Lehi is obviously quoting the passage from Proverbs, Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it (Prov 22:6). His use of this scripture is interesting because his two sons, Laman and Lemuel, seem to be an exception to this general rule. There is nothing from the record of Nephi which would indicate that Lehi had done a poor job as a father. On the contrary, on many occasions he plead with them, with all the feeling of a tender parent and with the entreaty, hear the words of a trembling parent (1 Nephi 8:37, 2 Nephi 1:14).
There are those souls who will not respond to a righteous upbringing. The agency of man is given to all and if a spirit of rebellion festers in the soul, all the righteousness in the world will be rejected. The fact that some children raised in good environments will rebel while their siblings faithfully follow the Lord makes one wonder about the attitude and spirit of the individual in the pre-mortal sphere. We often quote the scripture, that same spirit which doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world (Alma 34:34). It is just as true that the same spirit which we possessed in the pre-mortal life is the same spirit which possesses our bodies now. Nevertheless, the proverb of Solomon is generally remarkably true. Solomon should know—he probably had hundreds if not thousands of children born to him by his 700 wives and 300 concubines (see 1 Kings 11:3).