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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for January 20, 2010
“Training Doesn’t Stop at the Potty”
Hello, I’m Doug Apple…with Apples of Gold.
Seventeen years ago this month we added child number four to the family.
They’re all two years apart, and when people asked their ages I would say, “6, 4, 2 and new.”
And each year, when the January baby has her birthday, I just go ahead and roll all their ages up. So starting next week, when people ask how old my children are, I will say, “23, 21, 19 and 17.”
Now if you’re a parent with little kids at home, my kids sound ancient. But it wasn’t that long ago they were little tykes like yours, so I want to share with you one little parenting tip that worked for me. Here it is.
Training doesn’t stop at the potty.
I mention potty training because every parent knows how important that is. It’s your job, and no one is going to do it for you. You can’t send your child to kindergarten in diapers, and you’re sick of buying diapers, so you finally buckle down and potty train, and you don’t give up until it’s done. We all understand the vital importance of potty training.
But somewhere along the line a lot of parents give up training their children. They leave it up to the school and the church and, heaven help us, their peers.
So my message today is, training doesn’t stop at the potty.
Now don’t get all knotted up about it, like I just put a 500 pound gorilla on your back. Training your child doesn’t have to be some terrible burden. In fact, it can be quite entertaining.
For example, here is something I did a few times when my kids were about 9, 7, 5 and 3. You know how kids are when you go to the store. They want this and that and . . . everything. So here is what I would do. I would tell them they had five dollars, and they could buy pretty much whatever they wanted, but they all had to agree.
That is a great training exercise! They are learning cooperation and negotiation and even sales.
Well they would bicker, then appeal to me and I would say, “You have five dollars. Buy what you want – but you all have to agree. If you don’t agree, you don’t get anything.”
What I’m talking about is getting involved, and staying involved in your kids’ lives, and especially in their training.
Proverbs 22:6 indicates that we are to train up our children in the way they should go.
See, there are ways they should go and ways they shouldn’t – and it’s our job to train them up to know the difference.
There’s another great proverb about child rearing, Proverbs 29:15. The last part says, “…a child left to himself disgraces his mother.”
Now let that phrase burn into your brain: “a child left to himself.”
We are not to leave our children to themselves. We don’t just let them go and learn things on their own. It is our job to train them, and that includes all areas of life.
For example, when the kids were small, and I had to do a chore, I would often take them with me. If I had to go to the basement to fix a pipe, I would grab the nearest child and have them watch.
Then when they got older, I would actually put the tool in their hand and have them do it.
Have you ever had to replace the parts inside the toilet tank? Well yes, you could do it yourself, but why not get one of the kids in there to do it? No, I’m in no way talking about slave labor. I’m talking about training up our children. They will have to fix their own toilet someday – might as well train them now.
My son wasn’t too happy the last time I had him do that, but guess what? Now he is married and running his own household, and if something goes wrong, he has the confidence to jump in and fix it, instead of standing there helplessly while his wife calls the plumber.
My daughter replaced her own tail light the other day. No, she wasn’t happy about it, but now she knows how it works. Someday, if some guy tries to charge her big bucks to replace her tail light, she can simply say, “No thanks, I’ll do it myself.”
Training our children gives them confidence.
I’ve even done it with other people’s children when they’re staying at our house. One day I was taking apart something and wanted to save the boards. There were two young boys at the house, so I got them outside and had them start taking nails out of the boards. Well guess what? They didn’t know how. They had never pulled nails with a hammer before.
One time there was a boy riding his bike at our house and his handlebars went crooked. He asked me to fix them and guess who ended up holding the tools? He did! And he learned how to straighten handlebars.
There are so many training opportunities, but we have to keep an eye out for them. Instead of jumping in and doing everything ourselves, we need to ask, “Is this a training opportunity?”
Kids are all born knowing nothing, and how are they going to learn?
Well it’s our job to train them.
We train them to eat, we train them to walk and we train them to use the restroom.
But it doesn’t stop there, so here is your reminder today.
Training doesn’t stop at the potty.
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.
© 2010 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision Apples of Gold as arrows, tips dipped in the river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God (Rev. 22:1), sailing toward the hearts and minds of men and women around the world.
Doug Apple
General Manager - Wave 94
Christian Radio for Tallahassee
PO Box 4105
Tallahassee, FL 32315
(850) 926-8000
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