God sees, hears and knows.
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Are we teaching our children to work? Some of the best guidance I was given as a young mother was to teach my children the value of
practical labor. They were not to be passive members of our household, but active participants in the running of the home. Training a child to work is about more than getting the daily chore list completed. Useful labor is a vehicle for character development. If a child is not taught to be diligent in taking out the trash, or making a bed, the transfer of that trait into the academic arena will be the more difficult. Work is also an important safeguard for our children. What is the saying about idle hands?
Ellen G. White shares some important thoughts about work:
The physical as well as the religious training practiced in the schools of the Hebrews may be profitably studied. The worth of such training is not appreciated. There is an intimate relation between the mind and the body, and in order to reach a high standard of moral and intellectual attainment the laws that control our physical being must be heeded. To secure a strong, well-balanced character, both the mental and the physical powers must be exercised and developed. What study can be more important for the young than that which treats of this wonderful organism that God has committed to us, and of the laws by which it may be preserved in health?
And now, as in the days of Israel, every youth should be instructed in the duties of practical life. Each should acquire a knowledge of some branch of manual labor by which, if need be, he may obtain a livelihood. This is essential, not only as a safeguard against the vicissitudes of life, but from its bearing upon physical, mental, and moral development. Even if it were certain that one would never need to resort to manual labor for his support, still he should be taught to work. Without physical exercise, no one can have a sound constitution and vigorous health; and the discipline of well-regulated labor is no less essential to the securing of a strong and active mind and a noble character.
Every student should devote a portion of each day to active labor. Thus habits of industry would be formed and a spirit of self-reliance encouraged, while the youth would be shielded from many evil and degrading practices that are so often the result of idleness. And this is all in keeping with the primary object of education, for in encouraging activity, diligence, and purity we are coming into harmony with the Creator.
Patriarchs and Prophets, 601
In His wisdom the Lord has decreed that the family shall be the greatest of all educational agencies. The education of the child is to be begun in the home. In the home the child is to learn the lessons that are to guide it through life. From infancy lessons of honor and obedience to parents are to be taught. Never should their children be allowed to show them disrespect. Self-will and hasty words should not be allowed to go unrebuked.
Parents should realize the sacredness of family discipline. They have been entrusted with a most important stewardship, a sacred charge. They are to make their family a symbol of the family in heaven, of which they hope to become members when their day of test and trial here below shall have ended. The children are to be taught to respect themselves, because they are the Lord’s property, bought with an infinite price.
Pacific Union Recorder – August 18, 1910
God demands of parents a faithful study of His word, and a determined effort to make a success of the church in the home. The parents with their converted children—the result of their obedience to God—can carry into the church their self-denial and sacrifice and their spiritual strength.
Pacific Union Recorder – August 18, 1910
The Adventist Home Educator 