Why Children Matter

by Douglas Wilson

Since the family was not invented by us in the first place, we do not get to reinvent it. For this reason, parents must beware of treating the family as something cobbled together and managed with techniques developed by experts. So you should not begin this small book by thinking that it is a collection of clever techniques for getting the perfect family. Each person in the family is a being made in the image of God, and if we are to manage the family properly, we must heed God’s Word as our first and most important guide. That includes treating all the people in the family as though they were people, not place-holding counters.

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Imitation is absolutely crucial for childrearing. You do not want your children imitating you unless you are imitating God.

He wants us to grow up. He does not want to smother us or suffocate us with a relationship that we cannot get out of.

Ironically, when parents bring up their children with a godly, biblical independence in view, their children actually want to spend time with them when they are grown up. Your purpose as parents is ultimately to be the instrument of your children’s salvation. You are not the ground of their salvation, but you are commanded to imitate the One who is the ground of their salvation.

So, the sacrifices that you will make for your children should be something you can sing over. If there is not a song in it, it is not a biblical sacrifice.

Life is messier than that, and the whole thing—including the mess—should be met with a song.

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Imitate that. The environment of your home should be full of grace. When you have a home filled with grace, it is not without standards. You are not introducing moral anarchy. Grace is not an amorphous, gelatinous mass. Grace has a backbone. However, when the standards are broken, the heaviest sacrifices in the work of restoration are made by the guardians of grace, not by enforcers of law, finger-pointers, parental accusers, or people who correct in a nasal tone of self-pity.

We should correct children for their sakes, not for our own.

God does not spank the neighbors’ children: He spanks His own.

First, discipline is not punishment. Discipline has correction in view, while punishment has justice and retribution in view.

Parents (particularly with small children) ought not to be thinking in terms of judgment or retribution at all.

Second, make sure that you discipline not with many rules but rather with a few principles.

Remember that God gave Adam and Eve a perfect garden: there was a world full of yes, and there was only one no. Minimize the number of no’s in your home.

If your kid’s life is chronic pain all the time thanks to your carping and their disobedience, with periodic moments of acute pain which you call “discipline,” their response to discipline will be something like, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.” A child who does not want to go back into the garden of fellowship is likely living outside the garden all the time.

the kingdom of man. What happens in the Christian school family or in the homeschool community is not supposed to be happening in isolation.

Snapping at your children at the dinner table is much worse than playing with your potatoes with a knife.

are going to get rid of in a yard sale. The vase is. You are not teaching the child to be a good version of what they are. You are rather teaching them to be what they are becoming. What are you going to be?

For example, a father with a secret porn habit cannot be shocked to discover that his son develops the same problem, even if his son never saw his father doing it. What is happening is that the father is granting some form of covenantal permission.

This means that love is relevant everywhere. This explains why if we detach love from whatever it is we are doing, the result is spiritual bankruptcy. If I have mastered all the parenting techniques but have not love, I am nothing.

You should try to get them to do it afterwards, or you should prepare them ahead of time, instead of guilt-tripping the kids.

If you reduce all the commands by ninety percent, now it’s easier to win every time.

time. For a two-year-old, one of them should be, “No fussing,” and you should make sure that you use the same word every time.

When we went to the grocery store, I reminded them on the way of three rules: no asking for stuff, no touching anything, and stay with me.

Suppose your daughter is nineteen years old and she wants to go out with some schmo, and you say no.

if she's 19, she's an adult, and it should be a non-issue

kid. Hands should be associated with care, protection, feeding, and loving, not attacking.

For girls, it’s a danger sign if they get clingy.

The little girl is feeling unlovely because she’s not been loved, and she sees herself as gangly, a nuisance, or an irritation, and is insecure about it. The more insecure she is about it, the more she needs attention, and the more she needs attention and love, the more she fishes for male attention.

We always made a point of not insisting that “You must stay home” or “It’s gotta be here,” but having it be the kind of place where the kids would want to have the fun be.