Teaching a child

One thing I've learned is that a newborn baby must be taught everything about life. Right now we are teaching our 18 month old how to use a spoon and fork. She wasn't real interested in learning to put a puzzle together. She likes puzzles, but she doesn't like to play with them the way I do (actually putting the right pieces in the right places).

It amazes me how many people do not understand this basic concept of parenting in today's world. People will probably disagree with me, but a child needs to learn to sleep in their own room. A child needs to learn to be away from a parent for certain periods of time (at night). A child needs to learn to fall back to sleep after waking up. We do not allow this today, though. Children continually sleep in their parents room and even IN THE BED with the parents in some houses. This makes no sense to me. "Experts" suggest putting the child in the parents room because they need to be near the mom or because it is easier on the mom, but this is simply not true.

Let the child sleep in their own room and when they wake up, feed them. I understand that all babies are different, but we have friends with children that do not sleep through the night after an entire year of life. This should not be so, and it can most often be attributed to the fact that they never let the child cry and didn't put the child into their own room for several months after birth.

Children are indeed helpless, but it is the role of parents to raise them up to be wholly reliant on God while using God given abilities to survive. If we as parents raise our children with our own interests in mind (It's better for the mom or dad if ....) or if we raise our children only to protect them from everything, they will never learn to survive, grow, or live in a way that isn't wholly dependant on other humans. Is this what we want?

Finally, this is the duty of the husband. It is natural for the mom to care for the baby and to nurture them. The dad must watch out for the good of his family (wife first), and ensure that his actions along with his wives actions are preparing their children to be children of God relying wholly on Him for life and serving Him through their abilities.