Teach Your Children Well

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. Deuteronomy 6:7

The Charlotte Mecklenberg school system has increased the school day by 45 minutes.  It was mainly for financial reasons, but they also think it might be a way to improve their standing among other school systems.  They figure a longer school day might be the key to an excellent education.  I've read that the real key to a excellent education is "excellent teachers enthusiastically imparting superior subject matter to students who have been motivated at home."

As parents and grandparents, we have little say in choosing teachers and curriculum, but we have everything to do with seeing that our kids get motivated at home; which should include teaching respect for teachers and classmates and proper behavior. 

As Christian parents, home motivation should also include teaching basic Christian priciples, like prayer.  So many Christians are apalled that prayer is not allowed in our schools these days, but that's just not true.  The really great thing about our faith is that we can pray anytime, anywhere for anything and nobody needs to even know about it.  If we are teaching our children to pray, then there is indeed plenty of prayer in our schools.

Unfortunately, so many of our children do not know how to pray.  And they don't know the 10 commandments.  And they don't know about David and Goliath or Joseph and his coat of many colors or even the Nativity story.

Should we lengthen the Sunday school week?  Or should we place the responsibility squarely into the hands of those to whom it belongs?... the family.  DO you talk about your faith when you sit at home?  Do you talk about it with your children when you are in the car going from place to place?  Do you have prayer with them in the morning and family devotions at night?  If not, YOU just might be the reason there is no prayer in the school... NOT Madelyn Murray O'Hare.

If you want your children to have a good education, we really don't need longer school days, we just need parents who really truly want their children to have a good education... parents who are involved... who volunteer at the schools, take an interest in what their children are learning and supplement it with activities at home and teach them how to get along with their peers and school authorities.

If we want our children to grow up to be good Christian men and women, then we need to spend just as much time working on that as well.  Sunday school and confirmation might give them some of the basic information, but it is the family that teaches them to live it.

Lord God,

Help us to teach our children at home.  Not just their secular education, but more importantly, their Christian education.  If we do not pray at home with our children, how can we expect them to pray at school?  Teach us to teach our children to pray.  Amen.

Joys: Richard at home for a few days; scented candles; Friday