The Duties of Parents: Parenting Your Children God's Way [Updated, Annotated]

by J.C. Ryle

Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long-suffering, forbearance, patience, and sympathy are the cords by which a child may be led most easily.

Something in all our minds rises in arms against compulsion; we brace our backs and stiffen our necks at the very idea of a forced obedience. We are like young horses in the hand of a broncobuster. When he handles them with kindness and makes much of them, he can eventually guide them with a thread, but if he treats them roughly and violently, it will be many months before he gets the mastery of them.

Children’s minds are cast in much the same mold as our own. Sternness and severity of manner chill them and set them back. It shuts up their hearts, and you will weary yourself to find the door. But let them see that you have an affectionate feeling towards them and that you really desire to make them happy and do them good, so that if you punish them, they know it is intended for their well-being.

He gives your children a mind that will receive impressions like moldable moist clay. He gives them a disposition at the beginning of life to believe what you tell them, to take for granted what you advise them, and to trust your word rather than a stranger’s. In short, He gives you a golden opportunity of doing them good. See that the opportunity is not neglected and thrown away. Once it slips away, it is gone forever.

Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about praying. Don’t let it be your fault if they never call on the name of the Lord.

Teach them to obey while they are young, or they will be fretting against God all their lives long and will wear themselves out with the vain idea of being independent of His control.

Beware of letting small faults pass unnoticed with the idea that it is a little thing. There are no little things in training children; all are important. Little weeds need plucking up as much as any others do. Leave them alone, and they will soon be great.

“To give children good instruction and a bad example is beckoning to them with the head to show them the way to heaven, while we take them by the hand and lead them in the way to hell.”

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Even so, the parent who tries to train without setting a good example is building with one hand and pulling down with the other.