Kids don’t have it in them to grow themselves up. That’s why God gave them parents—to love them, give them structure, and guide them into mature character. Just as a puppy comes out of the womb not knowing how life works—you are not allowed to pee on the carpet—our children have no idea how to handle life, so it works right for them. Both puppies and children need outside help to learn the self-control to flourish in this world. Such training begins at home:
The first and most fundamental mental picture children have of the way the universe operates is at home. Home is where they form their concepts of reality, love, responsibility, choices, and freedom. So, if you relate to your child in a way that mirrors God’s laws, they will make a successful transition to the outside world. But if you protect your children from the pain of irresponsibility, you set them up for many struggles in adulthood. (Cloud and Townsend, Boundaries With Kids).
The term, boundaries, can sound like psychobabble. But it simply means seeing the correct line between what IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY and what IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. Refusing to own responsibility is manifested through a victim mentality, excuse-making, and blaming someone else for one’s problems. It is saying, “the woman whom you gave to me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate,” or “the serpent deceived me and I ate.” Assuming responsibility for what is NOT your responsibility is manifested by being controlling, worrying, rescuing others from their responsibility, or usurping another’s responsibility. Character training helps children take responsibility for their feelings, attitudes, actions, choices, thoughts, desires, values, loves, talents, and limits. To take ownership of these is to be a mature, adult—and the kind of person with whom everyone wants to have a relationship.
How Parents Need to Build Responsiblity Into Their Children
1. Teaching. Everyday life affords us the opportunity to teach responsibility for attitudes and actions. When your child defiantly refuses to stop screaming in anger at you, wait until a calm time, and then say, “Krystal, we have a rule in our house that screaming is not okay. It is not being loving towards others. You can be angry and talk about your anger at me, but if you cross this line by screaming, the consequence will be losing playtime after school for the day.” It also helps a child take responsibility for his inner, heart attitudes by studying and defining Christ-like attitudes.
2. Modeling. Taking responsibility for one’s feelings, attitudes and behavior is more caught than taught. This does not mean that parents must be perfect; it means that the house rules regarding character are the same for kids and parents. Some rules are related to adult privileges and responsibilities. But consider the rule that forbids disrespecting another family member by interrupting them when they are talking. David might say, “Mom you interrupted me?” Mom could respond by saying, “David you don’t understand. What I needed to say had to be said because it was very, very important, and I’m the parent.” Or Mom could say, “You’re right, son. I did interrupt you. You don’t deserve to be treated disrespectfully by me. I am sorry about that.” Through these words she owns her wrong treatment of David and what to do about it: apologize.
3. Giving painful consequences for bad behavior and rewarding responsibility with greater privileges. A Christian has an enormous advantage in parenting, at least theoretically. We know that the wage of sin is death. Sin always leads eventually to pain. Our home is the greenhouse for a child’s character training; so he must actually feel pain for wrong attitudes and behavior. Consequences are the only way a child can internalize godly behavior. One couple shares their experience trying to teach their sons to save up their money lecturing them often about this principle.
One day the boys used all their spending money on a toy they wanted. A couple of days later, a video game they had wanted for a long time went on a 50% off sale. Their savings accounts were empty; so they tried to hit up mom and dad for a loan. It was a sincere temptation to the dad, because it was an exceptional price for the game. But they said, “No.” The boys asked for extra jobs to earn the money for the purchase. The parents empathized with their boys but said, “No.” Several hours later one of the boys said, “I’m going to wait a long, long, long time next time before I spend my money.” And they did (Ibid).
Good parenting is hard work. Never forget that God does NOT need you to be perfect parents to work in your child’s life. Yet, I suspect that you are reading this article because being a mediocre parent is not good enough for you to offer Jesus, who has entrusted your kids to YOU. Next week we’ll look in detail at the character training that needs to be the foundation for your plan, including the order of what to teach at what ages. Here is a sneak preview of what we need to teach.
- Attentiveness: (train kids from infancy, that when we call them they are to stop, look at us and listen carefully to what we say)
- Obedience: (begins in first year by learning what not to touch)
- Contentment: (realizing God has already given them everything they need to be happy; therefor whining is not permitted)
- Wisdom 101: (the law of sowing and reaping, i.e. behavior has consequences)
- Responsibility: (recognizing and doing what God and others expect of me)
- Respect for others: (learning that “life is not all about ME.”
This is a picture of the starting point for a plan. But what obstacles inside themselves do parents need to overcome to love their child well through biblical discipline?
Six Obstacles to Biblical Discipline of Our Kids
A. Parental irresponsibility. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother (Prov 29:15). A child’s job is to test your “boundaries,” by pushing against your rules and consequences for breaking them. This teaches them about reality. Life doesn't bend to accomodate them. Your child has inherited a sinful nature, which makes him hate rules and limits. The parent’s job is to withstand the test, including anger, pouting, tantrums, etc. You are teaching him the fear of the Lord, which means that humans don’t break God’s moral laws so much as God’s laws break us. Expecting him to train himself is laziness.
B. Believing that loving their child means ACCEPTING his wrong behavior instead of CORRECTING it. It is easy to fall into the culture's view that a child's greatest need is to feel accepted, to feel good about himself. But real love is manifested through firm discipline.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons (Heb 12:6-8).
C. Emotional neediness. Sometimes parents are dependent upon their child’s affection to fill their emotional tank. Such unhealthy dependence makes them hesitant to create hostility in their child by being firm with discipline. They can’t stand a break in the closeness they feel towards their child. Here is a Christian Psychologist’s explanation of this barrier to loving parenting—a story about Samantha raising a little monster.
“Why can’t I spend the night with Madeline?” whined thirteen-year-old Beverly to her mother, Samantha. Tentatively, Samantha said, “Honey, remember that you’ve already been out two nights this week, and it’s a school night. I’m sure you can see Madeline another time.”
“You just don’t want me to have friends! I never get to do anything I want never, never!" With this pronouncement Beverly stomped out of the kitchen and up to her room. Samantha then began the ancient dance she and her daughter had danced for many years. Samantha wanted and needed Beverly to be happy and close; their relationship was a central source of support for her. It was too painful to endure her daughter’s distance. Standing outside the closed door to her bedroom, she said, “Maybe I’ve been a little harsh. You’ve had a tough week. I guess one more night won’t hurt you.”
The door burst open, and Beverly embraced Samantha and exclaimed, “Mom, you’re the best.”
D. Over-identifying with the child. Those who have a spiritual gift mix that includes showing mercy are especially susceptible to this obstacle. Here is one of the best paragraphs from Boundaries With Kids:
Parents are commonly unable to delay their children’s gratification because they over-identify with the child’s feelings. They need to empathize with their children’s pain, fear, and loneliness. In this way kids become filled up inside, their feelings are validated and understood, and they learn how to handle and use their emotions. However…what might be mere DISCOMFORT for the toddler may be seen as TRAUMA by the mother; what may be slight ANXIETY for the teen is experienced as PANIC by the father.
E. Ignoring and zapping. This approach to parenting is quite common. A dad on the playground, says to his son, “Stop playing on the monkey bars.” But his son knows that this command means nothing. His father will not act until he has told the boy four or five times to stay off the monkey bars. So, the son continues to ignore his father’s command. The father, who is busy talking, yells at him again, but the son knows that his dad is not steamed up enough to act. Finally, the father reaches his limit and explodes, “You’ve got me really angry with you now. Get into that car.” The dad trained his son not to obey until he started to get angry. He also made the issue HIS anger instead of the son’s disobedience. Kids live up to whatever is demanded of them.
F. Wearing down. Kids work us and work us. Part of the key to successful parenting is enduring your child’s hatred of your restrictions—your boundaries for them. Remember, their job is to test our boundaries and they are usually very good at their job! One wise parent said, “The trick of parenting is to hold onto your restriction one more time than your children hold onto their demand.”
Disciplining a child is tough. The only thing tougher is living with a child who is NOT firmly disciplined.
PADDLING AS A FORM OF PUNISHMENT
Paddling your child is not inherently abusive; it is prescribed by God:
- Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him (Prov 22:15).
- Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him (Prov 13:24).
But here are some caveats I believe we must have in place in order to use a switch, rod, or paddle to spank a child to prevent it from ever being abusive:
1) The purpose of spanking is to inflict physical pain to associate with wrong behavior; it must never cause injury. The goal is to sting, not bruise or harm.
2) Snapping fingers when an infant disregards our “No,” and paddling in childhood should be replace by other painful consequences before children become teens.
3) The purpose of spanking must never be to vent parental anger.
4) To prevent spanking that vents parental anger and that prevents injury, a strict limit of how many times the paddle lands must be followed. (In my view 2 or 3).
5) Spanking until a child seems outwardly repentant is abusive. There are always painful consequences for sin, but God does not spank me continually until I repent.
6) Children should know ahead of time that certain behavior will earn a spanking. Often it is appropriate to give one warning, to insure that the child has understood that continued disobedience will bring consequences.
7) Spanking, like all discipline, must be done privately, never publicly, which would severely injure a child’s self-esteem. Failure to punish wrong behavior also harms a child's self-esteem. It allows him to remain in slavery to "what he feels like doing." It deprives him of learning the discipline of saying "no" to himself. Self-mastery and the character of self-control will enable success his entire life, contributing continually to his self-esteem.
8) In my view parents must never delegate the right to exercise corporal punishment to a baby-sitter, child- care worker, other relative, or school system.
9) In my view, paddling should be a tool, along with time outs, and other negative consequences for wrong behavior, but saved for more severe disobedience.
10) Spanking should be preceded by looking a child in the eye and asking questions to engage the conscience like, “What did you do?” or “Was that right?”
11) The parent should say to the child, “I want you to know that God spanks me when I mess up because he loves me. I know it doesn’t feel like it, but I have to punish you because I love you.”
12) After the spanking, always invite a child into your arms to be hugged. Always assure children that you still love them. Never let them think that their relationship with you has been broken by their sin.
13) Sometimes it is appropriate while hugging them to pray and thank God that because of Christ all of us-- Daddy, Mommy, and the kids are fully forgiven for our sins. But God’s forgiveness doesn’t mean that he cancels sin’s painful result.
If spanking has so many caveats, it must be asked, “Why not just avoid it?” My answer is that I don’t believe the mention of the rod in Scripture is accidental. I believe there is something God knows about using a rod in training a child that our culture has rejected. Why else would God say something that is so severe: Whoever spares the rod HATES his son.
