Articles From Our Bulletins
The Collapse Of Parenting
Are the proverbs in Proverbs still true? I'm mystified how some read God's Proverbs these days given the tendency to make the exception the rule and the rule the exception. For example, state a general rule about childhood misbehavior and watch the focus shift to exploring all the exceptions.
Proverbs is a collection of truisms. Are there excep-tions? Sure. However, we make a big mistake by focus-ing on exceptions when we should be more concerned with general rules laid down for human behavior.
"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." Truism? Yes. Howev-er, is your first response to grasp the truism or is your first response to focus on exceptions?
That's telling.
Look, there are no guarantees. However, if you compel a child to behave virtuously, then when he is an adult he will continue to behave virtuously. Research backs that up (as if we doubted).
Research shows that if you instill good behavior and self-control in your kids in childhood/adolescence, then you improve the odds that your child will contin-ue to do the right thing after leaving home (studies by Mofitt, Poulton, and Capsi: "Lifelong impact of early self-control"). Conversely, if you ascribe to the 21st century American idea that parents should let kids do what they want, well, those results are predictable, too.
Virtue and self-control are taught by parents who mod-el it and expect it in their kids. It has to be taught. If you don't teach it, who will? The stakes are high.
