Articles
A Picture of Childhood
Proverbs 20:11 NKJV ~ Even a child is known by his deeds, whether what he does is pure and right.
All parents know that children have their own personalities and we wonder what causes them to act the way they do at times. This is especially evident to parents who have more than one child as they see very contrasted dispositions in their children. I don’t know the answer to that question. I do know that children are not born full of sin, (Eccl. 7:29), and that all of us “have gone astray”, (Isaiah 53:6), by our own choices. Yet, this proverb teaches parents to observe the early occurrence and development of our children’s character traits and deal with them accordingly.
According to the Old Testament Handbook Series, “the Hebrew term translated child may also mean ‘a young man;’ the sense of the term in this section of Proverbs always seems to be someone who is living with and dependent on parents... The verb for makes himself known has the sense of making people recognize what sort of person he is. TEV expresses this line well with ‘Even children show what they are by what they do.’”
The wisdom of this proverb is an exhortation for parents to give attention to the variety of dispositions that our children express in their actions; for their actions reveal something about the child and their future character which ripens with years. We can see this when it comes to our children’s abilities. A child may show an early interest in how things work, or delights in helping others or gets enjoyment from putting things in an order. These can be traits of future engineers, nurses or accountants. The same may be said for indications of temperament. When parents see a hot temper, inactivity, or dishonesty they need to set about correcting their child by instruction and discipline. Also, when they see their child act with kindness, honesty or courage, they need to give encouragement and commendation.
The mistake is to ignore this proverb’s instruction and think that our child’s moldable character is not revealed in his deeds and that without parental attention and spiritual instruction our children will develop characters that will bear positive fruit in maturity.
~John McPherson
