I Like Dogs

As humans, we learn what we live. As you can see, I was carefully and lovingly introduced to dogs early in my life and so I love them.

As parents we generally pass on our likes and our fears to our children...unless we know this fact and are careful not to let our children see those fears. I'm talking more about phobias, I suppose. For example, I was always terribly afraid of lightning. I knew I was overly afraid. Thank goodness, something brought that to mind the first time lightning struck when I was in front of my first graders as a new teacher. I did something I had never been able to do before...hide my fear. I hadn't planned ahead of time. Hadn't even thought about it. If I had shown that fear, I could have ended up with a whole class of frightened little children.

Parents are not the only ones who influence the growth and development of children, there are relatives, neighbors, teachers, TV, etc. As parents we need to be aware of all these influences and be careful to what we expose young children in their impressionable years. When mothers have to go off to work and trust their children to others, they should be particularly interested in the character of those caregivers.

And when it is time for them to go off to school... we need to know the character of the teachers and even the other students in the class. If they ride a bus, we must know what is allowed to happen on that vehicle.

Some would say it is over protective to want such knowledge. It is not. Children to learn what they live.

If your children are learning from their schools different values from yours at home, you need to know. If for some reason there is no way to protect them from that influence, they need to be taught extra well at home the fallacy of whatever it is they are exposed to at school. Then of course it comes down to which person they have more faith in, you or the other person. If you love them tenderly and give them a good example from early on, they will probably choose you over another.

Our children are more important to us that anything. They are more important to the growth of our nation that anything. Protect your children and pray for God's protection as well.

"Train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not turn from it." Proverbs 22:6