Guide Your Goslings
Theme for the Week: Spiritual Direction for Your family
James Dobson
Sunday, July 15, 2001
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Key Bible Verse: Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it (Proverbs 22:6).
Bonus Reading: Deuteronomy 4:9
Shortly after [a gosling] hatches from his shell he becomes attached, or "imprinted," to the first thing he sees moving near himordinarily the mother goose, on hand to hatch the new generation. The gosling is vulnerable to imprinting for only a few seconds after he hatches; if that opportunity is lost, it can't be regained later.
There's also a critical period in the life of children when concepts of right and wrong are formulated and views of God begins to solidify. The opportunity must be seized while available. Parents who withhold indoctrination from their small children, allowing them to "decide for themselves," almost guarantee that their youngsters will "decide" in the negative. Parents who want their kids to have a meaningful faith must give up misguided attempts at objectivity.
After about age 15, children sometimes resent heavy-handedness about anything including what to believe. But if the early exposure has been properly conducted, they have an anchor to steady them.
James Dobson in Solid Answers
Enable me, dear Father, to plant the feet of the children You've entrusted to me firmly in Your paths.
Adapted from: Solid Answers (Tyndale, 1997)
For your convenience, Solid Answers is available in the ChristianityToday.com bookstore.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
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Enable me, dear Father, to plant the feet of the children You've entrusted to me firmly in Your paths.
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