Shepherding a Child's Heart

(^) The second foundation of life is adherence to parental instruction.
Proverbs 1:8–9 reads, “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to
grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.” Proverbs 6 presents
an expanded repetition of this call to walk in wisdom:.
(^) My son, keep your father’s commands
(^) and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
(^) Bind them upon your heart forever;
(^) fasten them around your neck.
(^) When you walk, they will guide you;
(^) when you sleep, they will watch over you;
(^) when you awake, they will speak to you.
(^) For these commands are a lamp,
(^) this teaching is a light,
(^) and the corrections of discipline
(^) are the way to life.
(^) (Proverbs 6:20-23)
(^) The young person who adheres to the instruction of his parents
will be richly blessed.
(^) It is often assumed that teenage children will find their parents
irrelevant. Most expect that by the teen years the parent-child
relationship is one of convenience and necessity, rather than choice.
(^) Proverbs holds out a vision of children seeing in their parents a
source of wisdom and instruction. It asserts that children will be
enriched and greatly benefited by adherence to the values and
instruction of their parents. Rather than young people casting off, as
irrelevant, their parents’ outlook, Solomon directs them to embrace it.