What Are You Training Your Child For?
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. – Proverbs 22:6
As I was preparing for our most recent series, The Middle, which is all about parenting I came across a very interesting article written back in the 1950′s by a representative of the Houston Police Department. The Department had commissioned a study on the rising problem of juvenile crime, and after the findings came out they published an article called “How To Raise The Perfect Juvenile Delinquent”, in which they gave 12 things that you could do or not do that would virtually guarantee your child would end up getting into trouble with the law.
I’ve taken the liberty of shortening the list to 7 and updating them a little bit. As you read through ask yourself if you’re doing any of these or if you need to stop doing some of these!
- Begin with infancy to give your child everything they want. That way they will grow up believing that the world owes them everything
- When they pick up bad words or a disrespectful attitude, make sure you laugh at them. This will make them realize that bad behavior is cute.
- At all costs avoid using the words “no” and “wrong”. These could crush their spirit and may cause a guilt complex. This will condition them to believe later, when they are arrested or fired, that society is against them and they are being persecuted.
- Pick up everything they leave laying around. Do everything for them so that they will be experienced at leaving all their responsibilities to others.
- Let them read, listen to, or google anything they want. Please ensure that they have a balanced and healthy diet of food, but allow their minds to feast on all kinds of garbage.
- Always take their side against neighbors, teachers, and any authority. They, of course, are prejudiced against your child.
- When they get into real trouble, apologize for yourself by simply saying, “I never could do anything with them!”
