Watch and Pray

The fact that your child went to school and began to spend more time learning new sciences does not mean that parents have fulfilled their duty, and now let others take care of raising your child. Any subject and any science brings something new into the student's life, changes their thinking and establishes them in what they study, so that for the rest of their life they can apply the knowledge they have received.

The most important and direct obligation of parents is to get ahead of all teachers and instill in children the principles of God's law and form their opinion based on the truth of God's word. This is not done in one conversation. Such upbringing begins from the moment of birth and moves into an active phase during the period when the child begins to reason logically and understand what they are told.

We are in a spiritual war not only for our minds, but also for the minds of our children. The enemy of the soul has set his nets everywhere and waits in ambush, seeking idle and curious souls.

Your children's new school friends and the school program are new opportunities for the forces of darkness to find a loophole into the young student's mind and sow seeds of sin in them. But children of believing parents, in addition to the school program, should also receive spiritual education.

It is good when the school is a church project and its leadership understands all the responsibility for the education and upbringing of the children who have entered it. But even teachers dedicated to God do not remove from parents the responsibility for spiritual home education, which should not end, but on the contrary, can become more complex.

Parents should soberly approach the assessment system adopted in the world, which is present in all schools. Grades divide students into excellent students, good students, and poor students and are not always objective. They may depend on the teacher's biased opinion or evaluate the result of a completed assignment without considering the student's efforts and their thirst for knowledge.

Although the modern education system has adopted the practice of evaluating knowledge and abilities, this should not be made the goal and meaning of education. By and large, when further choosing a life path and creating a family, it is not so important what grades you had in school.

Not all children of the same age are the same in perceiving the curriculum. Some have not yet formed biochemical processes in their minds and they simply do not perceive the information they receive and physically cannot keep up with those who catch everything on the fly. Classmates immediately notice those who lag behind and the enemy of the soul begins to divide the class into smart and foolish. And, as a rule, those who lag behind the school program get used to the position of an outsider and do not strive to improve their skills in order to occupy a higher social status. And even if they succeed at something, the established public opinion is not so easy to change.

Parental love and their wise approach to the child's academic achievements become powerful protection from all kinds of segregation.

Segregation is the division of society into separate social layers and groups, which leads to inequality and discrimination of lower layers by higher ones.

All children and their parents should understand their true price, paid for them at Golgotha, which makes all people equal in God's eyes and does not divide society into favorites and outcasts.

Parental love in trusting relationships protects young students in all cases and helps them have high self-esteem and hold themselves with dignity, despite the opinion of others. It is very important for children how their peers perceive them and they can clearly see which social stratum they belong to.

Any wise teacher can quickly identify the leader in the class and those who depend on others' opinions and adapt to the mood of those around them. But not every teacher will use this knowledge to bring students to unity in love and friendship. Unfortunately, other laws reign in the world.

God is interested in His children and their children being protected from evil in any society and in any situation. He is very attentive to everything that happens in families dedicated to Him and hears all prayers that are daily offered to the Throne of grace, to which He gives an answer.

If in preschool age, parents kept their children under constant observation and knew what was happening in the lives of the little ones, then when sending children to school, they can no longer control their behavior and will be able to assess the situation only from the students' stories.

Parents' prayer teaches their children to rely on God in all matters, to receive wisdom and strength from Him, to be under constant God's protection, and to understand that they are special and not of this world.

Trusting conversations open to father and mother the whole picture of their child's life outside the home, about their experiences and successes. And it is important for parents to show their interest in everything that happens in their child's life and give their assessment of various events, guided by Biblical principles. While father and mother are an unconditional authority for the child, they will always listen to the opinion of these loving people and take the next step, considering their parents' point of view.

Parents need to watch over what happens in the hearts of growing children and in prayer ask for special wisdom for gentle instruction.

God is in alliance with praying parents and gives such families much more good and protection from evil than those who neglect prayer and studying God's will.

Parents should understand that morning joint prayer and inspiration for a new day are much more important than all school grades and academic success. Father and mother prepare their children for Eternal Life, so that their little people make the right choice at the right time and dedicate themselves to serving God. It is important for parents to set the right priorities and convey to their children's consciousness what is more important and better in this life, and what is only an addition and temporary in nature.

In addition to the school program, children need to be taught lessons of faith, love, happiness, and friendship. They also need to be given wise instructions on financial literacy and prepared for the happiness of future family life, taught to prepare tasty and healthy food. Children need to be given instructions about independent entrepreneurial activity and instilled with practical skills in useful work and in demanded spheres of service to society. Attention should also be paid to musical education and physical activity.

If a child does not understand everything in chemistry or does not keep up in biology, but at the same time knows how to prepare healthy food from available products and has many friends, then they will have more wonderful prospects in the future than one who sits in textbooks, wanting to have high grades.

The world offers to strive for wealth, power, pleasures, spectacles, and entertainment. But those who achieve this understand that this is not what the soul needs, that everything is vanity and vexation of spirit.

To get ahead of the world in instilling true values - this is what parents must necessarily manage to do before children grow up and become independent. And then they can reap what was sown and rejoice in good fruits.

1. Please read Col. 4:2; Eph. 6:18; Ps. 119:105; 127:1-5; Rom. 12:2; Matt. 6:33; 26:41; Isa. 41:10; 54:13; 1 Thess. 5:17; 1 Pet. 5:8 in light of this chapter.

2. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind?

3. What did you understand from this chapter?

4. Why cannot school replace parents in raising children?

5. What does it mean to "get ahead of all teachers" in instilling God's principles?

6. How does parental love help a child resist segregation and discrimination?

7. Why should spiritual education of children be a priority for believing parents?

8. Why should school grades not be made the goal and meaning of education?

9. How can public opinion influence a child's self-esteem?

10. Why is it important to teach children skills not included in the school curriculum?

11. Why are useful work skills more important than academic performance?

12. Why is morning prayer more important than school success?

13. How can parents support their children under pressure from society?

14. Why is it important for children to understand their worth in God's eyes?