The date of writing this is September 2025. This is significant for what I am about to write next. If you have children who are preteens or teenagers, the numbers “six” and “seven” might be something you are hearing them say randomly around the house and certainly around their friends. The origins of this particular set of numbers accompanied with a two-handed gesture and distinct tone to each number might be linked to a rap song by Skrilla, a basketball player named LaMelo Ball who is 6’7”, or it may just be something that was born of nothing; an absurdity that has swept the social media platform TikTok.
This strange set of numbers and its viral fame is truly foolish to adults, but, as the first half of Proverbs 22:15 says, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child …” The lack of knowledge and attention which they give to their surroundings puts them in constant danger of physical harm as well as leaving them open to spiritual attack from temptation. Children are blessings from God, a “heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward” (Psalm 127:3), but those frustrations and dangers that lurk in that folly are extreme. Every parent has experienced this, and future parents will, that children will tear at an adult’s heart, eating away at their will and sensibilities like no other person or people can.
What can adults do to help? The answer is in the second half of Proverbs 22:15: “…but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” It’s also found in Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Children will not find their own way. They chase after shiny or sweet things which appeal to the temptations of the flesh. This is not because of sin, but because they do not have the ability yet to understand. As Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 13:11, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” Children grow and develop, and their minds grow into reason.
As adults, we should never expect children to understand grown-up ways, or deal with grown-up situations in the same way an adult would. Along that same thread, we adults should treat children with the same ideas in mind. We shield them from harsh realities but tell them the nursery rhymes to prepare them for evils in life. We discipline them even when our heart is breaking because we want them happy. Our job is to help them grow into knowing the Lord and becoming good Christians as they gain understanding. When we train the child in the ways they should go, sometimes we must break it down, and lower ourselves to their eye level to aid in their understanding.
Allowing a child to engage with some level of foolishness is understanding of who they are. Play is integral to brain and body development. Imagination allows a child to dream in ways adults have lost. To allow a child to run amuck though for the sake of temporary happiness is a failure of parenting. To not see that the foolishness of a child is an opportunity to train them and teach them is training them and teaching them to indulge in foolishness without growth and negative behavior without consequence. A child that learns this early will keep to it in adulthood, throwing off any discipline in their life, and carelessly indulging the flesh, abandoning any law belonging to man or God.
Lance Byers