To know “the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6) requires knowing each child: learning his abilities, her character, and his temperament. Each child needs to be taught in the best way he or she can learn. Each child is different.
Train them based on their age. Newborns and infants learn by hearing, feeling, and seeing; toddlers and preschoolers learn by imagination and representative play; grade school children learn through activity, realistic play, and talking; and typically, teens have enough life experience to learn through talking and discussion.1
Train them based on their individuality. Each child is different, with his or her individual personality and idiosyncrasies; strengths and weaknesses; sensitivities and fears; preferences and taste; skills and handicaps; with her individual capacity to learn by seeing, hearing, and doing.
Each child is different, not a mere clone of dad, mom, big sister, or big brother. A child prone to facts, logic, and tangible realities learns differently and must be trained differently than her older sister, who is more inclined toward emotions and stories.
Each child is different! Is it nature or nurture? Are traits shaped by nature and genetics, by nurture and environment, or a combination of the two? Let psychologists debate the causalities; as for fathers, God’s wisdom teaches dads to learn their children’s nature so that they will be better prepared to nurture!
Train them based on their interests. While children frequently pursue interests that appeal to their parents, they must not be forced to adopt their parents’ interests. A child may enjoy different hobbies: dad may love hunting, fishing, and sports, but Junior is not odd for being drawn to movies, music, and art. He may choose a different career path: dad may be a doctor, technician, or entrepreneur, but that does not obligate Junior to a foreordained field. Preachers, take heed!
When dad rears the child this way, according to Solomon, “when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). By following God’s wisdom and by training the child “in the way that he should go,” fathers learn how to help their children to be themselves. Such upbringing better equips a child to use his strengths and weaknesses as he matures instead of becoming an adult who second-guesses himself, and who “cannot seem to find himself.”
—Scott Cain, Memphis, Tennessee
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1Frank Minereth. Minirth Guide for Christian Counselors, 2003.
