Godly Discipline.
After I started writing this blog, and while I researching,
I flip flopped on this issue in some huge ways. I had the entire thing written,
but after doing some reading up, I believe I have completely changed my heart
on this issue.
Let me start off asking you a question. Do you want your children to obey you out of
love, or out of fear? Do you want them
to do right because they are wise, or just because they fear punishment? Choose one, and it will greatly impact how
you discipline your child.
Discipline absolutely must be present in the life of a child, and it must be
present in the life of believer. The Bible says in Hebrews 12:6, Deuteronomy 8:5, Psalm 94:12, Psalm 3:11, Proverbs 3:12, and
Revelation 3:19 that God does discipline.
It is very clear, and I put so many verses up so that if you are like
me, and value the voice of Scripture above all, you do not have any room for
debate. All of these verses also say
more than just that God disciplines. They all say clearly that it’s a good
thing that He does, and also they say He does it out of love.
Always.
I’ve talked so many times about the
love of God, and about how He is love 100% of the time. Even in His discipline, the above Bible verses
leave no room for any other fact than God disciplines those that He loves, and
that His “wrath” is not separate from His love.
If I go into more of the details here, we’ll get distracted, but this is
something I’ve blogged about before, so please go and read my past blogs if you
want more understanding of what I’m saying.
But since we can conclude and read
that God only disciplines from the deeper motivation of love, than we should align
ourselves the same way. Our discipline
should look like the Fathers and should only be done from a place of love. I have said before, and offended people, but
I’ll say it again. Any form of discipline
done out of anger is child abuse, and it’s the lack of self-control manifesting
itself in your life. No one has power
over your emotions except for you. Only
you have the power to allow yourself to become angry, your children have no
power over your mind or emotions. You
might blame your lack of self-control on them, but it’s not their fault you got
mad and “lost it”. You allowed yourself
to get angry. When I say any
discipline, I mean it. If you are doing
anything out of a fit of rage, you’re not thinking clearly. If you’re not able to think clearly than you
need to exercise self-control. I’m not
just talking about hitting your children out of anger, but spanking them on
their butts, locking them in their room, yelling at them and anything done out
of anger is wrong because you’re doing it from the wrong motivation. It's not wrong because of the action, it might be the appropriate action, but if it's the wrong motivation, you are in the wrong. Your discipline, which your child does need,
must come from a place of love. They
must understand that even in their discipline, your love for them is not
conditional. You’re the first picture of God that they paint in their heads,
and discipline is a biggie.
People have told me that they just get
so angry, they HAVE to send them to their room for a few hours to cool down and
then, after they have cooled down, they discipline the child. They say it’s better than just hitting
them in anger. Yes, it’s better than
just hitting them, but you should still be working on your self- control. Remember, self-control is a fruit of the
Spirit, and anyone who is a Christian and has the Holy Spirit living inside of
them has immediate access to self-control.
Controlling your temper is your job, not the child’s. This is something we should all be working on
in other areas of our life anyways for reasons like lust, addictions,
distractions, or other emotional problems.
Self-control is needed in every area of life, but it is crucial in
raising and discipline children.
If you choose to discipline your children out of anger and a lack of self-control,
than you have opted for fear based obedience instead of loved based. Let’s remember Jesus said “If you love me,
you’ll obey me.” He was intentional with
His wording here and could have included fear, but He made it clear the obedience
He is looking for is love based. If
that’s what God wants from me, than that’s what I want from my future children. People always want to cling to Proverbs 9:10
here where “fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
I don’t think most people who've read it and quoted it actually read it
as it is written. It says fear is the
BEGINNING. It’s not the end result. It’s
a decent starting place for wisdom. It
is chapter one. We need the fear of the Lord or realize our own sin, to repent,
but we don’t stay here. Fear is the beginning of wisdom. I cannot stress the wording enough here. BEGINNING. Not the end result. We go on to read in 1 John 4:16-18 that “…God is love.
Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in them. This is how love is made complete in us so
that we will be confident on the day of judgment. In this we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love, because fear has
do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. “
I posted as much of the context that would fit in this post without distracting
from the main point. John was clearly talking
about the fear of God, even talking about the day of judgment, saying that we would not fear on that day because of the love of God. It says that love
completes us. While fear is a good
starting point, if you read through 1 John, you see clearly that love is the
ending point. We have arrived to completion when we live in love. When we walk in love, and are wrapped in His
love.
Now
that we've established the need for discipline, and established love as the
only motivation that constitutes proper discipline, and also that self-control
is a crucial ingredient, let’s talk about patience.
Patience is also a fruit of the spirit, so again, it’s something every Spirit-filled
believer has access to.
Let me ask you another question. Do you
want to discipline your children the easy way, or the effective way? The effective way being the one that produces
a love based relationship. Sometimes
that might be the easy way, but many times the easiest thing to do is just
spank them. Now this is where it gets controversial,
at least for me. I really want to challenge the current national mood on discipline here.
Now scripture does say “spare the rod spoil
the child.”, but let’s look at the context of this verse. Proverbs
13:23-25 The uncultivated field of the
poor yields abundant food, but without justice, it is swept away. The one who will not use the rod hates his
son, but the one who loves him disciplines him diligently. A righteous man eats until he is satisfied,
but the stomach of the wicked is empty.
So let me ask you, is the stomach of every wicked man empty
on this planet? Is the stomach of every righteous man full? Does every property
owned by all poor people produce an abundance of food? No.
Righteous men starve to death, and there are wicked men having feast
right now. Does that mean this section
of scripture is not true? Without a doubt they are 100% true. But it means that it they are not a literal
truth. It’s a metaphor. A poetic way of
writing a 100% truth. We can agree that the first sentence is a metaphor, and
we can all agree that the last line was one as well, so does it make sense that
there would be a literal truth sandwiched between to metaphors? Not logically.
The truth that permeates from this
passage is clear “It is an injustice for
the poor to go without basic necessities, discipline is crucial if you love
your children, and righteous man lives a life of satisfaction while the wicked man always
wants more and more. “
When a friend of mine and a mother of one, Nichole Furr read this verse today, this was her response which I found very eye opening and insightful.
"The first line says The uncultivated field of the poor yields abundant food, but without justice, it is swept away. - he is talking about the POTENTIAL the field has being wasted if the right amount of work is not put into it
the next line says - The one who will not use the rod hates his son, but the one who loves him disciplines him diligently.
this is him defining 'who' the field in the previous sentence represents - if you love your child you discipline them to help them reach their potential otherwise all of it is wasted
the best part is the meaning of the word discipline here - it means to teach, instruct, to make a disciple it has nothing to do with punishment
it has to do with training up your child and helping them reach their god given potential and then the last line sums up what happens as a result
a righteous man who has trained up his child "field" gets to enjoy the fruits of his labor where as the wicked man who doesn't is left always struggling and hungry for their child's potential that was left unmet"
Everything in this scripture is true,
but not literal. And these are metaphors
which are chock full of real and relevant truth. But we can all agree that taking a literal
rod and beating your children is out of the question. However, this verse makes
it clear that if you do not discipline in some form, you actually HATE your
child.
My point in that is this. There is not
scripture that literally says “hit your child”. Spanking is something we do in the south, and
we take the above verse out of context to excuse it. Let’s look at some facts about spanking. Now, let's look at the facts below with an open mind.
Over 90% of American families report
having used spanking as a means of discipline.
I
don’t know anyone who was never spanked.
At least that I know of. Spanking your children is not unusually cruel,
and it’s not necessarily going to scar them for life, but let’s continue
looking the facts.
68% of American parents think spanking is essential to child rearing.
90% of parents spank their toddlers at least three times a week; two-thirds
spank them once a day.
One in for parents begun to spank when their child is 6 months old, and 50%
percent when their child is 12 months old.
*at this age, the child has not developed reasoning skills, and cannot discern
cause and effect. In other words, all
they know is that they are being hit by you.
They cannot, at this age, discern why.
Therefore, at this age, it is not an effective disciplinary tool. Again,
patience, love, and self-control are the tools you, as a Christian, should want
to use. Spanking at this age might be the easiest thing, but it cannot possibly
be effective if the child does not understand why.
Studies show that parents are more likely to spank when they
are irritable, depressed, fatigued, and stressed.
In 44% of those surveyed, spanking was used as punishment because the parent at “lost
it”
About 98% of parents expressed moderate to high anger, remorse and agitation
while punishing their children.
Although 93% of parent justify spanking, 85% say they would rather not if they
had an acceptable alternative.
One study found that 54% of mothers said that spanking was the wrong thing to
have done in at least half the times they used it.
There is a 93% agreement in scientific studies that spanking is harmful to
children.
Children who are spanked are twice as likely to develop alcohol addiction and
other drug abuse problems.
Multiple studies show that children who are spanked are more depressed, have
more drug problems, more alcohol problems, than children who were not spanked.
According to researchers at the University of New Hampshire, spanking by
parents can significantly damage a child’s mental abilities and results in a
lower IQ later in life.
And kids were physically punished had up to a five-point lower IQ score than
kids who were not, and the more the children were spanked, the lower their IQ’s.
Also, every serial killer and murderer in America was spanked as a child. When analyzing criminal minds, rather or not
the suspect was spanked as a child is considered a factor.
What does this all mean? Does it mean
that everyone who was spanked falls into these statistics? No. But they are not just pulled out of air. They are factual and relevant. Just because you were not affected negatively in
the long run does not mean that these statistics are not true. After looking at all this information, there
is no way I could endorse spanking. I believe
the only way you could is because “Hey, my parents did it, and I’m fine” or
just because it’s a convenient form of punishment. But convenient is not always best. There are alternatives to spanking. They just require more self-control and more
patience. I really believe communication
and repetition are more relevant to a child.
If you are a parent who spanks, I want you to understand, I did not post all of
these factors to say “YOU’RE WRONG”. I
do not believe I have authority to tell you spanking is wrong, but I can say it
is wrong if you are doing out of anger or just because it’s easier than communicating
with the child. I can also ask, why you feel it is ok to spank your child? Why do you WANT to? Just because our culture agree that it's a good thing is not a valid reason. Do you feel it's the best way to discipline your children? Do you feel it's the most productive? Is it because you can't find valid alternatives? Is it because of your anger? I don't have the answers to those questions, they were only intended to really make your look what the action of spanking actually is and does. But I will add this, I posted this and was actually intending to right in 100% defence of spanking. AFTER doing research, talking with a number of parent, and praying, I have have not come to any logical reason to spank. Again, I'm not the ultimate source on the matter and I'm trying to tell you that it's 100% wrong, but I'm asking you to really think about the productiveness of it, and to watch the video at the end in the comment box which has a lot more information about spanking than I wanted to get into here. The main point of this post was not to talk about spanking, but to talk about disciplining out of love.
Keep in mind, 100% of the time, spanking produces fear in the child, and it a violent act by definition.. Also by definition, I have to add, it does not cause permanent physical harm and is intended to hurt the child without lasting physical harm. If spanked on the butt, there is actually extra padding there.
By taking the time to communicate with
children at young ages about why they are being punished, you are building
their reasoning skills. There is whole
generation that has a lack of reasoning skills. I believe personally that this has a lot to do with parents reaching for the more convenient belt over a logical conversation about right and wrong. If you say, "I spank because they don't comprehend the conversation about right and wrong" than you don't need to spank because if the child can not comprehend right and wrong, he will not comprehend why he is being hit. So if you are to spank, there must be clear communication
as to why this is going to happen when the parent is calm. It’s ok to tell the
child that punishment is coming after you cool down, but you need to remove yourself
from the child. Today, most parents who
know they should not react out of anger still will send their child to their
room until the parent cools down.
However, this is still an anger based reaction. It’s not the child’s fault you have poor self-control.
You need to be the one to day “This
punishment is coming, but I have to leave the room and cool down because I love
you too much to react to anything you do with anger. “
Now what about yelling? Yelling is a signal of danger. It is a
warning that something bad is about to happen. Hearing someone yell at you has
an immediate effect on the chemicals in your body, telling you danger is coming,
and causing you to immediately get defensive. In nature, yelling is warning
that a predator or some danger is coming, and the animals react in the same way
we react when we are yelled at. When we
scream at a child, it automatically releases adrenaline and makes the child
afraid. The child might manifest that
fear that your pushed on him as anger,
being defensive, or just crying, but yelling at them as punishment as no
logical benefits. When I worked around
children, we were told to only yell when there was danger. This was so that if the child heard me yell,
they knew they needed to pay attention because something bad was going
down. I never yelled at a child except
for when a dog entered the playground. When
they heard my voice yelling, they knew something was wrong and they immediately
paid close attention to everything I said.
The dog turned out to be super friendly and I ended up taking “Sugar”
home with me, but still, the children were able to get out of potential danger quickly.
Yelling can be very damaging to a child’s
mind and developmental skills.
These are both the most common punishments in the South, if not America as a
whole, but how logical are they? And how
often are you able to spank your child or yell at them with a motivation of
love, peace, joy, kindness, gentleness, self-control, goodness, and self-control, as Galatians 5:22-23 states are the fruit of the
Spirit of God living inside of you?
Every action directed towards your
child, if you are a Christian and believe the Word, needs to be saturated in
these fruit. I would be only thinking rationally
and logically to say that any action that is outside of these parameters is
outside the will of God for your life in any area, and the includes child
rearing.
I believe that God knew what He was
doing when He made it clear that obedience out of love is better than fear, so
why change that? Why not apply that to
your own child rearing? I think it will
make a happier home, a more productive way of punishment, and more enjoyable
and meaningful relationship.
You do need to be creative in your discipline. Every child is different, and
you will need to raise each one different.
Grounding, taking away toys, etc, will all have different effects on
different children. Not all children will
care if you take their toys away, but that will get the point across to others.
In closing, I would ask a few more probing questions. Why would you want to spank out of
anger? Why would you want to perform any discipline out
of anger? I once was at a church event
where the pastor’s wife began spanking one of her children on the back hard.
She smiled as she did it. She was extremely angry at the child, and wanted to
punish him. It reflected the current mood of punishment in our nation. We view punishment as the end result, but really a better person should be the end result. Our prisons would be a lot more empty if we were more concerned about rehabilitation than punishment. Most parents, according to studies, view punishment as the end result, and do not plan in advance whether it will advance the child's perception of right and wrong or not. You should never have a
desire to harm to a child, there is no reason, and it’s just demonic to
actually desire harming your child. Your
punishment cannot come from a place of anger or agitation; it must be a clear logical
and rational choice. It must reflect the
Love of God, however the looks to you.
