Most everyone has seen an angry two year old. Whether in a store or at home, these little guys can put on quite the show when they are mad. They scrunch their eyes, they toss their head back, and pounding on the floor (or any neighboring surface) they scream and scream and scream.
I feel bad for mothers in the stores during these times. I want to run up to them and help in any way possible. It’s hard being a patient parent when this is the tenth tantrum of the day and you now feel like throwing one yourself!
It takes some time to teach children truths, such as: “Don’t touch the stove, it will burn you.” “Don’t run in front of that car, it will hurt you.” etc.
As our children get older, the troubles or dangers they face deepen in seriousness. For example you might say, “Don’t drink alcohol, it will destroy 10,000 brain cells for every ounce you drink.”
The child looks at you with that, “Yeah, right, Mom.”
Yet you’ve read the studies. You know the dangers. And how much you desire that your children will listen to you. You’ve lived a few decades and know of what you speak. So how do we help our children listen … because if they listen, they just might avoid more heartache than we did!
It starts by reading the scriptures with them every night (or every morning, depending on your child’s schedule). Some might think that toddlers are too little. This is a mistake. I waited too long for my second child before I began reading scriptures to her. When she was old enough (I thought) and I then tried, she found it boring.
Contrast that with my firstborn, who I read 30 minutes of scriptures to in the morning AND in the evening again – starting when he was 18 months old! To this day he loves his scriptures!
Children are far more capable than we might guess. I rue the day I decided to “go easy” on my daughter. She had focusing issues as a toddler and I just didn’t give her credit that she was listening when I did try to read scripture verses to her. Again, I really regret I gave up till later. I can see a difference in the interest level and am now trying to make up for my lack early on.
The ancient American prophet Nephi taught along similar lines, when he was speaking to his brothers that seemed not to care for the things of Christ:
“And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth and say: Thou speakest hard things against us” (1 Nephi 16:3).
Nephi gives some important truths in this small paragraph: being willing to hearken to truth straightens the paths we walk – in essence, we walk more uprightly before God. This then makes a person less likely to murmur because of truth.
I must say, my daughter has a heart the size of Texas. She is a delight in my life. She loves the things of goodness. But what I am also saying is because she did not, from her earliest years, sit listening to scripture, it is more difficult for her to understand them now.
If we want to help our children hearken to the truth, we need to start young. We need to start when they’re first learning to speak. In fact, before that would be even better. Why not start reading the scriptures out loud while the child is still in the womb?
Again, if a child is taught early on in their youth, chances are they will not depart from the truth later on in life nor murmur because of it. I can think of no better way to share that truth than to sit together and read scripture together – even for the youngest. Make it a snuggly time together, rocking and reading. Or while you read, having the younger kids coloring pictures about what they’re hearing.
What this does is acclimate children to the truth – the truth of God. Thus, later in their teens when they might be prone to throw something similar to a 2 year old’s kind of tantrum, you can gently remind them of the scriptural truths they grew up hearing.
However you approach it, here is a link to the online scriptures for free!
