Train up Your Child in the Way He Should Go

by Donna Hruska

“Hey, Dad, Mom, Look at this ad! Do you care if I sell Christmas cards?”

Think for a moment, Mom and Dad, before you reply. Your answer is more important than you think.

Not long ago young Tom Boyd was called into his employer’s office and dismissed. He left, bewildered and angry, sure that he was the victim of injustice. Tom Boyd was a pleasant young man from an average middle-class family. His parents had tried to provide him with all the things they had never had, including a college education from a well-known university. What they had failed to provide was the experience of succeeding or failing on his own. He had never learned what was required of a good employee.

As one school administrator put it recently, “Too many parents plow a furrow ahead of their child so that he’ll have a nice easy place to walk. They do it out of love, but the tragedy is that sooner or later he has to make it on his own. With papa no longer out in front to smooth the way the young person doesn’t know what is expected of him. Sooner or later he makes a huge error, and it seems insurmountable.”

Ask any employer what he looks for in a prospective employee. Although a certain level of education may be a prerequisite for a particular job, amount of education is often down the list in importance behind qualities the employer knows will ultimately determine success or failure. What are these magical qualities?

Just the plain old-fashioned virtues that have always been glorified in the American dream–initiative, perseverance, responsibility, creativity, and the ability to work hard enough and long enough to complete the task. They may be old-fashioned. They aren’t out-dated.

And how are these qualities acquired? We’re back to you again, Mom and Dad. A group of employers and child guidance experts who were asked this question recently agreed unanimously that not only are they almost solely the result of home training, but that they show up early in life. They show up in the child’s school work and his attitude toward school. They are evident in his approach to any task. The general manager of a large news agency said,

“We can tell the quality of a boy’s home training in his first week on the job. If the parents are not concerned, it shows in the boy. Good parents will provide guidance, supervision, and physical help, too, if necessary, through the boy’s first difficulties. They know that the habits formed in his first job will carry into manhood.”

All parents want their children to grow into happy, successful adults. But happiness does not lie in possessing things or living a life of indolence. The most important gift you can give your child is a good self-concept. He will be happy if he knows himself to be a worthwhile person with a valuable contribution to make to society. Nothing is quite so satisfying as doing a job and knowing you have done it well.

Unfortunately, we cannot give our children initiative, perseverance, responsibility and creativity by injection. Like most aspects of child rearing, it is a continuous process with today’s lesson being built on the foundation of what has gone before.

But while there are no hard and fast techniques for developing these qualities, there are some general rules which will help him develop in the way you would have him go.

1. Let him know what kind of conduct you admire. Your child loves you and admires you, and, for the most part, your values will be his values. Of course, your example will influence him far more than any amount of preaching to him. But if communication is open and natural in your family, you can tell him a lot without uttering one dogmatic word, or even speaking to him directly.

Remarks in your everyday conversation can tell him a lot. For example you might remark to your husband at the dinner table:

“That Sally Jones is certainly a good babysitter. Not only does she take excellent care of the children, but she does the little extra things, like make sure the house is neat when the mother returns.”

Or:

“I’m afraid that the new boy who is cutting the Wilson’s lawn won’t last long. Look at the sloppy job he did. He even left tools outside.”

2. Give him responsibility at an early age. Little children like to help. Nurture this love of work by making it fun and letting him know you enjoy it, too. A pre-schooler can dust furniture, empty waste baskets, put his toys away or pick up sticks in the yard. Work with him at this age. It’s the companionship of being with his Mother or Father that makes it fun. As the child grows older let him know that as a part of the family, he is needed to keep the family functioning efficiently. He should have regular chores and know that you are depending upon him.
3. Insist that he do a good job. Show him how to do a task correctly. If he makes a mistake, help him to correct it. Don’t yell and berate him, but don’t accept a sloppy job, either.
4. Allow him to experiment with new ways to do a job. There is always a demand for creative people who can find a better method of doing an old task. The school administrator quoted earlier, also said that a creative approach is one of the most important qualities he looks for in prospective teachers. “An intelligent mind placed upon a problem with flexibility will almost invariably solve the problem.”
5. Insist that he complete what he starts. This is one of the most important lessons your child can learn. One sales manager remarked. “I’m always leery of a man who has changed jobs a large number of times, and I think most managers would favor a man who had never been to college over one who started but didn’t finish. Quitting is a habit, a habit that is almost impossible to change in an adult.”
6. Praise him. There once was a quiet, timid little boy who said very little in school. He didn’t feel he had anything of value to say. But one day, his teacher discovered he could write beautiful poetry. She praised him and encouraged him, and the boy blossomed. That little boy was only responding to one of the basic laws of learning.

Psychologists tell us that both reward and punishment are motivation for learning, but of these, reward is the most effective. There are no rewards more effective than sincere praise. Try to praise your child about ten times as much as you scold him.

7. Don’t buy him everything he wants. One school superintendent, when asked his opinion of large allowances and giving a child expensive gifts, was quite emphatic. “I think it’s the worst thing a parent can do. In the first place, other children resent a child who has everything. Besides that, the child who has everything has nothing to strive for. His spirit is stifled.”
8. Allow him to take an outside job when he is ready. If you have helped him become an industrious, responsible, creative individual, sooner or later he is going to want to do something on his own. Perhaps he will want to sell Christmas cards door to door or mow someone’s lawn. Your daughter may want to babysit or work in a clothing store after school. Make sure your child understands his obligations–that he must stick with a job once he has started and that he should do the best he is capable of doing. Then turn him loose to learn on his own. If he has a failure now and then, help him to discover where he went wrong. After all, we often learn more from our failures than from our successes.
9. Give him some gentle guidance in handling the money he earns.

You should require him to save some money from each paycheck and to make a church contribution. He should be expected to pay his own business expenses, such as rubber bands for his papers, gas for the lawnmower. But allow him to spend some on his own, too.

Nothing teaches the value of money so quickly as a bad purchase made with money you have earned yourself.

10. Help him to see new opportunities. One father, whose fifteen-year-old son had helped paint the family house, suggested that the boy go into the painting business for himself. The young man was soon earning $1.75 per hour painting neighborhood fences and garages.

Another fifteen-year-old whose work experience included delivering newspapers and selling live bait to fishermen ordered candle making equipment from a hobby catalog and built up a candle business that will eventually pay for his college education. No matter what the unemployment statistics are in the future, the individual who can not only recognize an opportunity, but can create his own, will always be able to provide for himself and his family.

Be proud of your child when he wants to work on his own. The path to greatness is worn deep by the footsteps of boys and girls who learned how to work early in life. Senator Charles Percy (R., Ill.) who was the president of a large corporation at age twenty-nine started by selling newspapers at age five. Thomas Edison took his first job at age twelve and former President Dwight Eisenhower started to work in a creamery while still a boy.

When your child asks, “Can I sell Christmas cards, (or papers, or candles, or light bulbs) be prepared to answer. And be certain that he is prepared, too.