Friday: Further Thought ~ Season of Parenting

Further Study: “You should take time to talk and pray with your little ones, and you should allow nothing to interrupt that season of communion with God and with your children. You can say to your visitors, ‘God has given me a work to do, and I have no time for gossiping’. You should feel that you have a work to do for time and for eternity. You owe your first duty to your children”. – Ellen G. White, The Adventist Home, pages 266, 267.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“Parents, you should commence your first lesson of discipline when your children are babes in your arms. Teach them to yield their will to yours. This can be done by bearing an even hand, and manifesting firmness. Parents should have perfect control over their own spirits, and with mildness and yet firmness bend the will of the child until it shall expect nothing else but to yield to their wishes. Parents do not commence in season. The first manifestation of temper is not subdued, and the children grow stubborn, which increases with their growth and strengthens with their strength”. – Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 1, p. 218.

Discussion Questions:

What does it mean to be a “child” of God? How are we to understand that image, and what comfort can we draw from it?
One father, soon after his children were born, said the following: “I’ve learned two great theological truths within the first few years after my children were born. The first is the reality of free will; the second, the reality of sinful human nature”. How might young children have taught him these truths?
When is the appropriate time to help shape the will of children? How should this be done? How can we shape the will of our children according to God’s plan when we have not fully submitted ourselves to His will? Dwell more on the question of single parenthood.
What are practical ways that your church, as a whole, can help single parents and the children they are seeking to raise on their own?
What are ways to encourage parents whose children have strayed from the faith?

Amen!