Posted in Train Up A Child Thursday
Call Waiting
1 Samuel 3:19 "Thus Samuel grew and the Lord was with him and let none of His words fail.'
Even before Lukas was born, we started taking parenting classes. I wanted to be as prepared as possible! The first class we did was a Growing Kids God's Way class, in which we learned mountains of useful information. One of the most basic things we learned, that we still practice practice practice to this day is to train our children to first time obedience. It's an uphill battle! We have never counted to 3 and tried very hard not to fall into the "threatening repeating" trap, we don't bribe or cajole. We give an instruction one time and expect it to be obeyed the first time.
Even with this high standard in place, the day to day operation of this sometimes gets...murky! About 5 years ago, I heard Carla Link (http://www.momsnotes.com) give a lecture in which she gave some very practical ways to help teach our kids FTO. She turned to the account of Samuel hearing from the Lord for the first time in the book of 1 Samuel and applied it to our child training.
In 1 Samuel Chapter 3, we see that while Samuel was in bed, he heard his name called. What did Samuel do? Did he lie there and shout "WHAT?" to Eli?? No, he got out of bed, went to Eli and said "Here I am, for you called me." Twice more, this happened. Surely by the third time, Samuel could have been forgiven if he had called from bed "Are you calling me this time?" But no, each time he heard his name called, he got out of bed and went to his mentor and said the same thing each time "Here I am, for you called me."
Carla encouraged us to teach our own children to do this. I call my child. WAIT. I expect my child to stop what he is doing and Come To Me. I do not give instructions until I am looking into those sweet baby blues. Or browns! This one little thing has made such the difference in our home. It teaches our children that when we call, it's for a reason, it teaches them to show honor and respect by putting aside their own activity to come to the call of their parent, and it removes the need for that question "Did you hear me?????"
So. Are my children perfect at this? No. Do I have to work at it every day? Yes. Even the older ones' who know better still need a bit of retraining to bump them back up to the standard. But once they are trained to the standard, it's easier and quicker to bring the back up to it when they inevitably start to slide. I love this concept! Just thought I'd share =)
Over at Everyday Me...life as it happens blog, Sallie has started a meme on Training up our children under Christ's guidance. Come join us!
Posted by Anonymous
