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Discipline and correction are two of the hardest parts of being a parent, at least for me. As a young mom, I really struggled in this area. Honest confession…disciplining and correcting my boys was so difficult for me that I wanted to avoid it at all costs, even though I knew they needed it. It stirred up bad emotions and memories from my childhood and left me feeling defeated and incapable of being a good mom.
I tried to be gentle and kind, even when correcting my kids. My boys didn’t respond to my correction the way I thought they should so I raised my voice to assert my authority. They still didn’t respond like I wanted them to. (I wanted them to do exactly what I said, when I said it, and how I said it.) I raised my voice louder. Still not obeying me… now I’m getting frustrated. Still not listening to me…gentleness and kindness are out the window. Now I’m angry. So instead of dealing with their bad behavior, I’m having to deal with my own. This was a vicious cycle of frustration, anger, guilt, and confusion.
I wanted to do things differently but I had no idea how. I needed a lot of help. I couldn’t just change and do things differently because I wanted to. I couldn’t just snap my fingers and be a different person no matter how hard I tried.
I wasn’t the mom I imagined myself being when I first had children. I didn’t have the wisdom or skills to train my children, only the desire. We can’t give to others what we don’t possess ourselves. In order to change we need a new way of seeing things, a new mindset. We also need to learn and develop new skills. That takes time and intention. But, most of all, we need lots of grace, for ourselves and others. God’s grace gives us hope that change is possible.
I discovered that if I was going to raise my children for Jesus I needed to learn about correction, discipline, and punishment from a Biblical perspective.
“Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”
Hebrews 12:9-11
Discipline means training someone to behave in a desired way. The word discipline comes from the same root word as disciple, someone who submits to or follows a wise or more knowledgeable person to be trained by them, in order to become more like them. Think of Jesus and his twelve disciples.
Discipleship is a lifetime process, not something we do occasionally or when needed. It’s a lifestyle, a way of life. We are always disciplining our children. But that doesn’t mean we are always correcting or punishing them.
Discipleship is walking with someone, living life with them, and allowing them to get close enough to you to learn from your words and your actions. It also means letting them get close enough to see your own faults and weaknesses. It takes trust and commitment from both the teacher and the student. The teacher is giving up his or her life, allowing inconveniences for the sake of the student, and sharing their hard-learned wisdom with them. The student must be submitted to the teacher, to their instruction and correction. The student is submitting his will to the will of the teacher until he has learned what his teacher has to teach him, until he’s like his teacher. Submitting to the correction of another is hard on our human nature. It requires us to deal with our pride and desire for independence.
The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. – Luke 6:40
Correction means to put right or to adjust something that’s out of alignment so it can function properly, according to a standard. Correction happens at a specific time. It’s a specific event or an occurrence. It’s a necessary part of discipleship. It’s a tool the teacher uses to bring the student into alignment with what’s right and what’s being taught.
For example, when a violin instructor notices his student isn’t using the correct form, he shows his pupil the right way…so he can play the violin better…so his music can be beautiful. It’s a matter of instruction and correction. It’s putting things right. Correction doesn’t necessarily require punishment.
Punishment is a negative consequence for wrongdoing, intended to limit or stop the wrong behavior. Punishment is a method that can be used in correction and discipline, but it’s not always needed.
Without instruction and correction, punishment isn’t an effective way to train children; especially harsh or arbitrary punishments that come as a result of the emotions or frustration of the moment.
As a young mom I knew correction was important, but I wasn’t sure how to correct my kids when they disobeyed. I didn’t know how to discourage their bad behavior without discouraging them. And I had my own issues that seemed to pop up every time I tried to deal with their issues. I wasn’t confident as a mom.
What’s a mom to do when she’s never had the kind of instruction and training she wants to give her children? She turns to Jesus for wisdom.
As I prayed, Jesus shed more light on my path. He taught me how to disciple my children. In the end, we all learned together.
I want to share with you four suggestions that helped me disciple my children for Jesus, even when I started out with no confidence and feeling like a complete failure. My commitment to not give up on my children and Jesus’ commitment to not give up on me made all the difference. Child training is hard work. It takes a strong commitment. But I believe putting these suggestions into practice will help make your job a little easier.
Get clear on your goals. What are you training your children to do and be?
What are you training and instructing your children to do and be? If you don’t know, how will they? As I grew in my role as a mom I found that without having a clear goal in mind and without giving clear instructions my kids didn’t know what I expected from them, even when I thought it was obvious. And using punishment to correct misbehavior when your expectations haven’t been communicated well only leads to frustration for everyone.
Make a list of the most important lessons you want to teach your children. Write down what kind of character traits you would like to instill in them before they leave your home. What will your family values be? You can revise your list down the road, but writing down your goals now, even imperfectly, will get you moving in the right direction.
One of the most important lessons I wanted to teach my children was to respect and obey those in authority over them. That starts with their parents. I knew that if they didn’t learn to honor and obey us they would have a hard time honoring and obeying God. I also wanted to teach them to accept correction from us with a humble and teachable attitude. This is hard for adults, so don’t expect it to be easy for a 4-year-old! But knowing this was the goal gave me a target to aim for. When I had a goal in mind I wasn’t punishing disobedience as much as I was training obedience. But getting the goal on paper, verbalizing it, and making it plain to understand was so helpful for all of us. That way we were all speaking the same language.
Discipline works better in the context of a strong relationship
I discovered that all discipline works better in the context of a loving, caring relationship. The saying, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” is especially true for children. As I learned not to respond in anger every time they disobeyed they became more open to my instruction. Instead of avoiding me because they feared punishment, they were drawn to me, even when they did wrong, because they knew I loved them. I had access to their hearts and they listened to me, even though they didn’t always obey! But I knew if they didn’t listen to me, if I didn’t have their hearts and attention, they would never want to obey me.
Disciplining and training our children to be the adults they were created to be is a lifestyle. So be as consistent as you can as often as you can, but if you blow it, you’ll have another chance. Just knock off the dust of discouragement and try again. They love you and you love them. This is a relationship. Learn with them. Grow with them.
For more on this subject, I encourage you to listen to this podcast episode: The Power of Relationship: The Key to Your Child’s Heart.
Believe your child wants to obey and please you
This was a hard one for me to learn but it made my job so much easier once I did! My oldest son David has always had an adventurous spirit. He wants to try new things, experiment. When he was a little boy he wasn’t afraid of anything. I was constantly having to pull him away from things he wasn’t supposed to touch or things that could harm him. It seemed the more I told him “no” to something he wanted the more he wanted it. It didn’t seem he wanted to obey me or please me at all.
It seemed like we are always at odds. I was always saying, “No.” And he was always pushing forward anyway. I noticed I started developing a bad attitude toward my son. I started believing that he was purposely trying to thwart my plans and being purposely disobedient. This belief set up a power struggle between us. I was determined to make him listen and obey. He was determined to have his way. It wasn’t pretty.
Little by little the Lord showed me the problem was within my heart, not his. I was the adult. He was the child. That didn’t mean I was always right and he was always wrong. It meant I had to be the mature one, the one who can see the situation from different angles. He only saw one thing, “I want this.” The Lord encouraged me to see him not as rebellious but adventurous, not as disobedient but immature. It was my job to train him and help him grow more mature, not punish him for his immaturity.
Punishment doesn’t cause a child to go from immature to mature, training in wisdom does. So the Lord encouraged me to believe that deep in David’s heart he wanted to obey and please his mama. He just needed me to believe in him first. So I did. We still struggled. He gave me many opportunities to doubt his desire to please me and obey! But as I believed in him, he matured, and I saw his heart turning towards the grace I was extending. Trust me, it works!
Inside those little hearts is a desire to obey and please their mama. This came as a surprise to me. At first, I doubted it. I wasn’t sure David cared at all about pleasing me. But as I decided to believe the best about him, he became more open to my words and started wanting to obey me out of love rather than fear of punishment. And love is a much better motivator than fear.
This wasn’t picture-perfect. We still had rough days. They still threw fits. To be honest, I still threw fits sometimes, too. But as God changed me, I learned how to reach their hearts. At first, it seemed hit-and-miss. But occasional successes gave me hope for more future successes. Over time I became more skilled in dealing with the objections and obstacles that came up. I was growing in wisdom. I no longer felt powerless. I was finally starting to understand the overreaching nature of discipleship and how to correct my children without harsh punishments and words.
Focus on natural consequences rather than arbitrary punishments
One of the ways we learn wisdom is by suffering the consequences of our foolishness. The pain we experience from making bad decisions helps us to think twice the next time we’re faced with that decision. Pain is a great motivator to grow in maturity. Allowing our children, when appropriate, to suffer the natural consequences of their bad behavior is a wonderful teaching tool and it keeps us from having to come up with an unrelated punishment that may or may not help them remember the next time.
I know this isn’t always possible. If your child has a habit of running into the road, you can’t allow the natural consequences of being hit by a car to teach them not to run in the road next time. There won’t be a next time! But when appropriate, allowing them to feel the natural consequences of their own decisions helps them make wise decisions in the future. And it shows them that they have the ability to make wise decisions for themselves. That’s empowering.
One of my boys is extremely competitive. He’s always had a hard time with losing. If he was playing a board game with his brothers and saw he was about to lose he would throw the whole game on the floor to avoid his inevitable defeat! If he wasn’t going to win, no one was going to win. Early on I would match his anger with my own and chaos would ensue. But I learned the best punishment was that he wasn’t allowed to play board games anymore if he couldn’t take care of them and if he didn’t play fair. So the board games would go up for a long time. This worked because he loved board games.
Another natural consequence was his other two brothers often didn’t want to play with him because they were never allowed to win. That’s not much fun. And I wouldn’t force them to play with him like he wanted me to.
Little by little, he learned to play without drama. He’s much older now but he’s still very competitive. And he still loves board games. We can all tell when he’s boiling underneath, but he tries to keep his emotions in check. He’s learning to be a good loser, and a good winner, which is sometimes a harder lesson to learn!
By grace our children will grow in maturity and character so others will want to be around them. As often as you can use the tool of natural consequences to help your kids grow in wisdom.
If you struggle with discipline and correction, I hope you will try these four suggestions. I believe they will help you grow in wisdom as you practice them in your own home. God has a good plan for you and your children. Believing He is working with you and helping you as you do your best to obey him makes a huge difference. We’re training our kids for Him. He’s helping us every day. God bless!
© Audrey McCracken, 2023
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