Children are an important gift from God, Psalm 127:3. Jesus Himself placed importance on children, Matthew 18:1-4 & 19:14.
Children are not empty boxes you need to fill, they are a gift with something already inside them from God. Your job as a parent is to find out what’s inside and teach them how to use it for God’s glory.
You should indoctrinate your children. If you don’t, someone else will. Indoctrination simply means the way you teach someone to live, what values they should have, and why they should be that way. Indoctrinating your children isn’t bad as long as you’re teaching them how to live in a way that pleases God and why they are to do so. See also Proverbs 22:6 and Ephesians 6:4. You will even be teaching your children when you don’t think you are, just by the way you live.
Whoever teaches your children also disciples them. Be aware of who your children are learning from and what they are learning.
Children are humans, too. A lot of people forget this and sometimes treat children like puppies that can’t possibly understand what the adults are doing. Sometimes people forget this because children are young and inexperienced, and also forget they are quickly and constantly learning. Children are quite smart and can understand a lot more than you think. Sometimes you just need to take time to explain, just like someone once explained to you. As you explain, you might even find flaws in what you’re explaining or doing and change it or yourself accordingly.
Children will learn from you even when you aren’t purposefully teaching. “Do as I say and not as I do” only works for so long. Children are intuitive; they see what you’re doing and will structure their behavior accordingly.
Children are like arrows, Psalm 127:4. Arrows are made to be shot forth towards a target. Not all arrows are meant to hit the same target. Sometimes your arrows will not be made the same way, and will need to be shot a little differently.
Remember you used to be a child. Remember that we Christians are presently God’s children, and God often uses the parent-child relationship to describe His relationship with us.
Children are important to God and so should be important to us.