Training Children - Purity

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. ~Titus 1:15

We set certain rules and standards for our family to protect our child from certain things.  Children are naive, innocent (as far as understanding goes) and curious.  As parents, we MUST set guidelines and teach our children what is pure, holy and private.  You shouldn't subject your children to improper influences just as much as you yourself shouldn't be yoked together with unbelievers.  Children need parents that are protectors!  They need someone to watch out for them, caution them and guard them from what they may not know or understand.  It is our job as parents to train them in these things.

A child should be taught at an early age about purity.  I highly recommend the Mennonite publication on "Purity in the Christian Home".  It is a great booklet, backed by Biblical scriptures to help you in teaching your child purity and guarding their minds, ears and eyes from things satan would use to appeal to their passions.

I am amazed that parents would even CONSIDER letting their child have a social networking page.  And they wonder why they leave God or have worldly pursuits.  Is it any wonder why?  You let the viper in your home to entice and lure them, did you think they wouldn't get bit?  Are you guarding your children's purity?  Are you setting a watch upon them and protecting them from things they shouldn't know?  WAKE UP before its too late and before you live with regret of what you could have done differently.

Here is a quote that relates perfectly to this:

Exposure to impure practice and speech will awaken the monster of sexual passion through appealing to and developing curiosity.

A child needs supervision!  They don't fully understand the harm and consequences involved of following their curiosities but we do!  Why in the world would you open your child up to a world of impurity, profanity and all manner of impropriety on the web?  Why are you exposing your children to such?  That isn't love and that sure isn't caring.

We have made the decision to not allow our daughter to have sleepovers.  For starters, some parents do not watch their children with other children and allow opposite sex to play together without being supervised.  I don't need someone else's child showing my child what they have learned.  In some countries, they mock America's tradition of having sleepovers and how careless that is.

Certain things can break down a child's shame and we want to protect that.  It is the parent's responsibility before God because he has entrusted them to our care!  It is high time that we wake up and guard purity in our children and not let them be exposed to impurity through TV, magazines and other children who learned things through lack of supervision.  You can set guidelines for your child and you don't have to feel guilty or obligated if another parent wonders why your child can not play with theirs or have a sleepover.  It's called assertiveness and setting boundaries.

Swimming is another issue that breaks down shame and purity.  We don't allow our daughter to swim, except at my sister's house with just me and my sister and no one else around (there is a fence) and then she is CLOTHED.  Mixed bathing is of course something no one should do unless they are married.  If you wouldn't wear it to church, then you shouldn't wear it anywhere else in public!

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. ~Proverbs 22:6

Protect your child's purity and train them up in the way they should go and what?  They shall NOT depart from it.  Is God a liar?  If he isn't then that verse is a promise - on conditions that WE train them right!