your child you must also see to it that he does not become overfamiliar and disrespectful. Your respect for Jehovah in everything you say and do will, in turn, command your child’s respect for you. You must always show yourself firm for right principles. Never be inconsistent in your dealings. When you say Yes, then you should mean just that; and when you say No, that should be final. How frequently one sees some cute, smooth-talking youngster cajoling his parents into letting him have his own way! To take the course of least resistance here, either by letting him have his way or by letting him get away with even a minor disobedience, is really teaching him to disobey. What a great responsibility for his later life this must bring upon you!

PLANNING HIS FUTURE

16. How can your child be directed toward a happy and successful future?

¹⁶ Plans for the future of your child would be vain if they failed to take into account the main purpose of your training, namely, to impress upon the young mind the vitalness of knowing God and living according to his requirements. So at a tender age he should be directed toward a life of greatest usefulness. Point to the prophets as men who devoted their lives to the teaching of heavenly wisdom. Explain how the brave and fearless warriors of the Bible were patterns of the bold, spiritual warriors of today who, without carnal weapons, are able to put enemies to flight, pull down strongholds of error, and bring emancipation to multitudes of enslaved peoples. (2 Cor. 10:4-6) Open up to your child’s vision wide vistas of opportunity in the service of God’s kingdom. Aid him to grasp the truth that all secular activities, without exception, are at best only useful as they provide more time and means to expend in the grand work of spreading knowledge of Jehovah’s marvelous works and future purposes.

17. Explain the relationship between teaching your child good speech and his successful future.

¹⁷ Good speech is one of the basics for a successful future. To be able to speak well means to speak clearly, to speak graciously, to speak respectfully, and, above all, to speak the truth. Teaching your child to express himself well should have many good effects. You cannot help a youth who will not talk about his troubles. Suppression of young ideas and views could produce introverts who will be more concerned about their own selfish little world than about the family and the many truth-hungry people all around. (Prov. 18:1) For best results in warmth and loving cooperation there must be confidential talk in the family. (Prov. 15:22) If you are always approachable, reasonable and conversational with your child, there is less likelihood of some seed of error taking root in his mind without your being aware of the danger. (Heb. 12:15) Teaching good speech also requires the teacher himself to make sure that he is giving a good example. The power of good speech on a good subject is described in the Bible as healing and refreshing to the listener. (Prov. 15:23; Ps. 107:20) Your child can be equipped to give comfort and hope to multitudes of needy ones in this selfish, heartless system of things.

18. How can parents find support in their earnest efforts to tell “the generation to come”?

¹⁸ In discharging this parental obligation to tell “the generation to come” about Jehovah’s wonderful works, you are not alone. There are other parents who see this as their God-given work. They not only teach the children at home but also take them along to a Kingdom Hall or to some centrally located home where several families assemble for an hour at a set time each week to study the Bible and strengthen one another’s faith and hope in God’s promised New Order. If there is no such meeting place in the immediate neighborhood, why not organize a study group right in your own home where interested persons could come together for consideration of the Bible? This magazine could be used as study material, and would surely help one and all to find the treasures of knowledge stored up in God’s Word for this very day in which we live. Your family would be greatly benefited by such wholesome association.

19. To ensure success in their God-given career, what should parents guard against, and what prospect lies beyond their faithful discharge of duty?

¹⁹ Parents, Jehovah has given you a marvelous inheritance—children, together with the responsibility of molding and training them for an everlasting and successful future. Why not enter fully into your parental career? For one who has a family, no other is to be compared with it. Do not permit the incidental matters of life, your job, your standing in the community, your quest for personal relaxation, to push this career into the background. That your children should observe the operation of a practical faith in your life, and ask questions about it, and that you, in turn, should be able to explain to your children the basis of your faith, is made clear at Deuteronomy 6:20-25: “In case your son should ask you in a future day, saying, ‘What do the testimonies and the regulations and the judicial decisions mean that Jehovah our God has commanded you?’ then you must say to your son, ‘. . . Jehovah commanded us to carry out all these regulations, to fear Jehovah our God for our good always, that we might keep alive as at this day.’” Progressively train your child through the successive stages of his minority. Do a thorough job, and when he reaches adulthood he will not turn away, but will still be ranged alongside you, his parents, in the service of the grand Creator. Equip your child with knowledge and appreciation of Jehovah’s power, his wonderful works and his never-failing purpose. By word and example keep telling these things forth to “the generation to come.”

Youth, Get Saved from This Crooked Generation

“My son, to my wisdom O do pay attention. To my discernment incline your ears, so as to guard thinking abilities; and may your own lips safeguard knowledge itself.”—Prov. 5:1, 2.

1. Why are these days the time of grandest opportunity for youth?

YOU young men and women living at this time in history are offered opportunities unequaled in the past and never to be repeated in the future. This is not because the atomic age has brought us to the threshold of a new era, nor because the current gains in scientific knowledge have opened up vast new fields for progress. Indeed, all these discoveries appear to be hurrying this world toward catastrophe of man’s own making. What makes these the grandest