Why Train Our Children in Character—How It Began for Us Twenty-Seven Years Ago

Twenty-seven years ago, when we had a little one year old son and were homeschooling my junior high sister, we went to our very first “character” training workshop by Ron and Rebekah Coriell. It was a one hour session at a homeschool seminar. The Coriells were an amazing family with three sweet, adorable little girls who recited verses and character traits with so much charm they just melted the listeners’ hearts. And they definitely melted mine.

The thing I remember the most about that session was a story that Rebekah (the mother) told the group about her little seven year old. This daughter was in line for lunch at her Christian school when she told her friend that she wished she could have chocolate milk that day instead of white milk, but she could only have chocolate one day a week and she had already had it that week. Her friend encouraged her to disobey, saying, “Your mom will never know.”

And this little girl’s answer was the beginning of my desire to raise children with godly character: “My mom will not know, but God will.”

The Coriells had built within their daughter a significant “moral bank”—a place where deposits of biblical training and character lessons were frequently made. A bank of which this little girl had learned to draw from in various scenarios—even at the young age of seven years.

And thus began my twenty-seven year quest (so far!) to train my children in godly character and virtue. To attempt, with God’s help and leading and my husband’s partnering, to raise sons and daughters who understand that God always knows—and even moreso, to desire to please the God who knows with their life choices and character.