How Can Parents Discourage Violence in Children?

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Experts offer many helpful tips parents can use to foster nonviolence among their children: Give them love and attention; supervise them when they need it; model for them your own good behavior; teach them how peacefully to resolve conflicts; use nonviolent ways to discipline them, and be fair when you do. Despite these excellent tips for teaching nonviolence, some parents still have to live in violent areas. God’s people need to know that God can help them cope. But they must base their confidence, not in some vague optimism that things will improve, but upon God’s sure word that He cares for His children. He will never leave them alone. That is what gave the prophet Jeremiah hope in the aftermath of violence in his country. His people were in captivity because they had violated God’s covenant. Despite such a difficult state of affairs, Jeremiah still had faith that God would do them good. He wrote in Lamentations Ch. 3, “The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness.” Like Jeremiah, Godly parents and grandparents stuck in violent-prone situations can still hope.