Chanak: Dedicating Each Child to the Path Designed for Them

Both parents holding their newborn infant

Hello again, dear Parent-Discipler. Welcome back.

In our previous post, we settled the distinction between training and discipleship. We shared that training involves intentionally sitting our children down and teaching them about God’s word and the core precepts of our faith. We also shared that discipleship is the lived, day-to-day practice of modelling the truth of the precepts we teach. They hear it from God’s word and see its practical application in our day-to-day living. This week we go deeper into the training side: chanak. What is chanak?

We are familiar with the scripture in Proverbs 22:6, and we recite it:

“Train up a child in the way he should go, and even when he is old he will not depart from it.” — Proverbs 22:6 NKJV

Most of us have heard this verse since childhood. We have memorised it, claimed it as a promise, and possibly prayed it over our children. Like you, I have held Proverbs 22:6 dear. Particularly when I hear people say things like “some children will be bad no matter what you do,” this verse has always been my rebuttal. God’s word is true and infallible, and I have held on to that truth.

The discussion today is not about the lie the enemy has sold to some parents, disarming them and deceiving them into believing that some child is inherently irredeemable, or the “black sheep” of their family. The discussion today is about delving deep into the understanding of the Proverbs 22:6 text, angling from the original root word: chanak.

What Is Chanak?

The Hebrew word translated “train” in Proverbs 22:6 is chanak (חָנַךְ), which means to dedicate. The same root word gives us Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, when the Temple was re-consecrated to God. To chanak a child is to set them apart and dedicate them to a specific path.

This is more than teaching. Teaching is information transfer. Dedication is consecration. When we chanak our child, we are setting them apart for a path, dedicating them to God, to His way for them, and to the unique purpose for which He designed them.

Notice what the verse does not say. It does not say “train up a child in the way you want him to go.” It does not say “train up a child in the way that fits your career plans for him.” It says, “in the way he should go,” the path God Himself has designed, not us (Psalm 127:3; Ephesians 6:4 NLT; 2 Timothy 3:15). When we read through the listed scriptures, certain themes run through: children are a gift from God; bring them up with the instruction that comes from God; you have been taught the holy scriptures from childhood. This is chanak, understanding our stewardship, and that we have been given a set curriculum by which our children are to be raised.

A Deeper Dive into Proverbs 22:6: The Individual Design of Each Child

The Amplified Bible Classic Edition expands the verse with a critical qualifier:

“Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.” — Proverbs 22:6 AMPC

In keeping with his individual gift or bent. Pause on that phrase. Individual bent refers to a person’s unique, innate inclination, personality, desires, or natural talent, which helps them find their specific purpose in life. This concept suggests that everyone has a distinct design or orientation that guides them. This means no two of our children should be parented identically. Each one has a unique design. Each one carries a particular calling. Our role as parents is to understand each child’s unique design and nurture them accordingly, not to force them into a mold that does not fit.

Two Errors We Must Repent Of

Most of us have committed at least one of these errors in our parenting, often without realising it.

Error One: One-Size-Fits-All Parenting

We discipline, motivate, correct, and shape all our children the same way, because that is what is familiar to us, or because it is how we were raised, or because it is easier. But the strategy that draws out our quiet, reflective child crushes our high-energy, externally-processing child. The expectation that fits our academically gifted child wounds our athletically gifted one. We mean well. We are using a single mold for children God designed with distinct bents.

I have felt this personally. I have two older girls, a quiet, easy-going one, and a strongly vocal, strong-willed one. In the earlier phase of their growing up, adults around our family were quick to judge and attempt to shape these two different personalities similarly. Sometimes they wanted my quiet, soft-spoken daughter to be as “sharp-mouthed” as her sister. At other times, they wanted my strongly vocal, strong-willed daughter to be a “respectful” (yes-ma, yes-sir without thinking) child.

The mold they attempted to bring each child into was dependent on their mood and aim. I was deliberate and firm in setting the boundaries for these adults, and in educating the girls on their unique identities: they were unique, and intentionally built so by God, in line with His purpose for their lives. God’s design for parenting is not to break His mold and put our children in ours. His intention is that we nurture and shape them by His word, in ways that preserve His purpose in their identities.

Error Two: Parenting Our Ambition Into Them

This one is subtler and more dangerous. We project onto our children the path we wish we had taken, or the career we admire, or the achievement that would close a wound in our own life story. We pour ourselves into making them a doctor, a lawyer, a pastor, an engineer, a beauty queen, a viral talent, not because that is the way they should go, but because that is the way we want them to go.

Then we wonder, years later, why our adult child is depressed, lost, drifting, or in rebellion. The answer, sometimes, is that we trained them in a way that was never theirs.

The Parent-Discipler’s Real Job

If chanak is dedication, then the parent’s real job has three parts.

1. Discern the Bent

We watch our child closely. We notice what comes naturally. We notice what energises them. We notice what they gravitate toward when no one is supervising. We notice the gifts that appear early, not the ones we wish appeared, but the ones that actually appear. We ask the Holy Spirit to confirm what we are seeing. Each child is a chanak assignment. Our first task is observation toward knowing, not prescription.

2. Dedicate the Path

Once we begin to see the bent, we dedicate that path to God. We pray over it. We name it. We confess our temptation to redirect the child into a path we prefer. We commit before the Lord that we will train this child in the way the Lord has set for them, not the way we have set for them.

3. Train Within the Path

Now training proper begins. From a very young age, our role is to intentionally teach the foundational principles of faith through family values and clear instructions, helping our children understand the “why” behind their actions (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). And we do that teaching with the individual bent in mind, using the language, the examples, the rhythms, and the modes of correction that fit how this particular child is wired.

Our analytical child gets reasoned conversation. Our emotional child gets relational connection. Our active child gets movement-based learning. Our quiet child gets space to process. The truth is the same; the delivery is fitted to the child. Same word, different modalities for application.

The quiet child, usually a deep thinker, reasons through it internally, reaches a conclusion, and gives you a quiet response. The analytical, group-thinking child listens and asks “why?” As African Nigerian parents, we are offended either way. To the quiet child: “Why can’t you even ask questions?” To the analytical, group-thinking child: “Everything is just why, why, why. Please just do as you are told and stop asking unnecessary questions!”

The S.H.A.P.E. Lens

The LoL parent-discipler curriculum draws on a useful spiritual lens for discerning each child’s bent: S.H.A.P.E., which stands for Spiritual gifts, Heart (passions), Abilities, Personality, and Experiences. The S.H.A.P.E. framework was developed by Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life. Each of these dimensions in a child reveals something about the unique design God has placed in them.

S.H.A.P.E. is not a replacement for chanak; it is a practical lens for doing the discernment that chanak requires. As Parent-Disciplers, we are not creating our children’s shape. Our role is to discern the shape God already gave them, and consecrate that shape back to its Author through dedicated training.

S:  What are your child’s spiritual gifts?

H:  What pulls at their heart-strings? What is their passion?

A:  What are their unique abilities?

P:  What is their unique personality type?

E:  What experiences, divinely orchestrated, come your child’s way as unique opportunities?

Are you observing? Are you taking note? Long before environmental expectations and peer influences begin to erode their unique identity, our role is to observe, seek to understand their bent, and protect and nurture the unique giftings God has purposed for them.

A Note on Season and Proximity

For parents whose children are at boarding school, the chanak work can feel especially challenging. Schools are, by nature, one-size-fits-all environments; they cannot tailor instruction to every child’s individual bent. That is precisely why our role as parents at distance matters so much. The school will train the child in standard subjects; we must hold the chanak vision. We must keep noticing our child’s bent through every phone call and visit, keep affirming the unique design we see, and keep dedicating that specific path to God. And even within their academic space, when challenges arise regarding achievement, we can look at it through the lens of chanak: is this the right school, or the right arm (science, arts, or entrepreneurial), for my child?

Lived-Out Application

This week, we do the chanak audit, one child at a time.

1. The Individual Bent Inventory. For each of your children by name, take a fresh sheet of paper and write at the top: “What is [name]’s individual bent?” Below, fill in five categories: their innate inclinations (what they gravitate toward); their natural strengths (what comes easily); their consistent passions (what energises them); their distinctive personality markers; and the experiences that have already shaped them. Do this for each child separately. Do not compare. Each is a distinct chanak assignment.

2. The Mold Confession. After the inventory, ask yourself honestly: “Where have I been trying to force this child into a mold that does not fit them?” Name the specific area. Name the specific child. Confess it before the Lord. Then ask: “What would training look like if I parented from their actual bent instead of my projected path?”

3. The Dedication Prayer. Close with a single, named prayer over each child: “Lord, I dedicate [name] to the path You designed for them. I commit to discerning that path rather than imposing my own. I receive them as a chanak assignment, not a mold to be filled. Show me how to train them in the way they should go.”

Download the free CHANAK audit worksheet here.

CHANAK Audit Worksheet.pdf

Download PDF • 105KB

For Parents Whose Children Are at Home

Begin observing this week with fresh eyes. Watch each child as if you have not met them before. Notice what they choose when they have free time. Notice what makes them light up. Notice what they avoid and what they pursue. Keep a notes app or a journal entry for each child this week, and add three observations per child by Monday. The data is in front of you. You only need to slow down enough to read it.

For Parents Whose Children Are at Boarding School (or Living Away)

Use phone calls this week to ask different questions than you usually ask. Not just “How was the test?” or “Did you eat?” Try: “What is the most interesting thing you learned this week, and why?” “Which of your classmates do you most enjoy being around, and what do you like about them?” “What is something you are looking forward to?” The answers will tell you about the bent. Take notes.

Reflective Prompt for Us All

“Have I been training each of my children for the same path, or for the path each one was created to walk?”

In Clsoing

Beloved, your child was not given to you to be remade in your image. They were entrusted to you to be discerned, dedicated, and trained in the way God designed for them. The bent is already there. Your job is not to create it. Your job is to see it, consecrate it, and train within it. This is the chanak life. It is patient work. It is observational work. It is humble work, because it requires us to let go of our own preferred path for the child, and to dedicate them to a path only God fully knows.

In our next post, we close this series with the long arc: that bridge that carries your children from “Mum or Dad says so” to “Because of who I am and what I believe.”

Until then, stay faithful in your stewardship. Shalom.

LOL, don’t just say it. Live it.