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In Man in the Mirror, Patrick Morley tells of a group of fishermen who landed in a secluded bay in Alaska and had a great day fishing for salmon. But when they returned to their sea plane, they found it aground because of the fluctuating tides. They waited until the next morning for the tides to comes in, but when they took off, they only got a few feet into the air before crashing back into the sea. Being aground the day before had punctured one of the pontoons, and it had filled up with water.

The sea plane slowly began to sink. The passengers, three men and a 12-year-old son of one of the men, prayed and then jumped into the icy cold waters to swim to shore. The riptide was strong, but two of the men reached the shore exhausted. They looked back, and saw the father with his arms around his son being swept out to sea.

The boy had not been strong enough to make it. The father was a strong swimmer, but he had chosen to die with his son rather than to live without him.

Every object of God’s creation has special needs of its own and, in every case, God has provided a method for satisfying those needs.

Human beings have their special needs. Some of these needs are elementary in nature and are easily satisfied. Man needs oxygen, so God created him with lungs which automatically draw oxygen into the body and make it usable for body needs.

Some needs of humans require more effort on man’s part for their satisfaction. For example, man needs water and may have to drill a well in order to find it. He needs food and in order to have sufficient amounts of food he may have to plant, cultivate and harvest vegetables from a garden.

Humans also have spiritual needs and they cannot be provided by automatic responses of the body or by any other entirely physical effort. These spiritual needs have to do with man’s personality, disposition, relation to other humans and his relation to God.

But, as in every case, God has provided a source of satisfaction for these needs. In this case, the source is the home. The home is God’s instrument for satisfying the basic needs of human beings!

Insofar as the needs of children are concerned, parents are the primary providers. Someone has suggested that since God is a spirit and cannot be physically present in all places, he provided every child with a mother and a father to see that his/her needs are satisfied.

1. Children need the security of a stable home life.
Children need to have a firm ground under their feet for proper development. Any parent knows that newborn babies are terribly frightened of falling. And when the baby is frightened by any sudden movement, the best way to calm him is to pick him up and hold him very firmly. This need lasts for a lifetime!

Children need the security that comes from the knowledge that mother and father love each other very much. Quarreling between a child’s parents is like an earthquake which threatens to take away his firm footing.

A child is very sensitive to tension and hostility. Make him grow up in an atmosphere charged with discord and he will be insecure for the rest of his life.

A child also needs to know that he is loved by his parents. There is no way to know how many scores of children are unwanted. Sometimes you hear of a baby who was abandoned by parents who didn’t want him. There is a sense in which this abandoned child is better off than an unwanted child who is kept by his parents and tolerated but not loved!

2. Children need the confidence of their parents.
Children want to be trusted and, in most cases, they will be trustworthy if given the chance to prove them-selves. Teenagers are especially sensitive to a lack of trust by their parents/teachers.
Some parents are constantly questioning their children and indicating that they expect the worst from them. Keep up those suspicious looks and questions and your child will probably decide that it isn’t worth the effort to try to win your confidence and will live up to your lesser expectations!

You should let him/her know that he has your confidence and then he will likely live up to it.

3. Children need the companionship of their parents
Not all the gifts of money and “things” in the world can make up for the failure to give one’s self. A great many “good” men and women have utterly failed as parents because they withheld themselves from their children. Trying so hard to provide a good living and some of the “little extras that we never had,” they lost their children.

One of the saddest stories in the Bible is of Samuel and his sons. They were anything but godly, though Samuel was a true man of God. Why? Because Samuel spent so much time with the “congregation and its problems” that he lost his own family!

4. Children need instruction from their parents.
Children get their information from various sources and, on the basis of the information they are given, they build a life.

We trust our public and private schools to give a general education to our children, and these schools are doing an adequate job (depending upon who you talk to). But there are at least two special areas of instruction where parents have a particular responsibility–sex and religion.

These two areas are the most difficult of all in many ways. Because they are so difficult, some parents simply side-step their responsibility and leave their children to pick up whatever information they may be able to come by on their own.

Because much has already been said about the need for Biblical training on the part of the parents in other lessons, we’ll spend our time here on the subject of sex education.

Some ‘do’s and don’t regarding sex education
· Don’t make your own feelings of shame the basis of instruction
· Don’t avoid warnings about masturbation, homosexual activity and social diseases. Avoid minute details and horror films.
· Don’t think “a young man must have his fling”
· Don’t try to prevent adolescents from becoming interested in the opposite sex
· Don’t try to make cold beings out of young people by being mostly negative
· Don’t accept supersitious beliefs about sex yourself
· Don’t expect to solve all of the child’s problems by sex instruction
· Don’t fail to warn children against persons who use smutty language, tell filthy stories, or who become too familiar in their conduct. Avoid them!
· Don’t treat sex sins as unforgivable

5. Children need to learn to obey.
There is more significance to this than meets the eye. But suffice it to say that Paul commands children in this crucial area: Ephesians 6:1: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.”

The self-discipline which comes by obedience to commands by wise parents is in complete harmony with the will of God, and the common sense of it is clearly seen in the affairs of men.

The first six or seven years of life upon this life can virtually determine eternal destiny! Young children can be taught basic principles and attitudes. They include respect, obedience, and cooperation.

6. Children need the love and fear of God.
Proverbs 14:27: “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death.”

The child needs to know how much God loves them and how He sent His only begotten Son for their sin. This fear is not trembling, but better called respect.

7. Children need examples from their parents.
What you are will mean more to your children than what you say. To really be an effective parent, saying and being will have to be consistent with each other.

8. Children need discipline.
Solomon wrote: Prov. 23:13: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.”

Discipline isn’t always spanking! The word has as its root to “teach.” Our reducing the word to mean only punishment is a great disservice to it.

God’s word is clear on this subject:
Genesis 18:19: “For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

Heb. 12:9-11: “Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! {10} Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. {11} No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Anything we can say or any fair method which can be used to teach children proper rules of behavior should be used.

All that we do in this area must be done in fairness. Fairness within the family circle is catching to children. Partiality has long been a cause of family strife and complexes of inferiority and superiority in children that harm and rule their lives. Jacob and Esau and his brethern stand as eternal examples of the inevitable strife generated by parental partiality.

9. Children need recognition of their achievements.
Parents are quick to notice and long in remembering the mistakes and failures of their children. Fortunate is the child whose parent is as delighted with his successes and achievements as he is disappointed with his failures. We all must have praise and appreciation.
10. Children need to be given responsibility.
The Bible says, in Lamentations 3:27: “It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young.”

That simply means that it is wise for parents to teach children a sense of responsibility. This is one reason why giving an allowance to children is an effective teaching device. They also need to have some jobs which are part of being in the family and also learn the importance of keeping one’s promises or to finish an assigned task, etc.

11. Children need to be given a measure of freedom.
Some boys and girls are literally smothered by over-protective parents! Some mothers insist on driving their 12-to-13 year old boys to a Scout meeting and sitting there the whole time until the meeting is over,
watching everything that goes on. They are afraid for them to ride a bicycle or go with a group of their church friends.

While it is important that we use good common sense and check out the places and people they are spending time with, we must also realize that we don’t want weak and timid teenagers who can’t stand on their own two feet! They must be encouraged to try new things. They need to use their imaginations. They need some privacy and freedom. And what better place to have our children when they are in environments where there is proper control and chaperones.

12. Children need unconditional love.
A parent is very foolish indeed who says, “now if you want me to love you, you mind me.” Life is insecure enough without the threat of love being denied within the boundaries of our own family! Children need to
feel their parents’ love through demonstration. They need to be told and shown that they are loved.

13. Children must have the opportunity to grow.
The child must grow mentally, physically, spiritually, and socially. When we grow in favor with God, we are developing spiritually. When we grow in favor with man, we are becoming well adjusted in society.