Sabbath: Season of Parenting
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Read for This Week’s Study: Gen. 18:11; Jer. 31:25; Matt. 11:28; Psalm 127:1-5; Prov. 22:6; 1 Sam. 3:10-14; Phil. 3:13.
Memory Text: “Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward” (Psalm 127:3, NKJV).
Births are such a common, normal occurrence that often we don’t always fully appreciate the wonder that they are. Imagine what Eve must have felt holding baby Cain in her arms. The changes she experienced in her growing body during those months, the excruciating pain of childbirth, and then seeing this small child, so much like them, yet so defenseless. What an experience it must have been for Sarah, in her 90s and way past childbearing age, to contemplate upon the face of her own son, Isaac; she must have laughed every time she pronounced his name. After praying for a son for who knows how long, Hannah held Samuel and said, “For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition which I asked of Him” (1 Sam. 1:27, NKJV). The wonder in Mary’s heart, still a young girl, cuddling her son, God’s Son, with a combination of amazement and fear.
At the same time, not everyone has the privilege, and responsibility, that comes with parenting. This week we will spend time exploring the season of parenting with its challenges, fears, satisfaction, and joy.
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, May 25.
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Deuteronomy 6:6-7 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. [7] Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
•• The home is the primary training environment. The church is only a helper to you in the accomplishing of your primary responsibility.
•• We parents are entrusted with taking our children from 0% to 100% responsibility for their lives.
•• Home is the ideal place for children to:
• learn to get along with others
• learn work skills, social skills, manners, good attitudes, and much, much more.
•• Home is where parents model being a Christian and, in turn, present to their children the knowledge and practical opportunities to develop that in their own lives.
•• One thing Christian parents must not do, and that is to believe the ancient saying that it "takes a village" to raise a child. Absolutely not! The "village" around you — often unsaved neighbors, secular government-run schools, ungodly media, and the like — cannot be allowed to have significant influence on your children. Otherwise, they will steadily erode the biblical values and truths that you parents are building into your children. It is not wise, or even possible, to isolate your children totally from the outside world. But faithfully fulfill your responsibility as parents to ground them in biblical values and character formation. Then they will be increasingly ready to face the carnality of our secular cultures and will be a positive influence rather than becoming victims of worldly value systems.
Ephesians 6:4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
•• Parents — including Dads! — it is your responsibility to ensure that your children know and serve the Lord.
• Bible reading (more on that below) ... prayer at meals, at bedtimes, for needs ... relating the Lord to their everyday lives and activities.
•• A lady in our church, who raised three godly daughters to adulthood, shared this wisdom with me. She said be sure to expose children continually to the presence of the Lord. We can do that in a variety of ways, including:
• Be part of a good, Bible-believing, worshiping Sda.., and teach your children to love being “in church”.
• Spend devotional time with them personally. Pray with them, read the Bible with them.
• Let your home be filled with Christian music. Sing to the Lord with your children. Teach them worship songs.
•• Don’t “exasperate” your children. Home is not a Marine boot camp! Rigid, harsh parenting will often lead to rebellion rather than the desired results.
•• But do present to them, day after day, in a positive and encouraging way, the “training and instruction of the Lord”
My Brother, kindly elaborate how we can teach our children to love church.
The fruit of the womb
Here I hold a baby, baby Cain I hold;
baby Hitler and Bin Laden I hold;
Where did I go wrong?
A good baby at birth but a gangster, a robber and a thief at the end;
Where did I go wrong?
A defenceless child at birth but a murderer ,a serial killer and an arsonist at the end;
Where did I go wrong?
A tiny child at birth but a warlord, a terrorist at the end;
Where did I go wrong?
A child so much like me but a harlmot, an abortionist at the end;
Where did I go wrong?
A child I prayed for but a drug addict, a corrupt person at the end;
Where did I go wrong?
I am cuddling a son and a daughter,
Their future I don't know, but God knows.
Where did I go wrong?
A poem by;
Cyrus.
The lesson writer points us to how we ought to raise our children as Christian's in a goldly way however I have seen cases where children have been brought up properly but along the way they just mess up and some end up becoming drug addicts and alcoholics...I wonder whats happens!
Lesson 8 is entitled “Season of Parenting.”
To what extent do our Christian beliefs determine our parenting style?
Do we model our parenting methods on Biblical examples?
How much influence does culture (and the way we were raised) have on our parenting approach?
Researchers have identified four types of parenting styles:
1.
AUTHORITARIAN PARENTING
In this parenting style, parents believe that children should follow the rules without exception.
Children of authoritarian parents are at a higher risk of developing self-esteem problems because their opinions aren't valued.
They may also become hostile or aggressive.
2. AUTHORITATIVE PARENTING
In this parenting style, the parents are nurturing, responsive, and supportive, yet set firm limits for their children.
Children raised with this style tend to be friendly, energetic, cheerful, self-reliant, self-controlled, curious, cooperative and achievement-oriented.
3. PERMISSIVE PARENTING (Examples: Eli and Samuel)
In this parenting style, parents are warm, but lax.
They fail to set firm limits, to monitor children's activities closely or to require appropriately mature behavior of their children.
Children raised with this parenting style tend to be impulsive, rebellious, aimless, domineering, aggressive and low in self-reliance, self-control and achievement.
4. UNINVOLVED PARENTING
In this parenting style, parents are unresponsive, unavailable and rejecting.
Children raised with this parenting style tend to have low self-esteem and little self-confidence. They tend to seek other, sometimes inappropriate, role models to substitute for the neglectful parent.
Train up a child in the way he should go.......proverbs 6:22 we should not let our children without biblical guidance in this world of sin, we have to do our part as parents then God will do the rest, in this way their blood will not be required upon us