What Does It Mean to Train Up a Child?

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22.6

GrandPause: All our activity is sowing; and so is our inactivity. -John Blanchard

What would you think of a football coach sitting down with his players at the beginning of the season and saying, “We are not going to work on building an offensive unit anymore because if we can build the best defensive unit possible, we don’t have to worry about losing any games”? I suspect you would say that’s the most ridiculous thing you ever heard.

Yet, when it comes to parenting and grandparenting, that’s often the kind of approach taken when it comes to the spiritual training of our children and grandchildren. We can be lulled into thinking that if we put our energies and resources into building defensive mechanisms—stay off drugs, guard your virginity, don’t do this, don’t watch that—or get them active the church youth group, they will be okay. But where do they learn character development and how to know what is true? Where do they learn to embrace the life God has for them? Where do they learn how to seek and build healthy relationships? Where do they learn to love their neighbor as themselves and how to make wise choices in a very dangerous and hostile world?

The defensive-only approach to training ignores the critical importance of a good proactive offense. The only offense in a defensive-only strategy tends to be one that is offensive (in a negative sense). Good training is balanced training, but it requires a good offensive strategy that initiates patterns of right living in a child’s life. Good training is proactive and, while it does not guarantee the results we may hope for, it almost always produces beneficial results.

What goes into a good, balanced strategy for raising our grandchildren to walk in righteousness, truth and wisdom? Here are seven practical examples worth considering:

1. Pray fervently and regularly for your grandchildren and adult children. Watch for the launch of the Million Praying Grandparents campaign in January. Million Praying Grandparents is a call to grandparents around the world to pray daily for their grandchildren and influences in their lives. Watch for announcements soon about how you can join the movement.
2. Speak blessing often—not just words of praise, but also intentional blessings. Download our free Legacy of Blessing packet that explains how to use the spoken blessing.
3. Engage your grandchildren’s world: Write letters, send cards, telephone or text, spend time if possible. Demonstrate a genuine interest in their lives and what they are doing or thinking. Learn to ask questions and initiate conversations that create an environment of trust, openness, and stimulate critical thinking patterns.
4. Tell your story; Talk about it and write it down (or record it). What has God taught you and how? What lessons have you learned from life?
5. Create annual opportunities to experience special, age-appropriate adventures with your grandchildren (road trip, GrandCamp, mission trip, fishing trip, etc.). Use these opportunities to build relationships, talk about life, and examine what God has to say.
6. Teach them to work with their hands. Here are some things others are doing: painting, knitting or crocheting, crafts, woodworking, gardening, auto mechanics, cooking, baking, quilting, fishing. Use these opportunities to teach them things they might not otherwise learn and to get them away from their tech toys for a season.
7. Do service projects together. Contact your local food pantry or rescue mission to see if there are ways you could serve there. Bake cookies for a nursing home or the homeless. Look around your community and see what you might be able to do with your grandchildren if they live nearby. If they are long distant, sponsor a child or clean water project together.

Talk to your pastor about hosting a Courageous Grandparenting Seminar in your church this year. You’ll learn more about what it means to be an intentional grandparent and how to effectively use some of these tools. Click here for more information.