Teaching Your Kids to Obey the Government

Teaching Your Kids to Obey the Government

by Joey & Carla Link

January 2016

We flew into Los Angeles Airport and caught the bus to get our rental car. As the driver was taking us to the rental car location, he was being flagged down by another customer and his young family. The bus driver motioned him to move down to the island where he could stop and pick him up. The man walked a couple of feet and kept flagging the driver down. The bus driver eventually stopped in a location that was safe, but not where he was supposed to pick up passengers.

The man was grateful, and while loading his family onto the bus, the police came and told the driver to move. The man loading his family onto the bus got upset with the officers, and the bus driver was trying to tell the passenger it was his (the bus driver’s) fault for stopping there. The policeman wasn’t backing off and neither was the passenger who was arguing with the officer instead of getting his family on the transporter bus.

The driver kept yelling it was his fault while the man kept arguing with the officer about how he had to get on the bus and flagged the driver down. Finally the officer took the name and number of the bus driver to write him a ticket.

What did God mean when he said in Romans 13:1-4 “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good.”

God is telling us we need to obey the laws the government has set forth. If we as adults don’t obey the laws our government enacts whether they are convenient or not or whether we agree with them or not, the country will be in complete chaos.

If we as parents do not teach our children to obey us, then where will they learn to obey the government or to obey God who they can’t see but who gave us the government to help give us order, laws and therefore life we can enjoy?

Teaching our children to obey the basic everyday laws is part of training a child up in the way he should go. For instance, when riding their bikes, which side of the road does your children ride on? I remember when my daughter Briana was ready to ride her bike on her own. I had to think if I had taught her that stop signs are for people riding bikes as well as cars and trucks. I wondered if I had told her to stop and look at driveways to see if a car was pulling out, and if so to give it the right of way. Teaching her to ride her bike was a really good opportunity to show why we all must obey the laws of the our cities and countries to enjoy harmony with each other. If they don’t learn it from you, who is going to teach them?

If you think you have taught your kids to respect and obey the laws of our society, ask them to give you an example of how they do this. Make up a scenario to see how they would react in a given situation. Be sure to ask them why they made the decision to do something in a certain way instead of a different one you came up with that would have defended them and their rights. Obviously this would be for older elementary age kids up through college age.

You could follow this teaching opportunity up by asking each of your children if they obey you the same way they obey the laws of government and do they obey God the same way. Have them give an example to show how they do this.