Preparing Children to Respond to Cultural Challenges to Right Wrong
Preparing children to discern right from wrong in the face of cultural challenges is a central theme in biblical wisdom literature and subsequent Christian thought. The book of Proverbs, for instance, emphasizes the importance of parental instruction and correction in shaping a child's moral compass [1, 2, 5]. This instruction is not merely about conveying information but about actively guiding children toward wisdom and away from foolishness [4].
Parents are encouraged to teach their children what is good and evil, and to apply correction when necessary, whether through chiding or, if needed, the rod [1]. This correction is understood as a means to impart wisdom, especially when applied with rational and grave reproof [1]. The goal is to address the "foolishness bound up in [a child's] heart" that requires rebuke [2]. Such discipline is to begin early, before "vicious habits are confirmed" [2]. The parent's role is to apply instruction to the child's heart, encouraging them to delight in and submit to the authority of wise teachings, particularly those found in scripture [5].
The wisdom gained through such upbringing allows children to become a comfort and credit to their parents, demonstrating the effectiveness of their parents' methods even when others might criticize their strictness [3]. Spiritually mature individuals are characterized by their ability to distinguish between good and evil [6].
Early Christian thinkers also recognized the need to guide children away from inappropriate behaviors. Augustine, for example, noted that children, once they are old enough to understand, should be forbidden from using wrong words or engaging in inappropriate actions, unless explicitly permitted or encouraged by their parents [7]. This highlights a consistent emphasis across different eras of Christian thought on the active role of parents in shaping a child's moral understanding and behavior from a young age.
Sources
- Proverbs (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Proverbs 29:15: Parents, in educating their children, must consider, 1. The benefit of due correction. They must not only tell their children what is good and evil, but they must chide them, and correct them too, if need be, when they either neglect that which is good or do that which is evil. If a reproof will serve without the rod, it is well, but the rod must never be used without a rational and grave reproof; and then, though it may be a present uneasiness both to the father and to the child, yet it will give wisdom. Vexatio dat intellectum - Vexation sharpens the intellec”
- Proverbs (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Proverbs 13:24: Note, 1. To the education of children in that which is good there is necessary a due correction of them for what is amiss; every child of ours is a child of Adam, and therefore has that foolishness bound up in its heart which calls for rebuke, more or less, the rod and reproof which give wisdom. Observe, It is his rod that must be used, the rod of a parent, directed by wisdom and love, and designed for good, not the rod of a servant. 2. It is good to begin betimes with the necessary restraints of children from that which is evil, before vicious habits are confi”
- Proverbs (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Proverbs 27:11: Children are here exhorted to be wise and good, 1. That they may be a comfort to their parents and may make their hearts glad, even when the evil days come, and so recompense them for their care, Pro 23:15. 2. That they may be a credit to them: "That I may answer him that reproaches me with having been over-strict and severe in bringing up my children, and having taken a wrong method with them in restraining them from the liberties which other young people take. My son, be wise, and then it will appear, in the effect, that I went the wisest way to work with my ”
- Proverbs (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Proverbs 7:6: 7:6-23 The young man’s father tells a story to illustrate his teaching about immoral women. 7:6-7 Naive young men, not yet set in their ways, are still open to correction. With each foolish act, they move closer to becoming fools.”
- Proverbs (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Proverbs 23:12: Here is, 1. A parent instructing his child. He is here brought in persuading him to give his mind to his book, and especially to the scriptures and his catechism, to attend to the words of knowledge, by which he might come to know his duty, and danger, and interest, and not to think it enough to give them the hearing, but to apply his heart to them, to delight in them, and bow his will to the authority of them. The heart is then applied to the instruction when the instruction is applied to the heart. 2. A parent correcting his child. A tender parent can scarcel”
- Hebrews (Protestant academic) “Tyndale House on Hebrews 5:14: 5:14 Being able to recognize the difference between right and wrong is a defining characteristic of spiritual maturity.”
- Schaff ANF/NPNF (Patristic) “NPNF1 Vol 5: Augustine — Anti-Pelagian — CHAP. 66.--INFANTS' FAULTS SPRING FROM THEIR (part 2): No prudent man, doubtless, could possibly approve of not only not forbidding in children such conduct in word or deed as this, as soon as they are able to be forbidden, but even of exciting them to it, for the vain amuse. ment of their elders. For as soon as children are of an age to know their father and mother, they dare not use wrong words to either, unless permitted or bidden by either, or both. 42 But such things can only belong to such young children as are just striving to lisp out words, and”