Mussar sobre Provérbios 1:8

"Listen, my son, to the thought of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother." (Proverbs 1:8)

Another way of explaining our Psalm may be that David felt the need to apologize for taking credit for his humility, i.e. he apologized שלא גבה לבו, for having his humility become common knowledge. This in itself would rate as a form of boastfulness. He apologized, for not having remained silent, i.e. אם לא שויתי ודממתי נפשי. Whichever may be the case, the subject of this Psalm is the extreme importance of practicing humility.

It is not enough to just teach the lad that he is obligated to listen to the educator, and nothing more. For in the end, he will [still] see his rabbi as his opponent and as a foreign tyrant, as mentioned earlier. The main point is to bring this opinion into his heart: To know that he - the child himself - is the main educator. He is not a minor and a lad. Rather, he is the sprout of God's planting in the garden of Israel. And God has placed the responsibility to nurture and educate this sprout upon him, himself - to be a great tree of life and to make himself into a servant of God, a tzaddik and a Torah great. But since his mind and spirit are young, there is much Torah that he has not learned and his evil impulse is active. So if he is God-fearing and does not want to sin towards God and to destroy the vineyard of the the Lord of hosts - he will need to listen to the Torah of God and His path from his rabbi and his father, both regarding that which is explicit in the Torah and in the Shulchan Arukh and that which is not. The Torah was not sparing in warning about [the importance of] listening to the father and the educator: "Ask your father and he will tell you; your elder, etc." (Deuteronomy 32:7); "you may not veer, etc." (Deuteronomy 17:11); "Listen, my son, to the rebuke of your father" (Proverbs 1:8). And the wayward and rebellious son (Deuteronomy 21:18-21) has not done any sin that is explicit in the written or oral Torah; and yet the Torah is very stringent about it, because his father and mother said, "He did not listen to our voice." And his very identity is not called, glutton and drunkard, based on his actions; but rather, wayward and rebellious, because he is rebellious towards his father and his educator. And [other examples] can be found in the verses.