The pre-school child will tell you what God is doing in his heart. He will openly talk about his moral thoughts. He will naturally think about God, death, and the afterlife. He will keep telling you – forever – if you respond correctly when he does.
Listen for the heart-work that God is doing, and cooperate with it. Do not coerce the heart! Impose actions, but do not attempt to impose by authority a thought, attitude, or value. Do not command the child to share what is on his heart or mind.
First, you can’t: the heart cannot be coerced, and the child cannot be pressured into sharing (usually a fault of moms, not dads). Boys will build a wall between you; girls will resent you. Later in life, these manifest in boys as silence, in girls as feelings she didn’t know she had.
Second: You don’t want to, because the result would be worthless. What is imposed by authority is not necessarily chosen.
But, the balance to this …you still must impose the law of reaping consequences. It is not that the thoughts and attitudes are not the parents’ business. They are. It is just that authority (coercion) is not the tool to address them. The body must be compelled; the heart must be WON. Every day.
TimothyOne 