Train Up a Child

The Tree

This proverb is often quoted as an ironclad guarantee, and it is worth reading more carefully as the wisdom literature it actually is, a general pattern observed reliably over time, not a mechanical formula that removes a child’s own future choices entirely from the equation. Proverbs describes what tends to be true, not what is absolutely, mechanically certain in every case.

Notice the way he should go, not simply any way, but a specific direction suited to who this particular child actually is. This is not generic training applied identically regardless of the child’s own temperament, gifts, and struggles. It is training aimed, attentively, at the specific way this specific child needs to go.

This requires real attentiveness, not merely a standard formula applied uniformly to every child in a household. Training a child in the way he should go assumes you have actually taken the time to discern what that way is, for this child specifically, rather than assuming what worked, or should have worked, for someone else.

Whatever child you are training today, consider whether you are training toward a generic standard or toward the specific way this actual child, in front of you, genuinely needs. Both training and attentiveness are required here, not training alone applied carelessly.