We are inundated with people who either realistically have never had children, don't plan on having any, or will never handle children of any sort; who are affecting the decision-making processes of parents who deal with children everyday. The sad thing is; I have always known that to be an expert in an area, you definitely must have experience in that area as far a practice is concerned.
There are tons of people in our society that are academicians and theoriticians and not practitioners. Especially, when it comes to the subject of rearing children. I find it most beneficial that doctors in any science who practice are on the real cutting edge of breakthroughs, as far as diagnosis and treatment is concerned, and that doctors in any science who are academicians and have never practiced are just theoretic in most cases with regard to diagnosis and treatment.
Well, the line in the rearing of children is not a one, two, or three step as some of these people assume. The mental framework of children are based on a "bent" or as the Scripture states in Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child in the way that he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it." The phrase "in the way that he should go" is literally rendered in the Hebrew, " `al- piy darkow" {`al- (in); piy (he should go); darkow (the way)} or in English "according to his way".
The phrase, "the way" in English is translated from the Hebrew "darkow" in the Septuagint (LXX --Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures) and Masoretic Text. Both however, use the noun "derek" (deh-rek) which means literally "a road (as trodden)". Figuratively it means "a course of life or mode of action". The real catch is that this word or noun "derek" is derived from the root word or verb "darak" (daw-rak) which means "to tread; by implication, to walk; also to string a bow (by treading on it in bending)". Hence the key idea is that a child's training or "chanak" (to initiate, to teach, to dedicate, to consecrate, to inaugurate), should be according to his "bent" or "bending". This simply indicates that if a child's bent or bend is a certain way then that is how he should be consecrated, dedicated, initiated, inaugurated, or taught.
Let's face it some children are harder to bend than others. Better yet, it is hard to teach\train children who are bent in a certain direction. The whole idea of bending and training them is just so that they do as a bow does for an arrow, "shoot straight".
On many occasions I have had parents say that their son or daughter did change some things for the better, after being embarrased on a particular occasion. Then the son or daughter did say that he or she was embarrassed, and that the embarrassment did get the point across to them. So their emotional and psychological makeup was not hindered, it was bent right and now they are shooting arrows properly.
On other occasions with children an embrace was more responsive than an embarrassment, which caused the same result; a child "shooting strait".
I must say the Scriptures always work out for the sake of those who properly apply understanding to the truths they (Scriptures) tend to teach.
