Parents Have a Responsibility in Teaching Religious Values to their Children

            Allowing children to form their own religious values was a mistake.  Parents must have that responsibility of teaching religious values to their children.

            It used to be that children were given the space and freedom to determine how they felt best to comport themselves in society.  It was the adults’ way to make children see themselves as adults as well, matured enough to decide on what should and what should not be.  The children were not armed with the wisdom of life’s experiences that taught valuable lessons.  They were too young to experience everything that there were to learn in life.  All they had were the basics that were not so strong and stable as yet to build upon their values.  Looking back on those times and checking on the present, we can see a mistake somewhere along.

            God entrusted not only the care and love of children to parents.  He also instructed the parents to teach religious values to their children in Deuteronomy 6:6-7, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart; you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”   Being with the children most of the time in a day, parents are in the best position to speak to and teach the children about the values which the Lord taught, and also in obedience to the Lord whom parents owe the gifts that are their children.

            Teaching religious values to children is difficult as it is sacred for in carrying out such task, parents are obliged to lead moral and upright lives to set good examples to their children.  Good begets good in that parents by conducting themselves as proper and God-centered persons will not only be effective teachers to their children but they will also help change society from what it has become today for the better.

            Indeed, parents must have a hand in values-formation among the young.  Parents have the responsibility of teaching religious values to their children.

References

Treybig, D. (2007).  Teaching Youth Religious Values.  Retrieved February 27, 2008, from

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