Child Foolishness – Proverbs 22:15

DailyMail.co.uk announced a landmark study of children and whether they were innately selfish or selfless:  Now, a pair of Stanford psychologists has conducted a new series of experiments that show altruism has environmental triggers, and is not something we are simply born with.  Parents, of course, have known this truth from experience.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15, ESV)

They look so precious lying there asleep, innocent and helpless, purity on display.  How can this proverb be correct?  How can we say folly is bound up in their hearts?

But we will see it as we observe them, even as we will see it in our own hearts, a remnant from our childhoods.  From the beginning we have devised our own strategies for getting what we need.  We have vowed to be perfect, or funny, or invisible, or irascible, or demanding, or pleasing, or shut down, etc., all by way of both protecting our fragile selves and influencing others to accommodate us and our needs.  If we have turned at all to God for help we have only done so with set expectations of how He must help us and grave disappointment if He has not met those expectations.

If there was no one in our lives to challenge our strategies and discipline or train us then the folly would be allowed full sway.  The rod that provides pain as a motivator to avoid foolishness might come in the form of painful consequences for our actions.  At heart we are sinners and need training in righteousness.  The parent who loves his child will recognize this and provide needed correction (Proverbs 13:24).