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“Train up a child in the way he should go.’ (Proverbs 22:6 KJV)
Training up’ a child is both challenging and rewarding. By shaping their underlying belief system, you help their developing brain establish permanent neural pathways that will guide their moral and spiritual growth.
Neuroscientists Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman, authors of Born to Believe, say the most crucial years are from age seven to ten.
That’s when a child has the greatest propensity to understand the concept of a God they can’t see, feel or hear.
Newberg and Waldman also suggest that our most effective tool for belief building at this stage is storytelling. Stories that incorporate godly principles, moral behaviours, courage, faith, love, compassion and forgiveness are welcomed, easily digested ingredients for building Christian character.
Storytelling was how God taught the Israelites to teach their children his ways and word. Stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Esther, Samson, Ruth and David; of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection; of Jesus walking on the sea, raising the dead, feeding the five thousand, stir the hearts, interest and imagination of children and impart enduring, life-changing principles!
Studies show the belief systems of adults are powerfully influenced by stories they heard growing up.
So, implant stories in young people that will underpin their character and be the basis for a lifetime of faith.
As a parent, carer or teacher, it’s your job to encourage and stimulate their developing brain towards godly beliefs, decisions and lifestyle!
‘Teach them and instruct them about the Lord.’ Ephesians 6:4 CEV
Parenting doesn’t end when your child becomes a teenager. Teens are just more mobile and more independent. Now they value and emulate peers who are as immature as they are.
Even when you’ve laid moral and spiritual foundations in their early years, something may happen that leaves you asking, ‘What happened? Where did I go wrong?’
Adolescence happened! It’s the teenager’s brain; it’s wired that way. Their frontal lobes – linked to moral development, emotional reactivity, impulse control and decision-making – aren’t fully developed until their twenties!
What happened to all those Bible stories and your efforts to build godly beliefs into them? It’s all in there, temporarily lost in those budding lobes! They aren’t bad or ignorant, though they sometimes seem to act that way. They haven’t abandoned your teachings.
The belief systems you helped them construct earlier are not erased – they have been transferred to a ‘holding file’ until their new sanity-restoring brain cells arrive. And they will!
Your job is to avoid panic, pray, love them unconditionally, be their anchor and allow God to work on them. Stand firm and live by your principles.
Demonstrate empathy, but teach them how their decisions affect others. Help them learn self-control by letting them deal with their consequences! Be patient, supportive and never give up on them.
You have sown the seed of God’s word into them, and ‘at just the right time [you] will reap a harvest of blessing if [you] don’t give up’ (Galatians 6:9 NLT)!
By Alfred B. Nyamekye
