Proverbs 22:6

Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it. --Proverbs 22:6

If you are like me, you have been leaning on this little verse as a promise and a hope for your children: no matter how wayward they stray as teens or young adults, eventually they'll come back to the values and morals we taught when they were young. Maybe I could take this a bit further and say, "no matter how badly I failed to do what I should have done, and how far they have wondered from the values that I proclaimed with my mouth but did not myself practice, no matter how distracted I was by prosperity and comfort, no matter how I neglected my obligations and failed to discipline and disciple my children, they'll eventually come back."

Maybe that's too harsh?

But let us examine ourselves. Lets take another look at the verse and the original Hebrew language. Let us take a deeper look at what we are doing--and what we are not doing--to train and disciple our children. Perhaps we should take this verse as a warning meant to sober us, not comfort. The commentary below is from Withhold Not Correction by Bruce A. Ray.

In Proverbs 22:6 we read, "Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." This verse is usually taken as a promise, and it is almost always abused by persons seeking a false comfort. Some understand it to mean this: If the child is trained properly (that is, biblically) in his youth, he will not depart from that training when he grows older. Now generally speaking, this statement is true. Whether the Lord regenerates him or not, the morality which has been instilled in him as a child will carry him through his adult years. But it is not the teaching of Proverbs 22:6.

Others understand the verse to mean: If a child is trained properly in his youth, but then goes astray, he will return to that earlier training when he is older. This is frequently the understanding of those who desire to have a false sense of comfort. . . .

In it's proper context Proverbs 22:6 is not a promise so much as it is a warning to Christian parents. In the Hebrew text of Proverbs 22:6, the phrase "in the way he should go" is entirely lacking. Rather the Hebrew says, "Train up a child in his way and when he is old he will not depart from it." Train up a child in his way or after his manner according to his ways. Allow a child to have self-expression, allow him to pick and choose what he will and will not do, and as that habit is formed in his youth he will not change when he is older. If he does not learn discipline from you as a child he will never learn it as an adult. That is a warning. Or it is a promise, if you like, but it is a promise in the negative sense. If you let your children run over you, if you withhold the rod, if you fail to discipline them, if you fail to diligently and meticulously instruct them in the little things as well as the big, if you let your children decide what they will and what they will not eat, what they will and what they will not wear, what they will and what they will not do and when they will and will not do it, look into the future and you will see those same children unbridled, undisciplined, and unable to bring their bodies into submission to the commands of God. That is a stern warning. Jay Adams comments on this verse in his book Competent to Counsel and says, "The verse stands not as a promise but as a warning to parents that if they allow a child to train himself after his own wishes (permissively) they should not expect him to want to change these patterns when he matures. Children are born sinners and when allowed to follow their own wishes they will naturally develop sinful habit responses. The basic thought is that such habit patterns become deep-seated when they have been ingrained in the child from the earliest days." The point is that he cannot get out of the rut which you have established for him. "Train up a child in his way and when he is old he will not depart from it." To allow the child to go his own way, to allow him to take things naturally as they come, is to assure the destruction of his soul. The direction of a child, whose natural way leads to hell, demands correction.