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iQuestions Faculty, Ron Blue 
 
 
Question: 
 
What is the difference between teaching and training? 
 
Answer: 
 
JUDY BLUE: I love answering the question of the difference between 
teaching and training. The scriptures, it says, “Train up a child in the 
way that they should go, and when they’re old, they will not depart 
from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) 
 
Teaching is to somebody’s head. So, we can get information into your 
head. Training is to the will, which ultimately enables you to do it. 
 
So, any mother who’s raised children knows that teaching means you 
can tell them and tell them and tell them to make their bed, pick up 
their clothes, clean up their toys, or whatever—but until they do it, it’s 
not to the will. 
 
I just think that’s a huge piece to understand, because I feel like, 
sometimes as mothers, you just wear down as you put information in 
a child’s head, and you fail to see implementation. So, you’ve got to 
stay with the process until they are trained, because it’s only when 
they are trained that they’ll take it away, and it will be their own. 
 
RON BLUE: You know, what comes to my mind is, I remember you 
were teaching our children how to make a bed, and you taught them, 
and so they knew how to make a bed, but they didn’t necessarily 
make a bed. That was more training to the will. We knew we had them 
trained when, in fact, they made their bed voluntarily without us 
continuing to tell them.  
 
 
 
Did you have to tell them more than once? [laughs] 
 
JUDY: Yeah, right. [laughs] 
 
I think this challenge holds in every area of there lives. So, when it 
comes to money and money management, you know, you can teach 
them the principles, but until they embrace them and walk away with 
them—which I’m so grateful for, that our children have done a really 
good job of embracing those, and it being part of their willful choices 
on a daily basis. 
 
RON: You know, I think that’s a really good point, because you can tell 
them that money doesn’t grow on trees, you can tell them that they 
can’t have everything, you can tell them that we can’t afford it—but 
that’s to the head, and they don’t necessarily understand that, and 
they don’t bring it into their will.  
 
So, teaching them how to manage money and the right principles 
relative to money takes a long time.  
 
JUDY: Yes, it does. 
 
RON: It takes a phenomenal commitment from the parents. It’s not 
something that you can do once, and you’re done. It’s a lifetime. And I 
think that it takes an awful lot of faith to be able to pull that off. 
 
So, I think there’s a huge difference between teaching and training, 
and parents just need to understand that once you’ve told them the 
job’s not done, that’s just the beginning. You’ve got to train them to 
their will, so that they willfully, purposefully, and rationally make the 
right decisions. 
 
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JUDY: And I think another thing that goes along with that is 
remembering that raising children is on an eighteen-year continuum. 
So, you start with having to tell them everything. What you want to do 
over the course of eighteen years is empower and release them, so 
that it is all incorporated, and it’s part of their belief system—not 
everything that they’re doing is a list of rules that they have to follow 
in your household, but those rules have become theirs, because they 
understand the value of following those rules. 
 
RON: I am reminded of the first time that our oldest child turned 
eighteen, and we implemented something, and we took her out to 
dinner, and we said, “Cynthia, you’re eighteen. Our job’s done. We’ve 
trained you, we’ve done the best job that we can, but you are now 
responsible for making your own decisions.” 
 
Remember her response? [laughs] 
 
JUDY: Oh, yeah. She said, “Please, don’t let me go.” [laughs] 
 
They desperately want you to let them go, until it’s really time to be 
let go. 
 
RON: But we had trained them up with the perspective—and she was 
ready to make her own decisions. And we said, “Now, what time you 
come in, and who you go out with, and who your friends are, these are 
now your decisions.” 
 
You train them over eighteen years, but that’s a really good 
perspective, that you train them in constantly letting them go.  
 
So, we encourage you as parents that it’s a long job, but it’s well 
worth it, believe us. 
 
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