Your Questions Please
QUESTION: 
Why is it that, in the cases of children to whom the child salvation message was applied after they were born, their outbursts are worse than before they were born again? This has led believers to question whether the message is the truth after all.
Is there a reason for this? Is this a normal pattern? Have we mistakenly supposed that, once the child is born again, its behavior will forever after be all that we could desire?
ANSWER:
When we listen to the child salvation message, we tend to draw certain strong conclusions which we do not subsequently find to be realities in the actual experience of the children. This is disappointing, and, until the reasons for this are understood, it is also confusing, perplexing, and discouraging.
Naturally, Christian parents long to see in their children the same flawless perfection manifest in the life of the Child Jesus. Nor, do they need to be disappointed, for that life is the strongest assurance that that can be achieved. So, when they hear the message being spelled out telling how this can be done, they are filled with the highest expectations.
But parents are not to be surprised at the manifestations of old habit patterns in their little charges. This is perfectly normal, is to be expected, and can be dealt with within the framework of the message.
It is to be expected because, from the moment the child is conceived, it is forming habits of response to the world around it. Most people suppose that during the pre-natal period, the infant is insulated from the world and its pressures, and that the mother's trials and temptations are unknown to the unborn, but this is not so. Instead, every experience the mother passes through is likewise experienced by the child. It fears as the mother fears, loves as she does, and so on. So, when the mother responds to life's threats in whatever way she does, she lays down the foundation for the formation of a good or an evil habit pattern in her unborn infant. The next time that the same temptation comes, the mother and child will respond according to the previous reaction, unless some factor such as the acquirement of faith begins the breaking up of the old pattern.
By the time the child is born, it has a well established habit pattern for dealing with life's problems. This is the only response that it knows or understands. Now, when it becomes a born again Christian, the old habit patterns are not immediately broken up. What has been established by repeated application over a span of years is not wiped out in a single moment. Those habit patterns have been laid down in the mind. They are not the evil nature which is eradicated in a moment, but are the tools used by the evil nature to respond to life's threats, and are an unfortunate legacy left behind after the stony heart has been removed.
Now, after a child is born again as a result of the application of the message on child salvation, he will be faced with the usual, threatening crises both small and great. In the past, he has known but one way of dealing with these, and he naturally tends to revert to these old ways. The old habits then strive for the mastery over the new and good impulses. We are warned that they will.
"Old habits, hereditary tendencies to wrong, will strive for the mastery, and against these he is to be ever on guard, striving in Christ's strength for victory." The Acts of the Apostles, 477.
Now, when this happens, parents are to understand that they are now battling against an old habit, not against an evil heart. What they have to do is to begin the construction of new habit patterns from the foundation up. This is not easy work. It will require faith, patience, and determination, and the battle will be won. Let the child be led to understand that in the new family to which he now belongs, there is a wonderful Problem-solver. Instead of seeking to solve the trouble himself as he did in the past, he is taught to operate by different procedures which do bring perfect success and establish a new and better habit pattern. Gradually, the change will be achieved.
In the case of a child born again from his earliest moment, and trained in the right habits from that point, a problem-free pattern of behavior can be expected.
