Train Up a Child

I read again this morning this story from President Hinckley which he told in general conference many years ago: “Not long after we were married, we built our first home…. The landscaping was entirely my responsibility. The first of many trees that I planted was a thornless honey locust…. I put it in a place at the corner where the wind from the canyon to the east blew the hardest. I dug a hole, put in the bare root, put soil around it, poured on water, and largely forgot it. It was only a wisp of a tree, perhaps three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It was so supple that I could bend it with ease in any direction. I paid little attention to it as the years passed. Then one winter day, when the tree was barren of leaves, I chanced to look out the window at it. I noticed that it was leaning to the west, misshapen and out of balance. I could scarcely believe it. I went out and braced myself against it as if to push it upright. But the trunk was now nearly a foot in diameter. My strength was as nothing against it. I took from my toolshed a block and tackle. Attaching one end to the tree and another to a well-set post, I pulled the rope. The pulleys moved a little, and the trunk of the tree trembled slightly. But that was all. It seemed to say, ‘You can’t straighten me. It’s too late. I’ve grown this way because of your neglect, and I will not bend.’ Finally in desperation I took my saw and cut off the great heavy branch on the west side. The saw left an ugly scar, more than eight inches across. I stepped back and surveyed what I had done. I had cut off the major part of the tree, leaving only one branch growing skyward.”

               President Hinckley told that story of course not to teach us about caring for trees but about raising children. He summarized, “When it was first planted, a piece of string would have held it in place against the forces of the wind. I could have and should have supplied that string with ever so little effort. But I did not, and it bent to the forces that came against it. I have seen a similar thing, many times, in children whose lives I have observed. The parents who brought them into the world seem almost to have abdicated their responsibility. The results have been tragic. A few simple anchors would have given them the strength to withstand the forces that have shaped their lives. Now it appears it is too late.” This story highlights the imperative need that we have as parents to teach and nurture our children in the gospel, to instill in them a desire to keep the commandments and to choose the right. When they are young is the time to help them develop the spiritual habits and practices, the faith in Jesus Christ and His gospel, that will anchor them throughout their lives. As the proverb says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). This is of course not a promise that a child well trained in youth will never go astray later, but it is a powerful principle that the best way to help our children stay on the Lord’s path later in life is to bring them up in it in their youth.  

               Of course, as we watch our children grow, we cannot try to correct everything we do not like about how they are developing. The Lord, though, has given us a divine priority list that we should focus on: “Inasmuch as parents have children in Zion, or in any of her stakes which are organized, that teach them not to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old, the sin be upon the heads of the parents. And they shall also teach their children to pray, and to walk uprightly before the Lord. And the inhabitants of Zion shall also observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Doctrine and Covenants 68:25-29). Most importantly, we must help them understand and live the first principles of the gospel: faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. In addition to that, teaching them to pray and keep the Sabbath day holy are particularly crucial to help them grow up unto the Lord. These are the things we must focus on as we use our figurative string to set them straight and point them properly towards the Savior while they are still supple and can easily bend any way. Later in the same section the Lord lamented that in Zion “the children are growing up in wickedness” (v31). We must do all that we can to help our children instead grow up in righteousness, to “grow up in [Him], and receive a fulness of the Holy Ghost” so that they can fulfill their divine potential (Doctrine and Covenants 109:15).