Juvenile delinquency is a problem in America. This problem may seem far away from us, but it is not. Some time ago a store manager told me about catching 17 shoplifters in his store in one week alone.
When you seek for a cause of this youthful lawlessness, you are driven ultimately to the home and to the parents. In fact two Harvard Law School criminologists pinpointed the problem as “inadequate parents.”
What does it take to be an adequate parent? There are at least three essentials.
1. Love. Every child needs a sense of security that comes only by love. Many modern parents think they can substitute material gifts for their love. Parental love cannot be purchased. The adequate parents will show their child love and affection.
2. Discipline. Parental attitudes toward discipline have been moving toward more and more permissiveness—that is, placing fewer restraints and limits on behavior. Life requires a certain amount of discipline. It is needed in the classroom, in the home, and in society at large or social chaos results. The adequate parents will discipline their child.
3. Example. The strongest incentives in the development of the character of children often come not from direct and specific instructions, but from example. There is no argument or instruction quite as forceful as a good example. Adequate parents practice what they preach.
Are you an adequate parent? The Bible 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).