When giving instructions or commands, say what you mean and mean what you say. If you give orders in a nagging fashion, you teach your child how to disobey, for he knows he can ignore your command and you will oblige by repeating it. But he will not tarry if you demonstrate that your words are backed by action. Of course, many times it may be wise to give a reason for a certain command or restriction. You may feel that you do not have to give your child a reason for your orders, but remember this: By understanding why a certain course is wise or foolish, your child will have good reason to choose the wise course when you are not present. Notice how the Bible frequently gives the reason why a course is good or bad. Copy that good example.—Prov. 23:20, 21; 24:15, 16, 19, 20.

When your child takes the foolish course, in spite of your good counsel, remember Proverbs 22:15: “Foolishness is tied up with the heart of a boy; the rod of discipline is what will remove it far from him.” Jehovah urges you not to hold back discipline from a mere boy. (Prov. 23:13, 14) You know when your child is out of line, and very likely he knows it too. As one delinquent told a reporter: “I never got a whipping, although, actually, I often felt I should have.” Do not irritate your children by constantly changing the “rules” or punishing a disobedient act one day and not the next. Copy Jehovah. Live up to your word, be consistent and discipline out of love.—Prov. 13:24; Heb. 12:6.

In these critical times when many are without natural affection it is important that your child know he is loved and wanted. (2 Tim. 3:3) When you lay down reasonable restrictions as to right company and late hours and strictly enforce your wishes you show that you are a loving parent that really cares. Your love is felt, though perhaps not appreciated at the moment, when you insist that your child always ask permission to go somewhere and that he tell you with whom he is going. Time and again it is found that when children get into trouble, such as shoplifting, their parents have no idea where they are. If you care, you will make it your business to know. You will also teach your child to stay away from anyone who would induce him by ridicule or coercion to go against the wish of his God or his parents. Teach him that his reputation with God is the one that really counts. If adversity strikes your family, turn it to advantage by showing your child how to draw close to God for comfort and guidance. All this is part of the priceless training of your child in the way he must go for everlasting life.—Prov. 22:6.

If you have given your child the Kingdom as his goal, if you have taught him to look to God’s Word for guidance and have trained him to handle responsibility, he will see that vandalism, theft, immorality and any other form of delinquency are all things that can take him off the road leading to life. (Matt. 7:14) Keep delinquency out of your home by running it in strict harmony with Jehovah’s authoritative advice. “By wisdom a household will be built up, and by discernment it will prove firmly established.”—Prov. 24:3.

Minister’s Complaint

After finishing a week in attendance late this spring at a conference of the United Church of Canada, minister J. A. Davidson wrote a column in the Toronto Globe and Mail complaining about “all those pious resolutions.” He noted from discussions with Anglican, Baptist and Presbyterian friends “that in assemblies of their churches the multiplicity of pious resolutions have a similar mind-and-heart-numbing force.” He recommended that “a day or two could be profitably spent in meditation on the dictum of Bishop Stephen Neill: ‘If I were not already a Christian and a churchman, I think that what more than anything else would keep me back from accepting the responsibilities of church membership would be the apparently irredeemable triviality of the churches.’”