For the last several years, I have occasionally filled in as a substitute teacher at the school. I’ve really enjoyed the experience and have been impressed over and over at the high quality of the school in Big Sandy. Last week, I helped out washing dishes a few times in the school cafeteria.

I also really enjoyed this and was impressed at how hard the folks there work to take care of our kids. It was the first week of school and the younger kids were learning the etiquette for visiting the cafeteria. The teacher walked with them and patiently explained when to say “please” and “thank you” as well as how to clean up after themselves. As the older kids came through, the teachers did less coaching, but the manners didn’t become less common.

When the High School kids came through they were as polite and considerate as the younger kids, only with no teacher around making sure they do these things. It occurred to me that most of the students had gone through the elementary school and learned to say “please” and “thank you” from the kindergarten teacher, and then were reminded year after year to do so, until they entered the High School.

Now, as older students they automatically do what they are supposed to do. This may sound like a small thing, but it demonstrates an important principle that Solomon puts best in the book of Proverbs: “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”

The idea is that if you teach a child right from wrong and how they should live, they will continue in it their whole lives. I’ve noticed this in my wife. Her father works very hard. I respect my father-in-law because he is a guy that would do any job to bring home money to feed his family, and he would work hard while doing it.

My wife talks about this aspect of her dad’s personality often. The interesting thing is that she is very much the same way. My wife works hard at whatever she is doing. I can’t think of a time she ever cut corners or was lazy at a job she had to do.

She learned that mode of working from her dad as a child and now it’s a part of who she is. Kids learn values by watching their parents and those values become ingrained for the rest of their lives. Even if they consciously choose to walk away from them, there will still be a strong draw to the value system of their upbringing.

This truth applies to things like valuing education, reading, eating habits, church attendance, how they fight in marriage, etc. There is a negative element to this: kids can learn unhealthy values and patterns from their parents just as much as they can learn good ones. Kids from dysfunctional homes often learn poor communication and relationship skills that they bring to their own homes as adults.

This means that it’s a big deal to constantly grow as people, ensuring that we are raising our kids to follow right paths in life. Like the “please” and “thank you” pattern of the kids I watched last week, these are the patterns that will go with them. The things small kids learn is important and will become what they value as adults. And they learn it from watching and listening to the adults in their lives.