Tender. What a precious word picture of a father and child. As a parent I can think of lots of other words that come to mind when teaching a child and some of them not so tender--like frustration and exasperation. So how do we make sure our training of our child is tender?
My mother used to tell the story of how when we were young and she had a switch for when we were naughty. She kept one at either end of the house and when she thought we needed some training on our derrière she would walk to the one farthest away to give herself some cooling off time. I think that's a good mentality for any training. When those not-so-tender emotions rise to the surface take a step back to remind ourselves that we want to be tender.
This lends itself to other areas in life too. What about when we're training a new employee or helping out a co-worker? The earlier part of this verse says to not provoke them to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment]. While this is so important to keep in mind while raising children it too bleeds over into life outside the home. I'm picturing the rush hour drive home. Maybe I can be more generous about letting that person waiting to enter the fray in ahead of me.
I don't want to forget the second half of the verse--the part about what we are teaching our children. The greatest lessons are learned in the home. What dad and mom teach by their lives about God are the ones a child will learn well. How dad responds to that D on a report card or how mom responds to siblings fighting will carry more weight than the Bible stories a teacher in kids church will tell.
We can do this and we can do it well. Tenderly. I'm going to be more intentional about making sure that adjective can be spoken of me.
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