Teaching Mamas

Psalm 25 is one of my favorites! Over and over it says that God will teach us. God is my teacher!  That's very reassuring to me! Number one, I need a lot of teaching. I'm glad God expects me to need teaching and knows I don't know it all. Number two, well, there is no number two. 

And you know what? Mamas are teachers too. Regardless of how you school your children it is one of your responsibilities to teach them. I feel that this concept is largely missing from most people's ideas about parenting. And it shows. Some of these children who ride our bus to church don't know anything practical! 

photo courtesy of stuart miles/freedigitalphotos.net

I love being able to stay home with my children! If I weren't here all day my time with them would be very limited. I would not have time to teach them all the things that I wanted. I usually feel like I'm running out of time now. 

The wonderful thing about teaching our children is that we have to spend time with them to teach them! They need our time and attention and our training. 

So teach those babies. 
Teach them about Jesus.
Teach them the books of the Bible. 
Teach them to pray. 
Teach them to make bread. 
Teach them to do laundry. 
Teach them to ride a bike. 
Teach them to play the piano. 
Teach them to be kind. 
Teach them to work hard. 
Teach them to love Jesus. 
Teach them to help others. 
Teach them to garden. 
Teach them to dice an onion. 
Teach them to shoot a basketball.
Teach them whatever your "thing" is. 
Teach them everything you can possibly find time to teach them. 

Why don't we teach our kids? 

1. We're too impatient. We can do it faster ourselves. True. Do you know how much longer it takes to vacuum if the three-year-old is helping? Just try it yourself. But it's worth the result. I want my little boy to love spending time with me, to love to work, and to know how to vacuum (or whatever we're doing.) 

2. We have the wrong priorities. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to make our children as comfortable (spoiled) as possible. We aren't their servants. They don't need to be waited on. But we can be determined to make them miserable as adults by never teaching them to do anything for themselves. We are here to teach our children to be effective servants for Christ. Lazy is not in the definition. 

3. It takes too long. Sound the same as number one? It's not. Rarely does a small child learn to do something the first time you show them. You have to do it s-l-o-w-l-y over and over every day. 

4. We're too busy doing other things. What is more important than preparing your children to grow up and serve God? I can clear up my priorities really quickly by asking myself that question.  I don't want to just park them in front of the tv all day. Or park myself in front of the computer all day. 

Invest in their lives; the payoff will be worth it. 

Yes, you are a mom. But you are also a teacher.