What do you think?
Rate this book
The Duties of Parents
With theological and practical guidelines for Christian parenting-some timeless advice that can speak into this age of dysfunctional families and failing schools.
- GenresParenting
176 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2003
14 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 16, 2022
The introduction, written by C. Bergman, to a modern Dutch version is included and provides the background given below.
- - -
Jacobus Koelman (1632-1695) was a Reformed Church minister whose professional life coincided with the height of the Nadere Reformatie, in which he was significant, both locally in Sluis (where he served as pastor from 1662 to 1675) and nationally through his writings and translations. A principled and obstinate man, he was exiled from Flanders (and his pastorate in Sluis) in 1675 due to his long term conflict with local government over the appointment of ministers and especially his determined stance against all feast days (as well as his opposition to formulaic prayers). This may, however, have encouraged his considerable literary output, as he wrote forty-four published books and translated an additional twenty-three.
Koelman’s wife, Anna, died young, and the two had no children, but he was still attentive to the necessity of raising children well to live godly lives, as shown well in this book, one of few reformed books on parenting in the 16th and 17th centuries. One Dutch historian of pedagogy describes Koelman, in this work, as having laid the foundation for Dutch educational theory.
- - -
An introduction, “A Serious Word to Parents and Teachers”, opens the book with a rationale for teaching godliness to the children under your care. Koelman’s homiletical experience shows most of all here, as he effuses with passion for a page and a half on how greatly a parent should desire his or her child’s godliness: “If your own salvation is of deep concern to you and you consider it a great thing, then you must rank the salvation of your children above the greatest joy you can experience in any worldly matters, whatever they are.”
This book, along with a catechism and a series of accounts of godly children (neither of which are included in this English edition), is intended to equip parents and teachers to seek that greater joy of their children’s salvation. Many desire to teach their children, but don’t have tools beyond memorized prayers and a few catechism questions. This book will help.
As an aside in this “Serious Word” (for academic or clerical readers, most likely), Koelman also says about his catechism , “The reason why in this process I do not follow so much the Heidelberg Catechism as I do the Westminster Shorter Catechism of England, Scotland, and Ireland is simply that the latter is in all respects superior. Why should we not honestly acknowledge such an obvious truth?” This warms my Presbyterian heart, but it also hints that his exile from Flanders may have been linked to his attitude as well as his theological positions. Koelman occasionally comes off as somewhat quarrelsome.
Chapter One: Rules for Expectant Parents, along with the next two chapters, forms a chronological trio that may have been the initial organizational plan for the entire work. Koelman starts prior to conception, advising Christians to consider carefully who to marry and to choose a faithful spouse. The believer should pray before becoming engaged, pray for conception, and pray over the unborn child. When born, the mother should breastfeed - and, we’re told in the next chapter, should pray for the child at feed times as a sort of first table grace. And while being attentive to bring the child to the sacrament of baptism, parents should also pray for baptism’s internal analogue in conversion. Also, Koelman advises against giving a child the names Absalom, Jezebel, or the name of a species of bird - evidently occurrences in his day.
Chapter Two: Teaching the Little Ones covers birth to six years of age. Teaching children to prefer good over evil should start early, through signs even before words can be used, and while teaching the child to speak should also teach signs that he or she can make to communicate (making Koelman an early advocate for the presently trendy “baby sign”). As the child grows, a strong emphasis is placed on prayer, with specific instructions given. Doctrines can start to be taught, as can reverence in times praying, singing, and reading scripture at home, at church, and at catechism class. Koelman specifically enjoins parents against allowing children to sleep, play, eat, or talk during Sunday morning services.
Chapter Three: Instructions on Teaching Children from Their Sixth to Their Twelfth Year intensifies the rules of the previous chapter. Catechism questions are to be rehearsed, the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandments memorized. While warning against overloading a child with memorization tasks (which the Dutch introduction’s author noted as a preference against excessive memorization), Koelman also tells parents to see that their children memorize his short catechism, memorize its proof texts, memorize the Heidelberg Catechism, memorize important Bible chapters (he lists twenty some), memorize large sections of the book of Proverbs, and memorize a few Psalms. Once the above are mastered (along with church history, Dutch church history - with a special emphasis on persecutions - and the errors of Roman Catholics, Jews, Socinians, Arminians, Mennonites, and Lutherans), the child can more on to a more advanced catechism book.
While this sounds overwhelming when listed in a single paragraph, over ten pages (and six years), it seems more plausible for the reading parent. Koelman’s directions are detailed and practical. The first three chapters are an excellent handbook for parents in the general task of rearing their children in the Christian faith, readable and engaging. The next three are also excellent.
Chapter Four: Teaching the Virtues of Godliness focuses on conduct and how to carry out discipline. It reveals Koelman’s intimate knowledge of parenting despite not having children himself, emphasizing the importance of insisting on being respected while in many specific ways being an example.
Chapter Five: Teaching Victory over Particular Sins, as its says, covers particular sins which children should be directed against. These include using the Lord’s name in vain, oaths, failing to keep the Lord’s day, sibling fighting, unrighteous anger, crass talk, pride, laziness, greed, theft, bad company, or deception (for which he tells parents to not lie to their children, either by saying things like “The bogey man will come and get you.” or by telling children fables or fairy tales). Koelman also condemns the keeping of Roman Catholic feast days, like Shrove Tuesday, Santa Claus day (presumably Saint Nicholas Day), Twelfth Night, and carnivals - an issue which got him in trouble in Sluis.
Chapter Six: Teaching Children How to Pray is perhaps the most systematic and focused, while also being longer than other chapters. It speaks generally about prayer (morning and evening family devotions are advised) before presenting a structure for prayer and then going in depth on each of its six points.
The next three chapters are less clearly structured or connected to the previous. As with others, they are constituted by “rules”, but these rules could have been better organized. Chapter Seven: Teaching Godliness by Conversation is loosey connected with how to speak to children about Christian doctrines, including an emphasis on teaching soteriology. It rightly tells parents that in teaching the second coming and Christ’s judgment, they should “Speak about this as one who seriously believes it, because ina way you have already seen it, so that your children will also get a strong impression.” Children learn not just from the words, but from the parents’ beliefs behind them. Chapter Eight: Rules for Living a True Faith is doctrines that children should know and the difference that being born again makes. There are somewhat curious notes on the born-again having “five additional senses” which are spiritual versions of the five natural senses, along with the born-again’s “six spiritual feelings”, which are spiritual versions of love, hatred, fear, hope, joy, and sorrow. Otherwise, these rules are conventional and would well have been included elsewhere. Chapter Nine: Additional Rules for Teaching Godliness is just as tacked on and would have been well included elsewhere, but includes the undeveloped rudiments of an apologetic guide for children to answer arguments from ungodly children, forty examples of probing questions to make a child consider or question his or her salvation, and concludes with encouragement for parents to persevere even until their children are 18.
Chapter Ten: Rules for the Physical and Material Well-being of Children has a different tone, with well thought out advice in protecting the health of children while providing them with food, clothing, and play (in moderation and decency). Parents should select their occupations well according to their abilities (considering ministry if a boy shows promise) as well as selecting a spouse for for their child who is both a believer and someone for whom the child has affection. Parents may set aside some but not too much riches for their children, not at the expense of giving to the poor, not including ill-gotten goods, and not equally among children (except with clear and reasonable reason: for example the custom of giving a double portion for the eldest, or reducing the inheritance of an ungodly child).
- - -
Koelman’s book is significant first as an influence on a portion of the Reformed Church after its publication, but also as an example of the values of the Nadere Reformatie. Few others wrote books aimed at parents, but the pietistic emphasis (if perhaps milder than other pietists) that Koelman brings to pedagogy shows the high value placed by the Nadere Reformatie on prayer in all levels of its programs, on the Lord’s Day, on opposition to certain Roman Catholic hold-over traditions, and on the focus on one’s eternal fate along with Christ’s judgment as key motivations .
- - -
Despite my occasional criticisms given here, The Duties of Parents was a terrific encouragement and challenge for me. It reinforced a great deal of how my wife and I are teaching the faith to our children, but also gave me food for thought and challenge in other areas. Compared to another book that has influenced my parenting, Family Discipleship (2020), The Duties of Parents is much more detailed, less concerned with identifying a pedagogical paradigm, and omits any personal anecdotes. I am not surprised that this was selected as one of the first books for the Classics of Reformed Spirituality, and would not hesitate to recommend it to spiritual mature believers with a young child (with the caveat that they needn’t be as concerned with feast days as Koelman is).
- - -
Jacobus Koelman (1632-1695) was a Reformed Church minister whose professional life coincided with the height of the Nadere Reformatie, in which he was significant, both locally in Sluis (where he served as pastor from 1662 to 1675) and nationally through his writings and translations. A principled and obstinate man, he was exiled from Flanders (and his pastorate in Sluis) in 1675 due to his long term conflict with local government over the appointment of ministers and especially his determined stance against all feast days (as well as his opposition to formulaic prayers). This may, however, have encouraged his considerable literary output, as he wrote forty-four published books and translated an additional twenty-three.
Koelman’s wife, Anna, died young, and the two had no children, but he was still attentive to the necessity of raising children well to live godly lives, as shown well in this book, one of few reformed books on parenting in the 16th and 17th centuries. One Dutch historian of pedagogy describes Koelman, in this work, as having laid the foundation for Dutch educational theory.
- - -
An introduction, “A Serious Word to Parents and Teachers”, opens the book with a rationale for teaching godliness to the children under your care. Koelman’s homiletical experience shows most of all here, as he effuses with passion for a page and a half on how greatly a parent should desire his or her child’s godliness: “If your own salvation is of deep concern to you and you consider it a great thing, then you must rank the salvation of your children above the greatest joy you can experience in any worldly matters, whatever they are.”
This book, along with a catechism and a series of accounts of godly children (neither of which are included in this English edition), is intended to equip parents and teachers to seek that greater joy of their children’s salvation. Many desire to teach their children, but don’t have tools beyond memorized prayers and a few catechism questions. This book will help.
As an aside in this “Serious Word” (for academic or clerical readers, most likely), Koelman also says about his catechism , “The reason why in this process I do not follow so much the Heidelberg Catechism as I do the Westminster Shorter Catechism of England, Scotland, and Ireland is simply that the latter is in all respects superior. Why should we not honestly acknowledge such an obvious truth?” This warms my Presbyterian heart, but it also hints that his exile from Flanders may have been linked to his attitude as well as his theological positions. Koelman occasionally comes off as somewhat quarrelsome.
Chapter One: Rules for Expectant Parents, along with the next two chapters, forms a chronological trio that may have been the initial organizational plan for the entire work. Koelman starts prior to conception, advising Christians to consider carefully who to marry and to choose a faithful spouse. The believer should pray before becoming engaged, pray for conception, and pray over the unborn child. When born, the mother should breastfeed - and, we’re told in the next chapter, should pray for the child at feed times as a sort of first table grace. And while being attentive to bring the child to the sacrament of baptism, parents should also pray for baptism’s internal analogue in conversion. Also, Koelman advises against giving a child the names Absalom, Jezebel, or the name of a species of bird - evidently occurrences in his day.
Chapter Two: Teaching the Little Ones covers birth to six years of age. Teaching children to prefer good over evil should start early, through signs even before words can be used, and while teaching the child to speak should also teach signs that he or she can make to communicate (making Koelman an early advocate for the presently trendy “baby sign”). As the child grows, a strong emphasis is placed on prayer, with specific instructions given. Doctrines can start to be taught, as can reverence in times praying, singing, and reading scripture at home, at church, and at catechism class. Koelman specifically enjoins parents against allowing children to sleep, play, eat, or talk during Sunday morning services.
Chapter Three: Instructions on Teaching Children from Their Sixth to Their Twelfth Year intensifies the rules of the previous chapter. Catechism questions are to be rehearsed, the Apostles Creed and the Ten Commandments memorized. While warning against overloading a child with memorization tasks (which the Dutch introduction’s author noted as a preference against excessive memorization), Koelman also tells parents to see that their children memorize his short catechism, memorize its proof texts, memorize the Heidelberg Catechism, memorize important Bible chapters (he lists twenty some), memorize large sections of the book of Proverbs, and memorize a few Psalms. Once the above are mastered (along with church history, Dutch church history - with a special emphasis on persecutions - and the errors of Roman Catholics, Jews, Socinians, Arminians, Mennonites, and Lutherans), the child can more on to a more advanced catechism book.
While this sounds overwhelming when listed in a single paragraph, over ten pages (and six years), it seems more plausible for the reading parent. Koelman’s directions are detailed and practical. The first three chapters are an excellent handbook for parents in the general task of rearing their children in the Christian faith, readable and engaging. The next three are also excellent.
Chapter Four: Teaching the Virtues of Godliness focuses on conduct and how to carry out discipline. It reveals Koelman’s intimate knowledge of parenting despite not having children himself, emphasizing the importance of insisting on being respected while in many specific ways being an example.
Chapter Five: Teaching Victory over Particular Sins, as its says, covers particular sins which children should be directed against. These include using the Lord’s name in vain, oaths, failing to keep the Lord’s day, sibling fighting, unrighteous anger, crass talk, pride, laziness, greed, theft, bad company, or deception (for which he tells parents to not lie to their children, either by saying things like “The bogey man will come and get you.” or by telling children fables or fairy tales). Koelman also condemns the keeping of Roman Catholic feast days, like Shrove Tuesday, Santa Claus day (presumably Saint Nicholas Day), Twelfth Night, and carnivals - an issue which got him in trouble in Sluis.
Chapter Six: Teaching Children How to Pray is perhaps the most systematic and focused, while also being longer than other chapters. It speaks generally about prayer (morning and evening family devotions are advised) before presenting a structure for prayer and then going in depth on each of its six points.
The next three chapters are less clearly structured or connected to the previous. As with others, they are constituted by “rules”, but these rules could have been better organized. Chapter Seven: Teaching Godliness by Conversation is loosey connected with how to speak to children about Christian doctrines, including an emphasis on teaching soteriology. It rightly tells parents that in teaching the second coming and Christ’s judgment, they should “Speak about this as one who seriously believes it, because ina way you have already seen it, so that your children will also get a strong impression.” Children learn not just from the words, but from the parents’ beliefs behind them. Chapter Eight: Rules for Living a True Faith is doctrines that children should know and the difference that being born again makes. There are somewhat curious notes on the born-again having “five additional senses” which are spiritual versions of the five natural senses, along with the born-again’s “six spiritual feelings”, which are spiritual versions of love, hatred, fear, hope, joy, and sorrow. Otherwise, these rules are conventional and would well have been included elsewhere. Chapter Nine: Additional Rules for Teaching Godliness is just as tacked on and would have been well included elsewhere, but includes the undeveloped rudiments of an apologetic guide for children to answer arguments from ungodly children, forty examples of probing questions to make a child consider or question his or her salvation, and concludes with encouragement for parents to persevere even until their children are 18.
Chapter Ten: Rules for the Physical and Material Well-being of Children has a different tone, with well thought out advice in protecting the health of children while providing them with food, clothing, and play (in moderation and decency). Parents should select their occupations well according to their abilities (considering ministry if a boy shows promise) as well as selecting a spouse for for their child who is both a believer and someone for whom the child has affection. Parents may set aside some but not too much riches for their children, not at the expense of giving to the poor, not including ill-gotten goods, and not equally among children (except with clear and reasonable reason: for example the custom of giving a double portion for the eldest, or reducing the inheritance of an ungodly child).
- - -
Koelman’s book is significant first as an influence on a portion of the Reformed Church after its publication, but also as an example of the values of the Nadere Reformatie. Few others wrote books aimed at parents, but the pietistic emphasis (if perhaps milder than other pietists) that Koelman brings to pedagogy shows the high value placed by the Nadere Reformatie on prayer in all levels of its programs, on the Lord’s Day, on opposition to certain Roman Catholic hold-over traditions, and on the focus on one’s eternal fate along with Christ’s judgment as key motivations .
- - -
Despite my occasional criticisms given here, The Duties of Parents was a terrific encouragement and challenge for me. It reinforced a great deal of how my wife and I are teaching the faith to our children, but also gave me food for thought and challenge in other areas. Compared to another book that has influenced my parenting, Family Discipleship (2020), The Duties of Parents is much more detailed, less concerned with identifying a pedagogical paradigm, and omits any personal anecdotes. I am not surprised that this was selected as one of the first books for the Classics of Reformed Spirituality, and would not hesitate to recommend it to spiritual mature believers with a young child (with the caveat that they needn’t be as concerned with feast days as Koelman is).
May 19, 2025
Instructs parents how to teach their kids Christian doctrine, virtues, and practices. Includes a lot of detailed advice about calling kids to repent and believe, teaching them to pray, and teaching them to be thankful.
Koelman is a product of his time (1631-1695), so he says don't celebrate Christmas or Easter because in the NT, the weekly Lord's Day is the only special day instituted by God, and because those other days have associations with superstition and idolatry. He also says don't play games with cards or dice because they involve casting lots (involving chance) for recreation, don't let kids dance because sinful dancing occurs in the Bible, and don't go to the theater because it presents sin vividly. Such advice makes up a tiny percentage of the book.
Notes
Don't be bitter, irate, irritable, cruel, harsh with kids (Eph 5:4; Col 3:21). That embitters them against you in the short and long term. It makes your future threats of discipline less effective. It discourages them because they don't know what you want. It makes them care less about obeying because you're irritable regardless.
Don't quarrel with or speak disdainfully about spouse in front of kids. That causes you to lose authority and esteem.
Don't discipline severely, because that can embitter, torment, anger, or discourage them (Eph 5:4; Col 3:21). God chastises His children in moderation (Jer 30:11; Ps 103:14; ;1 Cor 10:13).
Don't discipline in anger, or kids will think discipline is due to your anger, not to your reasoning. Disciplining with wisdom and love makes it more likely child will accept it.
Don't discipline more when kids damage your property than when they sin against God, or they'll think the latter is less important.
Koelman is a product of his time (1631-1695), so he says don't celebrate Christmas or Easter because in the NT, the weekly Lord's Day is the only special day instituted by God, and because those other days have associations with superstition and idolatry. He also says don't play games with cards or dice because they involve casting lots (involving chance) for recreation, don't let kids dance because sinful dancing occurs in the Bible, and don't go to the theater because it presents sin vividly. Such advice makes up a tiny percentage of the book.
Notes
Don't be bitter, irate, irritable, cruel, harsh with kids (Eph 5:4; Col 3:21). That embitters them against you in the short and long term. It makes your future threats of discipline less effective. It discourages them because they don't know what you want. It makes them care less about obeying because you're irritable regardless.
Don't quarrel with or speak disdainfully about spouse in front of kids. That causes you to lose authority and esteem.
Don't discipline severely, because that can embitter, torment, anger, or discourage them (Eph 5:4; Col 3:21). God chastises His children in moderation (Jer 30:11; Ps 103:14; ;1 Cor 10:13).
Don't discipline in anger, or kids will think discipline is due to your anger, not to your reasoning. Disciplining with wisdom and love makes it more likely child will accept it.
Don't discipline more when kids damage your property than when they sin against God, or they'll think the latter is less important.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews