For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. - Psalm 139:13-16 

 For all the importance of recognizing what makes one child similar to all children, it is also important to recognize that children are unique. People are like fingerprints. Some patterns and features show up again and again, yet no two are identical. It is obvious that people are different just by being around them. Individual people talk differently, walk differently, appear differently, and act differently. We can even think of the various ways that people can be distinguished from one another for security purposes. Everyone’s fingerprints are distinct. Individual people can also be distinguished by their DNA, face, handwriting, voice, speech patterns, and even their gait (how they walk). These are only the physical characteristics. If we could comprehensively measure the different ways people think, emote, analyze, choose, and plan in their hearts and minds, we would no doubt be able to distinguish individuals in many more ways.

Children Are Unique

Although we live in an individualistic society that tends to exaggerate the uniqueness of each person, that does not mean that individuals are not unique or that their uniqueness should be ignored or downplayed. As in so many things, the answer to one extreme is not the other extreme. In this case, the other extreme would be to act as though every child were the same. They are not, and parents particularly bothered by the harms of hyper-individualism in the culture at large should not take out their anger or frustration on their own children. Each child is unique. There are several aspects of David’s description that help us to understand the uniqueness of David, but also of every other child. 

First, there is the fact that God is the one who forms each individual child. David ascribes to God the credit for how David was formed. God formed David’s inward parts. God knitted him together in his mother’s womb. This speaks to individual attention that David received, and if David, then why not every person?

Second, there is the fact that God numbers children’s days. David’s life had a specific number of days allotted. Each one was as sure before it happened as though it had already occurred. God has an individual plan for each individual person, and no two days are exactly the same, much less the entire number of them.

Third, there is the fact that each child is fearfully and wonderfully made. There is a respect that we ought to have for the individual makeup of each person. Each human being is fearfully and wonderfully made according to God’s design. This applies not only to Adam and Eve, who were personally formed by God, but to each person, whom David says here is personally formed by God. As amazing as it is to consider that Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, so each child is formed of the building materials provided at conception. Is the process of birth and gestation any less incredible and wonderful than the formation of the first man and woman?

Parenting Unique Children

So, children are unique. Each person is unique. Why is this important for parents to recognize? There are several reasons.

First, recognizing children’s uniqueness helps parents to manage expectations. Every new parent wonders what it will be like to have a child. Understandably, many new or expecting parents will look around at the parents and children they know to extrapolate from that how it will be for them. They also consider their own childhoods and parents. There is nothing wrong, of course, with considering how one’s personal history and relationships might inform the future with children, but there is a danger in taking past precedent as a future prediction. It is easy to assign labels to standout events or patterns from the past and then to assume that they will also happen with one’s own children. These can be good things or bad things. Either way, it is not necessary. There is diversity between generations just as there are trends and patterns. The fact that a previous generation experienced or did certain things does not mean that future generations will. Just consider the patterns of kings, especially in Judah in the Old Testament, who demonstrate a variety from generation to generation in terms of faithfulness and unfaithfulness to God. Some walk in the sinful ways of their fathers, while others do not. In this way, if parents will remember that precedent is not the same as prediction, they can be better prepared for surprises.

Second, recognizing children’s uniqueness prepares parents to appreciate and respond to what makes their children unique. All children have particular gifts and deficits. All children have particular strengths and weaknesses. All children have particular areas of interest and boredom. All children learn quickly in some ways and slowly in others. All children are inclined toward particular virtues and vices. When all of the particular things that make a child unique are taken into account, it is easy to see that parents should adapt the way they parent to their particular children, within biblical parameters. Some children respond as powerfully and dramatically to a light rebuke as others do to losing privileges or receiving appropriate corporal discipline. Some children are sinning where other children are merely ignorant, and vice versa. Some children are lazy in an area where others lack the natural facility of learning in that same area. Children are not the same, and so there is not a one-size-fits-all approach that will cover every child. Parents are responsible for taking the unique characteristics of their child into account as they seek to raise them in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Conclusion

If taking a child’s uniqueness into account in parenting sounds difficult, then you are getting the idea. Parenting is not easy. Why should it be expected to be? Parenting is as complex as the children who are being parented. To assume that parenting can be reduced to a few basic operating principles that can be applied universally to all children everywhere fails to recognize the picture of children that Scripture gives and misinterprets the commands parents have received to raise their children. Parenting is not easy or simple, but it is good. And appreciating children’s uniqueness prepares parents to understand the challenge of parenting even as they appreciate the wonder of God’s creation in their particular children. Parents should accept their children’s uniqueness as part of God’s design of them even as they pray for wisdom for parenting and grace for their children.