A Word to Parents

How should parents so act towards their children as to be honoured and reverenced by them?

(1) Be careful to bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord. 'Bring them up in the admonition of the Lord.' Eph 6:4. You conveyed the plague of sin to them, therefore endeavour to get them healed and sanctified. Augustine says that his mother, Monica, travailed more for his spiritual birth than his natural. Timothy's mother instructed him from a child. 2 Tim 3:15. She not only gave him her breast-milk, but 'the sincere milk of the word.' Season your children with good principles betides, that they may, with Obadiah, fear the Lord from their youth. 1 Kings 18:12. When parents instruct not their children, they seldom prove blessings. God often punishes the carelessness of parents with undutifulness in their children. It is not enough that in baptism your child is dedicated to God, but it must be educated for him. Children are young plants which you must be continually watering with good instruction. 'Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' Prov 22:6. The more your children fear God, the more they will honour you.

(2) If you would have your children honour you, keep up parental authority: be kind, but do not spoil them. If you let them get too much ahead, they will condemn you instead of honouring you. The rod of discipline must not be withheld. 'Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.' Prov 23:14. A child indulged and humoured in wickedness, will be a thorn in the parent's eye. David spoiled Adonijah. 'His father had not displeased him at any time, in saying, Why hast thou done so?' 1 Kings 1:6, 7, 9. Afterwards he became a grief of heart to his father, and was false to the crown. Keep up your authority, and you keep up your honour.

(3) Provide for your children what is fitting, both in their minority and when they come to maturity. 'The children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.' 2 Cor 12:14. They are your own flesh and, as the apostle says, 'No man ever yet hated his own flesh.' Eph 5:29. The parents' bountifulness will cause dutifulness in the child. If you pour water into a pump, the pump will send water again out freely; so, if parents pour in something of their estate to their children, children worthy of the name will pour out obedience again to their parents.

(4) When your children are grown up, put them to some lawful calling, wherein they may serve their generation. It is good to consult the natural genius and inclination of a child, for forced callings do as ill, sometimes, as forced matches. To let a child be out of a calling, is to expose him to temptation. Melanchthon says, Odium balneum diaboli [Idleness is the devil's pleasure resort]. A child out of a calling is like fallow ground; and what can you expect should grow up but weeds of disobedience.

(5) Act lovingly to your children. In all your counsels and commands let them read love. Love will command honour; and how can a parent but love the child who is his living picture, nay, part of himself. The child is the father in the second edition.

(6) Act prudently towards your children. It is a great point of prudence in a parent not to provoke his children to wrath. 'Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged.' Col 3:21.

~~Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity.