More is Caught Than Taught

"More is caught than taught."

We can tell our children the right things and still violate our own instruction to them, through our actions.

If a child hears the right things, but sees opposite actions, they will ignore what we say and do what they see us doing.

When we tell a child he shouldn't talk too much, then we had better be sure we are not "talking too much", through dominating conversations.

When we tell a child he should share, and then get upset when our spouse wants a piece of our candy, we are teaching by example, not to share.

When we tell our children to obey the Bible, while ignoring many of the principles written in it, then we are teaching our children to ignore the bible or cherry pick what we like.

When we tell our children they should respect us while we  show disrespect and dishonor to their grandparents, then we teach our children to disrespect and dishonor us.

When we tell our children not to be prideful and then treat others with contempt through favoritism, we are teaching snobbery to our children, that they need only show love and honor to those they like.

When we teach our children to serve others by making them serve us, but they never see us serving others, then we have taught them not to serve, and to make others serve them.

To punish a child for snappishness toward their siblings and then practice snappishness toward others ourselves, we have just taught our children to manipulate others through snappishness in conversation.

It is vitally important that our speech match our attitudes and actions.  Children will always take the easy road and the road most traveled, that which is familiar to them in daily living circumstances. 

We must be sure that our hearts are compliant to the Word, then and only then will our actions be the same as what is coming out of our mouths.