In a special location at home I keep handy a small reminder of a big lesson I learned one time as a young father. It is a sharp wooden splinter about an inch and a half in length that was retrieved from the tire of our family car many years ago at a time when one of our daughters was learning to drive. One day while she was driving that particular car, she rounded a corner and managed to bump up over the curb. Soon thereafter the tire went flat. Making the logical assumption that the impact had caused the problem, I took the occasion to admonish her on being more careful. It was, I thought, the perfect teaching moment—and so it was, but for the father rather than the daughter. The repairman soon discovered the problem with the tire: it was not the bump but rather an imbedded wooden splinter that was the problem. I apologized to my daughter for the misplaced blame (she was always very forgiving) and resolved to be less judgmental in the future in carrying out my fatherly teaching duties. Recently I was counseling with my son on some family matters and retrieved the wooden splinter to relive for his benefit the lesson I had learned so many years ago. We enjoyed a good chuckle at my expense.
And so it is in life. As parents teach, they need to remember constantly that they, too, are imperfect and have need of continuing education and constant correction. When Alma exhorted his sons to live righteously, he did so in the context of his own grievous past. He taught repentance with authority because he himself was an authority on repentance: “Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you, my son, that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy” (Alma 36:21). What a powerful testimony of the effects of repentance and the application of the principles of the Atonement. The Savior reminded us: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” (Matthew 7:3; see also Luke 6:41–42). Parents as teachers would do well to clothe truth in humility, doctrine in compassion, and principles in charity. (Richard J. Allen)