What does the Bible mean when it says this? It can either go very good or very bad or somewhere in-between? Who decides how to train up a child? 

parents…

However in far too many cases in California, it means a parent. That’s right, only one parent because the California “family” courts have taken away the other living parent’s legal rights to his or her own child, visitation rights, and backs up the madness by routinely issuing restraining orders.

In these courts, hearsay is the norm and not the exception. This is the state that also brought worldwide attention to the corruption and collusion in probate courts when one of those judges took away legal rights of Britney Spear (from herself) and gave them to her father for $$$$. 

The ex-husband, K-Fed, was allowed to train the boys, along with his several other children from several other mothers, from a very young age to reject their mother while receiving a massive amount of financial support from her for himself and his other children and his other wives or girlfriends.

Other parents, given sole legal rights to the children, have installed fear and insecurity into their young children along with the rejection. We are witnessing an unprecedented rise in mental health issues as a direct result of how young people have been trained up as young children, in the absence of a secure environment. We are witnessing an unprecedented rise in homelessness, lawlessness and violence as a direct result of the way these children were raised to reject resources available to them through the other parent and their extended families. We are also witnessing an unprecedented rise in drug seeking and sexual behaviors that create a cycle of inefficient temporary measures for people seeking to send their thoughts in other directions than the “way” they were taught they “should go”.

The end part of this Bible verse is that when these children are older, they will not depart from it.  The training they received as young children? Or the destination?

Well what does it actually mean? It means that a child’s mind will search for what it knows and what it has been taught. A child’s mind will head towards those thoughts, feelings, experiences, and knowledge inside of it, whether or not any of it is true. The drugs that psychologists use to try and break those connections in adults don’t ultimately work and the mind will ultimately direct thoughts and actions back to the unwanted behavior based upon prior “knowledge” and experiences (or lack thereof).

• • A new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis reveals that parts of the brain area that controls movement are plugged into networks involved in thinking and planning, and in control of involuntary bodily functions such as blood pressure and heart rate.
  • “Our minds aren’t passive observers, simply perceiving reality as it is. Our minds actually change reality,” said Alia Crum, PhD, who directs the Stanford Mind and Body Lab.
  • ‘Pain is highly responsive to each person’s psychology and mindset” Beth Darnall, PhD a Stanford pain scientist.
  • A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.” Billy Graham, an American evangelist.

Where does this leave a child taught to be insecure, disrespectful, and avoid all contact with the other parent, with the extended family and maybe even taught to be violent? How does the adult do “a departure” from where his or her mind sends him or her towards? I don’t know. I do know that respect can be learned and earned, That an adult child can overcome the feelings of insecurity, fear, loneliness, rejection, pain and violence that his or her mind directs him or her towards. That an adult child can reject the way he or she was trained to hate, fear and be alienated the other parent and instead form a loving, respectful, caring relationship with that parent.

Maybe we will always head towards those places that we don’t want to go, based upon the training we received as a child, but I think we can stop ourselves from reaching that destination.  Maybe it will take “everlasting vigilance” to keep ourselves from reaching those dark lonely destructive destinations, but that is a small price to pay for freedom.