Responsibilities Of Children

Parents must provide the Godly framework of authority that children are to respond to for their own short and long term good. Children need a firm structure of authority. They need right and wrong clearly defined. They need limits set. They need sturdy fences of discipline built. These fences need to be strong and non-yielding. Only within such a moral framework can children find the real security, protection and safety they seek. A child may and will push against the fence and test it. But down deep inside he wants to know the parents authority will stand firm and that he can always depend upon it.

One of the most fulfilling and rewarding experiences of my life was to serve as the Pastor and Principal of a twelve grade Christian School for ten years. This Christian School had a very structured and disciplined approach to Christian Education. When new students came into our school from the relatively indisciplined atmosphere of state or other private schools, their behavior was usually clearly predictable. A time would come when they would push strongly against the "fences of discipline" placed around them. Our response was always loving, but firm and non-yielding. After the test, they would normally happily settle into the loving and disciplined atmo- sphere of our school and become committed to the Christian philosophy and principles of behavior involved.

CHILDREN ARE RESPONSIBLE TO RESPOND OBEDIENTLY TO THEIR PARENTS AT ALL TIMES AND DO RIGHT BECAUSE IT IS RIGHT. I do not think it is unfair to say that we are surrounded by a generation of young people who are doing right in their own eyes. It seems quite obvious we have produced a generation of youth who have swallowed the philosophy of relativism that permeates our world, hook, line and sinker. In general, they despise their mothers, mock their fathers and are without discipline or respect for anything. Teachers in state and private schools are abandoning their time honored roles out of pure desperation and sheer exhaustion. I taught my last scripture classes in state schools nearly twenty years ago. Even at that time it was virtually impossible to have enough quite and order to successfully teach ten minutes. I am told that today it is much worse.

Who has failed? Children? No! We have failed them. Children need to be taught to obey. The learning of obedience is to begin in the home. Why are they to obey? Simply because it is right! Children are to learn to obey for their own good. In obeying their parents, they are obeying God. In obeying their parents, they are allowing them to exercise their more mature parental wisdom and take responsibility for the welfare of their children. In obeying their parents, they can look forward to God's short term and long term blessings upon their life. In obeying their parents, they have set themselves an example that will stand them in good stead in life. In later years they can say to their own children, "I found that being obedient to my parents has brought me lifelong rewards and well being. I am thankful God gave me Christian parents and called me to obey them." Perhaps this would be good to close with: