做父母的難處，許多時候就在愛與管教之間，不知如何兩者兼得。我們都希望孩子才貌出眾、品學兼優、愛神愛人，又孝親敬長。然而，我們也知道，孩子生出來並不必然具備這些條件和美德，都需要做父母的，費盡心力來教導栽培，才或有可能獲得一點點果效。我們因此常常感到做父母真不容易，再加上對人生和兒女的期望常常有誤差，就更難栽培出上述的孩子了。我願意和大家一同在這事情上作些思考，希望產生啟發作用，讓我們從聖經中學習些方法，幫助孩子建立美好的人生。
首先，我們必須先審視自己的人生觀，因為我們只會把自己看為重要的處事待人的態度和技巧教導孩子。原來我們遺傳給孩子的，不單單是生理的素質，也有品格個性和屬靈的氣質，而後者往往比前者更重要，更能影響他們的一生。父母在教導孩子時，第一個難處就是同時要求自己也成長。因此，自己的基督徒品格與靈命成長，便多了一項家庭教育的目的和功能。
第二，人人都需要負起教育的責任，但不是每一個人都有足夠的知識和正確的技巧。做父母的第二個難處，就是找時間去學習教育兒女的知識和技巧。父母都是愛兒女的，但不一定懂得如何去愛。如果我們不懂得去愛兒女，就無法給與兒女正確的管教。
聖經裡有許多我們應該學習的人生觀，也有許多談論神對我們的愛，並祂因為愛我們而作出的管教。基督徒在理論上應該比較懂得做父母，因為我們有新的生命，也在不斷地成長，而且經常經歷神的愛和管教，再加上聖經有許多教養兒女的教導。我們做父母的要經常互相鼓勵，按著聖經的教導來教養兒女，為他們提供全人的培育。
Parenting is not an easy job for most parents for we don’t know how to maximize the advantages of love and discipline in raising children. We want our children to be healthy and talented, to be good in both academia and character, and they are also loving God and caring about people, plus knowing how to respect their parents and elderly. On the other hand, we also realize that those virtues won’t come naturally in kid’s life. Parents sometimes pay extra effort but get very little result in teaching kids. Even worse, we, as parents, don’t necessary have the correct concept of life and always expect wrongly our kids in their growth and development, which minimize the educational effort of bringing them up to such ideal persons. I want to share two fundamental ideas with our parents to inspire us if we can learn something from the Bible.
First of all, we need to examine our understanding of life, because we will only teach our kids what we think important in life, and how we handle things and relationships. As matter of fact, we do not pass on to our kid only genetic traits, but also our characters, personalities, and spiritual qualities; and we also know that such personality and spiritual qualities are more important in their life formation. The first difficult thing in parenting is to require us to grow in our personal and spiritual characters as we nurture our kid to grow. The purpose of Christian character formation and spiritual growth to us as parents, therefore, goes beyond personal spirituality and has a very important function in family education.
Secondly, even though everybody should have responsibility in educating others, we may not have adequate knowledge and right skills to educate them. The second difficult thing in parenting is to make time to learn the knowledge and skills in raising kids. Parents love their kids, but they may not know how to love them correctly. If we do not know how to love them correctly, we may not be able to discipline them with good result.
Bible has a lot of good things for us to learn to build healthy personal and spiritual life, and it also tells us God’s love and discipline. Christian parents should have more advantages to be good parents for we have a new life, and have always been experiencing God’s love and discipline. We can also easily consult the Bible for knowledge and skills in raising kids. I encourage Christian parents to have fellowship constantly to encourage each other, and to learn from the Bible the ways to nurture their kids with God’s word, and to provide them a more sound and holistic family education.
