What Does the Bible Mean By “Train a Child”?

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As Christian parents, we seek to raise our children according to biblical principles.   There are numerous Bible verses that give us direction.  Many times, though, we need to study the scripture verse to get a better understanding of what it means and what God would like us to do.  In this blog post, I would like to give some insight into Proverbs 22:6 - what does it mean to “train a child in the way he should go”?

King Solomon, who was known for his profound wisdom, gave us this proverb.  We know that God loves children, as everywhere Jesus went when there were children around, He asked for them to be brought to Him: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." (NIV).  In fact, the Bible calls them a “reward”.  Psalm 127:3.

As parents, we are given a special, yet tremendous responsibility to raise them as God wants them to be raised and with the priority of teaching them God’s Word.  I love this statement from the website gotquestions.org which gives answers to Bible questions:

Teaching children the truths of Scripture will make them wise for salvation (2 Timothy 3:15); thoroughly equip them to do good works (2 Timothy 3:17); prepare them to give an answer to everyone who asks them the reason for their hope (1 Peter 3:15); and prepare them to withstand the onslaught of cultures bent on indoctrinating young people with secular values.

As a lay children’s minister for many years in a non-denominational Christian church and as a Christian mother raising two sons, I know how critical it is to teach children from a young age God’s Word.  They must know how much He loves them and what He expects them to do – they will not know this unless they are taught. So when the Bible mentions “train a child”, it means to teach, direct, counsel, and nurture.

How do we “train a child”?  Here are a few practical ways: by reading the Bible with them, helping them to memorize scripture, speaking to them God’s Word, disciplining them, and having them attend church services with you.

To learn more, please visit:

https://www.gotquestions.org/train-up-a-child.html

https://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/kids/what-does-it-mean-to-train-up-a-child-in-the-way-he-should-go.html

https://www.christianity.com/wiki/bible/how-to-train-up-your-child.html

Share with Your Children Inspiration from America’s First African American Female Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison

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Children need good role models.  Who are better than those persons who are living today and have made exceptional strides and achieved great accomplishments.  One of those persons is Dr. Mae Jemison, the first female African American astronaut, who is also a medical doctor and an engineer.

Dr. Jemison came from humble beginnings, with her mother working as a teacher and her father employed as a maintenance supervisor.  As a child, she was inspired by the Apollo space missions and the Star Trek show on television that had an African American actress who played a role as a lieutenant.  From an early age, she was interested in astronomy, anthropology and archeology.  She earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from Stanford University and a medical degree from Cornell University.  She is fluent in Russian, Japanese, and Swahili. She joined the Peace Corps, where she served as a doctor for two years in Africa.

She was inspired to become an astronaut after seeing Sally Ride become the first female astronaut.  She applied and was accepted by NASA.  After significant training, she was selected to join the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor as a mission specialist.  Her team orbited the Earth 127 times in 1992.

She later retired from NASA and has been involved in many different pursuits, including serving as a professor at Cornell University.  

She wrote a children’s book in 2001 titled Find Where the Wind Goes which is about her life.  Parents, please consider buying it for your children.

In addition to her quote on the picture on my blog post, some of my favorite quotes from Dr. Jemison are the following:

“Greatness can be captured in one word: lifestyle. Life is God's gift to you, style is what you make of it.”

“Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.”

“What we find is that if you have a goal that is very, very far out, and you approach it in little steps, you start to get there faster. Your mind opens up to the possibilities.”

To learn more about her, please visit :

https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/mae-jemison

https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/jemison.html

Reading Books in a Series is Good for Your Children

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As the Stars of the Sky Foundation is dedicated to promoting literacy as we believe that reading is essential to a child’s development and ultimate success in life.  Not only is reading individual books impactful, but also reading books in a series. 

A study entitled Series Books and Their Effect on Reader Development that was conducted at St. John Fisher College established that there is indeed a positive correlation between reading a book series and child development.  It also found that book series nurture the love of reading. “Research has shown that students who read book series, particularly reluctant readers, become more engaged and enthusiastic about reading, and are encouraged to continue reading once they begin a series.”

The study found many positive impacts including:

• The child becomes invested in the lives and relationships of the characters;

• Because the child is familiar with the story structure, he becomes better equipped to handle more complex readings; and

• The child develops high cognitive skills of “reading, rule following, decoding, and pattern recognition” as well as inference and deduction skills.

In the online article 5 Great Advantages of Book Series for Kids, another advantage is highlighted: developing activities from the series.  If the series centers on characters going camping, for example, get together with friends and family and do similar activity.  This will bring to life what the characters experienced.

I can personally tell you what a joy it was to read many book series with my two sons as they were growing up and how they benefitted from the experiences.  One series Hank the Cowdog by John Erickson truly brought us a lot of laughs!  The main characters are Hank, a cow dog, his sidekick Drover, who was another dog, and Pete the barn cat.  They have a lot of hilarious and quirky adventures.  We would read these together, either by my husband and I reading a chapter or one of our sons reading a chapter a day. My sons enthusiastically looked forward to the next book in the series.  We ultimately purchased the entire series for the library at our sons’ elementary school.

Please visit the homepage of our website to find out more about my books and what we promote.

To read the study and for more information, please visit:

• Fisher Pub - Education

• Five Great Advantages of Book Series for Kids

• Hank the Cowdog