-28).
Yes, difficult though it seems to be for the most “modern” to accept the amazing truth that God is Creator, the existence and the work of the Divine Architect stand clearly proved!
God did not leave His creation in the dark! He then “…commanded the man,” (Gen. 2:16) giving him certain specific instructions on how to live!
God gave to man a manual, a textbook, an instruction book on how the human machine works! Since God is its Creator and Inventor, God is the One who knows exactly how it operates. God gave to man certain essential knowledge which man could not have otherwise discovered for himself! The Bible, the inspired and holy word of God is the most basic of all books on the subject of how to rear children!
Men have not wanted to follow the manual of the Inventor but have turned to the misknowledge of casual observers.
Just as two and two make four, so does the fact that today’s colossal problems have been created by the poorly trained babies of yesterday.
Men have rejected this source of revealed knowledge of how to live!
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication… murder, debate, deceit… inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents…” (Rom. 1:28-30).
One logical, inevitable and immediate outcome of rejecting God’s basic revealed will is disobedience to parents!
Today, the world is faced with the most gigantic tidal wave of juvenile lawlessness and violence that has ever infected society since its dimmest recorded beginnings.
What is the best source for right knowledge about child training? The “manual of the Inventor” – the inspired word of God – your Bible!
What Is a Child?
This question is asked – and richly deserves to be answered – simply because, by their actions, it seems many do not honestly know! All too often, newborn babies, and especially a first child, are treated as if they were “little green men from Mars!” Is it any wonder? There seem to be more “rules” written about this squirming infant than can be perused in the average lifetime of a normal adult. “Do this!” or “Don’t do that!” is heard from every side.
The newcomer arrives as a total stranger. According to usual procedures, the father has been allowed brief glimpses of his progeny through the double thick glass of the supposedly sterilized maternity ward in the hospital. But now he is home. All of a sudden, it seems, your entire homelife is completely topsy-turvy. Every sigh, every chuckle, and especially every cry from the new arrival sends your little household into a veritable frenzy.
There are bottles to be carefully sterilized, formulas to be mixed, schedules to be met, diapers to be changed, room temperatures to be checked, morning, noon and nighttime feedings – and every time the child howls you are told with all authority he most certainly has the colic and the doctor should be called!
Sound ridiculous? But it isn’t! It is all too often the normal procedure – the accepted routine in the arrival of a first child.
Let’s clear the air and come down to earth. Rather than treat the new arrival as something made of the most fragile glass, let’s get a true perspective, and realize just what a child really is!
First, he is a human being! He is an exact miniature copy of yourselves. He probably has, though it is sometimes undiscernible at such an early stage, your own looks, your very own nature, your voice, and some of your talents. However, he is also an individual with a mind definitely all his own.
But exactly what is this human self, this separate entity, this newborn child?
Let’s go to the manual of the Inventor – the inspired word of God – and see what He says.
“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
“For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor” (Psalms 8:4, 5).
A new human life is made in the exact similitude of Divine Life! God said, “Let Us make man in Our image!” But so far God has made man merely a physical replica, and far from an exact copy of God in character!
“O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me… for there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, Thou knowest it altogether…
“For Thou hast possessed my reins; thou hast knit me together in my mother’s womb.
“I will praise Thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvelous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
“My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which day by day were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalms 139:1, 4, 13-16).
Yes, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. But now let’s see a little about the nature of the tiny, infantile mind!
Babies Are Carnal!
The apostle Paul reveals:
“Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: For it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).
Jeremiah was inspired to write: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?
“I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings” (Jer. 17:9, 10).
Every little baby is born with carnal nature. Carnal means nothing more than physical, sensual, earthly nature! Carnal as opposed to spiritual. Fleshly, not yet begotten of God’s Holy Spirit!
Many dozens of scriptures in the Holy Bible explain this carnal nature as a mixture of good and evil, a nature of basic selfishness, of wanting to get for the self, rather than give to others.
Observe the perfect example of carnality in a young baby. The baby is totally incapable of any such thing as “thought” at just a few days of age. Yet it is already perfectly carnal! There is no “reasoning process” by which the baby simply decides to howl at 2 or 3 a.m.. If the father has had a very busy and nerve-racking day at the office, the mother has had to do an unusually large washing, clean house, tend the baby and prepare the meals, and both are very tired – the child is totally unable to think of, understand or comprehend any of these things. The impulse of hunger, discomfort, lonesomeness, or the pain of an upset stomach is all that is necessary to launch the child on a yowling, howling tirade until it gets what it wants. This is not stated here to say that it is wrong or unnecessary to tend to a baby when it cries at night, nor to see to its needs – but to illustrate the fact that we are all born with basic carnal nature, which thinks only of self.
On the other hand, one of the greatest blessings God ever promised some of His patriarchs was the blessing of children! Abraham, by faith, waited many years for a son. All of the promises which God gave to ancient Israel had to do with the begettal of healthy children! God says:
“He maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children. Praise ye the Lord!” (Psalms 113:9).
“Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: And the fruit of the womb is His reward.
“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.
“Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Psalms 127:3-5).
Children are precious, priceless gifts from Almighty God to any parents! What a pity that more parents today do not understand the real MIRACLE of childbirth, and give God thanks for it! A child is the sweetest, most lovely and beautiful, altogether most exciting and completely satisfying thing that can happen to a young married couple who are truly in love!
God says: “Blessed is everyone that fears the Eternal; that walketh in His ways
“For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
“Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the side of thine house: Thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
“Behold that thus shall the man be blest that feareth the Eternal” (Psalms 128:1-4).
What, then, is a child? A little baby is an exact reproduction of the two parents, a separate human being, who is a thoroughly selfish, altogether carnal and completely lovable, laughable, sweet little creature that will steal your heart and your reason, bring you heartache and tears, exultation and pride, anxiety and worry, happiness and joy, but who will teach you the real meaning of the word “love.”
How a Child Learns
Human beings are creatures of habit! Not very many people, it seems, have ever stopped to ask themselves how it is they have come to believe the various concepts, philosophies and doctrines they assume to be true. Each one of us came into existence as a baby, knowing absolutely NOTHING at birth.
The human child is the most helpless of all newborn creatures. The young colt, the calf, even the baby porpoise and whale are able to stand, walk, leap or swim within hours, even minutes after birth!
But they are creatures of instinct. A human being does not have instinct, but a mind. No one had to teach the young colt where to go for its “dinner.” It simply went there – automatically! But God gave man a mind capable of accumulating knowledge. It is a mind much like the mind of God, though limited in its capacity.
Almighty God, who created all life in all its myriad forms, set and planted that instinct within all the varied forms and species of animals.
There are five channels by which knowledge may come into the mind. At birth – you know absolutely nothing! The newborn infant would starve to death if it were not taken by the more intelligent parent and nursed! Oftentimes, though not always, the mother must even begin a type of sucking motion with the jaws of the child by manipulating its lower jaw in order to teach it the habit of nursing. This is not always true, but serves to illustrate the amazing fact that the greatest creation in the physical sphere – that of the human mind – has such a simple beginning!
Learning By Association
As a creature of habit, a baby begins to learn at the very instant of its birth! The way in which it first learns is by mere association. But these “associations” begin to form certain habits within the rapidly growing and developing mind of a newly born human baby. Let us understand the way in which the newborn child learns.
Very quickly, the baby becomes accustomed to the smell, the taste and sounds of its own mother. If the infant of only a very few weeks is hungry, and begins to cry for his food, it may be observed that he will oftentimes quit crying the moment he is picked up by his mother, because the sound of her reassuring voice, the feeling of her arms lifting him from his bassinet, and the smell of her own body has begun to become completely associated with the satisfying taste of her milk!
Perhaps you have seen cases where tiny babies have been reared in very quiet homes. It takes only the slightest dropping of the cover on the mailbox by the postman, or the barking of a dog to awaken the child from a mid-afternoon nap. This is true because the baby has become accustomed to living in a very quiet environment. If the child has been used to a noisy environment, such trivial sounds would never disturb him during his nap.
This factor of learning by association is so vitally important that it must be understood thoroughly.
Isn’t it a pity more parents do not understand this marvelous truth of association and thereby avoid so much that is extraneous and nonessential in attempting to get a child to obey their admonitions?
There are absolutely millions of parents today who do not know how to keep a child from becoming as destructive as a proverbial “bull in a china shop!”
They are completely helpless to keep their child from crawling about from one thing to another, turning over knick knacks, pulling doilies from tables, pulling out electric plugs, tearing up books and magazines, or any other of the one thousand and one different things a little crawling infant seems to “get into.” Myriad, countless, it seems, are the parents who have not the slightest glimpse of understanding as to how to cope with such a situation!
If they could realize their child is a creature of habit – habits which are formed by association and must be taught – much of the problem would be solved!
When Should You Begin
To Train Your Child?
A vitally important principle every parent needs to understand is that good habits must be constantly taught to the child, beginning at birth!
“‘Never too old to learn’ is truer in reverse. The further it is reversed, the truer it becomes. ‘Never too young to learn’ is the idea parents and nurses should always bear in mind. The more a behavior pattern is affixed to the primary, simple, unconditioned responses, the easier it is to establish firmly. That is to say, the sooner habits (good or bad) are inculcated, the more force they will have, the longer they will endure, the harder they will be to change.
“Then ‘just as the twig is bent,’ Pope said, ‘the tree’s inclin’d.’ This remark, with the one made by Robert Southwell in Loss in Delay, ‘tender twigs are bent with ease’ and ‘aged trees do break with bending,’ sums up the outstanding points in the story of man’s emotional background. If we allow our children to become twisted too far and wait for the prevailing winds and recurring storms of the world to force them into line after they are fully grown and stiffened in their individual patterns, they may break. A multitude of men and women do.” (As the Twig Is Bent, p. 22, Hohman)
Yes, the time to begin training children is much earlier than most parents think!
Unfortunately, not all writers on child training give such sound advice.
Because of the carnal nature in human beings, which is a nature tending to degenerate, rather than build up, it seems to be much simpler for children to acquire bad habits than it is to learn good ones. Hence, it appears that thumb-sucking, throwing dishes on the floor, or other habits are acquired only after two or three attempts, while it takes many months to teach a child to stay dry. The simple answer to this problem is that the carnal child learns much more quickly to do that which is pleasurable, that which satisfies the downward pull of his nature, that which is curious, interesting, and easy to do, rather than that which takes effort, concentration, and persistence.
It is much easier to obtain a bad habit than it is to acquire a good one!
Obviously, since the child repeats what he enjoys, it is good for parents to make interesting and enjoyable things which the child needs to acquire. However, when all is said and done, the child must learn to do that which is right, enjoyable or not!
Most parents assume their very tiny children are too young to teach. They believe they should wait until the child is old enough to “understand.” However, this excuse is often carried over into most of the pre-school years by many parents, resulting in a perfectly horrible little child who is rebellious, ill-mannered, disrespectful toward his elders, and generally destructive.
The truth is, it is impossible to begin too soon! A good slogan to remember is the one already quoted: “Never too young to learn!”
Learning By Imitating
Perhaps the second most important manner in which a very young child acquires certain habits is through mimicking and imitating others.
“Even simple reflexes… such as breathing, the movement of the hands, arms, legs, trunk, smiling and crying, soon show the effect of your training – soon become influenced by the kind of life you force your child to lead.
“But you may ask, aren’t there more complex inherited forms of behavior which appear later as instincts? Aren’t such activities such as climbing, imitation, emulation and rivalry, pugnacity, anger, resentment, sympathy, hunting, fear, appropriation, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, play, curiosity, sociability, shyness, cleanliness, modesty, shame, love, jealousy, parental love, and all of these pure instincts which appear and run their course completely beyond the control of the parents? Surely, these things are not dependent upon the way I let my child grow up. Most of the older psychologists would agree with you. The behaviorist believed, too, when he began his work, that some of these acts would spring forth fully formed. But we waited for their appearance in vain. Now we are forced to believe from the study of facts that all of these forms of behavior are built in by the parents and by the environment which the parent allows the child to grow up in. There are no instincts. We build in at an early age everything that is later to appear” (Psychological Care of the Infant and Child, pp. 37-38, Watson).
As has been previously outlined, human beings know nothing at birth. They must acquire, through the channels of the five senses, everything they come to know. One of the major ways in which every human being learns is by mimicking, imitating others.
This method of learning is so powerful, so intense that it follows us all through our lives – often guiding and ruling our every action, our customs and our habits, even as mature adults.
Parents who are raucous, disagreeing, and show they are frequently upset with one another are going to find they will have children who will also become raucous, disagreeable and given to temper displays and angry outbursts. It also logically follows that parents with bad table manners, unclean personal habits, resentment toward authority, inherent laziness or any number of hundreds of similar frailties and faults are presenting a constant, powerful influence over their children to develop these same habits.
Understanding this broad field of imitation as a means of child training, it should become immediately clear that parents have the very important responsibility of setting the right example before their children!
