“Two mistakes are made in interacting with the shaping influences of life. The first is seeing shaping influences deterministically. It is the error of assuming that the child is a helpless victim of the circumstances in which he was raised. The second mistake is denial. It is the mistake of saying the child is unaffected by his early childhood experience. Passages such as Proverbs 29:21 illustrate the importance of childhood experience. Here we see that the servant pampered from youth is affected in a manner that brings grief in the end. Neither denial nor determinism is correct. You need to understand these shaping influences biblically. Such understanding will aid you in your task as parents.”