The greatest force in the life of the child is his home. When the family is the building block of society, the community is building a stronger society and a better environment for communal health.
People need relationships. Our personalties are shaped in those around us. Life is shaped and communicated by life. A living model is the best model and in the family, parents are responsible for communicating values for their children.
God has established an order for the family unit. Father, mother, and children each have obligations. Happiness in the domestic circle depends upon realizing these obligations and mutually sharing them.
The husband/father was created to be the head of the home. As the head, the man is responsible to God and country for his wife and children.
Every father bears the responsibility for entrusting that will insure that the family unit is a moral unit. To assist him, Holy Scripture provides great encouragement for the directing of his family unit in the areas of the learning of Truth, directing family prayer and worship, and the leading in the ways of right relationships with God and mankind.
Secondly, even this age of extreme financial pressures, the father is responsible as a provider. He should provide materially, but only according to his ability. It is a proven that most children have very little appreciation for the over abundance of things we try to provide.
Above all, the husband/father will provide an example of a loving relationship with his wife. Children receive security in their home life as they see their father’s love and gentleness toward their mother.
By displaying a calm, unruffled spirit during crisis, the father can pour oil on troubled waters and provide emotional security for his family. We have our times of extreme anxieties with the complexities we face on a daily basis, but being calm and collected in the middle of the problems surely pays great dividends for the family.
The Father is responsible as a protector. This always begins with proper discipline. Every young life needs guardrails or fences. As guardian of the family’s morals and their spiritual and physical well-being, he will be available as adviser, confessor, and confidant. He will always be a good listener, seeking opportunities to give his wife and family a sense of belonging, and commend and encourage them when they do a job well or exhibit pleasing behavior. He will find time to laugh and play with them and to help them in their rough times, instead of minimizing their drama.
The mother goes down to the gates of death for her children, and for this reason her love is more self-effacing than the father’s. But that love must never serve as an excuse not to discipline them. as the primary influence with the children, the mother is at the center of home management. This does much to contribute to the children’s security and confidence, enabling them to face the world with assurance.
Mothers – and fathers – can give the following treasures to their children:
First, every child needs a sense of law and order. Through order and discipline in the home children learn the rights of others and how to get along. They will learn the “rules of the playground” before they ever get to the playground!
Second, each child must have a reverence for life. Children need to practice the Golden Rule. Proper respect for one’s body, which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, must be taught to both the boys as well as the girls. Children need to understand the necessity of keeping body and mind clean and pure
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Third, children need to have a proper appreciation for values. Food and clothing and video games are not the number one priorities. Appreciation for spiritual values and the family are vital. Our youngest grandchild asks her mother, “When I get sixteen, may I have a phone and a boyfriend?” “Maybe a phone,” was her reply.
Fourth, we must teach children that conduct and comfort are never as important as character. Goodness is not put on and taken off at the moment’s notice; it is ingrained by daily living. We could list many other characteristics of what an adult should possess that will be taught them as a child, because parents always need to remember we are raising adults, not children! Far too soon, they will be gone and only what they have learned at home will remain with them.
I should address the child’s part in the home and the difference in a one-parent home, but space will not permit. I still believe that the Church is the best place a family can learn how to live in harmony and enjoy the unit that God designed – the home! Never just send a child to church, take them!
