Discipline–that mysterious area of life where people are so passionate. To spank or not to spank, that is the question. But is it really? Seems to me that the discipline of a person is a whole life process. God has used so many different approaches in my life to discipline me.
Natural consequences–It you do something foolish, you will reap foolish consequences–speeding and getting a ticket–not God, my stupidity.
Scripture–conviction by the Holy Spirit
Training–learning all sorts of lessons through jobs, circumstances, missions, watching others and having the training of my parents or boss or friends in the midst of life
So much of life is a process and so is child training. Children at 2 are just less mature than children at 7 or 9 or 11. Parents of older children know that children will grow out of phases. Gentle instruction, training, “You may not speak this way, what is a better way to say this?” and following through. “You may not hit another child when you are frustrated, ever?” And then you isolate the child from the others and work with the child until they can apologize and ask for forgiveness.” It is the patterns day in day out of correcting. loving, training, instructing, putting to bed, holding, and asking God to show us, by faith what each situation and each child needs at the moment.
No training is irresponsible. One of my friends thought she was following Clay’s philosophy in his book Heartfelt Discipline by being lenient, which is different from grace based. “My three year old refuses to respond to my husband and always runs to me and spits on him and kicks him and I tell my husband that it is just a phase.”
I was shocked. No child of ours is ever allowed to treat anyone that way, let alone a parent. We were on top of our children training, training, disciplining all the time. It was the way of life to model and instruct them in maturity.
Since I am in the mountains with my sweet family, and want to spend most of my time with them, I thought I would post a blog from before that many people have requested. And I pray for each of you who read it today, that God will Himself give you grace and wisdom in your home for each situation with each child. Even as we walk by faith, we must also parent by faith. Grace and peace to you this Wednesday!
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“It just bothers my head off when I see parents who don’t discipline their children!” Joy proclaimed after babysitting a group of kids at church tonight. After which a long conversation between Sarah and Joy ensued. So fun to hear them talk with such strong opinions–guess the Clarkson family culture was pretty strong!
I have learned more about my parenting by pondering Jesus than from anywhere else. In Hebrews we are told, “All discipline, for the moment, seems not to be joyful but sorrowful, but afterwords it leads to the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” That right there says that God cares that we interfere with our children’s development and maturity and discipline them to become righteous.
“He disciplines us that we share in his Holiness.” His discipline was for a purpose–not to be overbearing with us and become authoritative–but to train us–to help develop His character in us. He has high standards for us. I feel that in my own life, he has used many obstacles, difficulties and stresses to help conform me more to His image–he does not let me off the hook–he uses His training to help me grow up- to become more mature.
So, I realize that I have to be willing to let my children suffer displeasure in order to train them to become excellent. However, the point I want to make clearly is that discipline and training of a child is primarily relationship based—-not rule based! We are to seek to win their hearts–to give them a reason to want to obey us. We are to accept our children as a gift and communicate clearly to them how we love and treasure them.But for Clay and me, it meant spending lots and lots of time.
How did Jesus influence His disciples, so that they wanted to follow Him to the cross? By spending 3 years with them day in and day out, teaching, training, modeling, correcting and loving and enjoying life with them. (I wrote about this a lot in Ministry of Motherhood) His influence was based on his servant-leadership–(The night before he died, he was pondering where he had come from–heaven with God where he was always worshipped–and where we would be going back–back to heaven–and then he knelt and girded himself about with a towel and began to wash the disciple’s feet.
I was having a quiet time once and realized that Jesus washed 12o toes! He understood me as a mom wiping noses, changing diapers, etc. Seems he has such integrity–he never asks me to do what he has not already done! “If I being the Lord washed your feet, so you should do to one another.”
He was a humble, servant leader, and so I must have such honor and integrity with my children. It is in serving them and honoring them that they develop a desire to respond to me.
However, training was moment by moment–every day. For instance, when child whined, we took them away–away to their bedroom or if we were at someone’s house, to a private room or bathroom. (What is the matter? Mommy and Daddy are allergic to ‘whiny” voices. I cannot listen to you until you can talk in normal voice. (And then we put them in their crib or hold them firmly and quietly until they could get control.
When they were disrespectful to either one of us or to someone else, we immediately corrected them and said, “How should you have said that to your brother, Father or whatever.” Children should not be allowed the freedom to be rude or to be disrespectful–grace-based parenting doesn’t mean that you don’t do anything, it just means that you don’t primarily use the paddle for everything. We would always pick up our child if they were disrespectful to either one of us and made them immediately do what we had asked. “Tell Daddy you are sorry you disobeyed. Now I will take your hand and I will help you pick up the toy he asked you to pick up. Please do it now.” If the child did not comply, we worked with them until they did comply–right then and until the child complied. Do not train a child to throw fits or to cry or throw tantrums. And do not excuse behavior that you have decided is not acceptable.
But do consult the list below to see if you are provoking a child and testing them beyond their ability to control themselves. Each child requires prayer and thoughtfulness as they all have different personalities and your goal is to reach the child’s heart with your training–to give them a desire to do well according to their own heart-felt motivation and needs, personality, gender and age. And be sure that your discipline is appropriate to the offense–a strict voice and long spanking and discipline should not happen for a child who has been careless or done something small–correction and consequences or doing it over is more appropriate–if you make every thing a big deal, your children will learn to dread you.
I have been really reacting lately every time I see a policeman. Our town is giving out as many tickets as possible to make up for lack of taxes on certain issues. So many tickets are given each day and police cars are everywhere (lots of articles and complaints have been in the local news.) I was wondering if this is how children feel when they have parents who are over bearing and authoritarian–dreading seeing their parents because they know their parents will find something wrong! How terrible to be afraid to be with your parents because they correct every single thing you do–that would be terrible in a friendship, marriage, or as a child–there must be grace in the midst of life.
Part 2 tomorrow
As we step back into our routine this morning after a wonderful trip last week, this is a good reminder.
Thanks for posting this essay. Have an amazing week, Sally.
What an amazing post – a HUGE blessing! Thank you for so readily sharing your heart and wisdom. Sunshine
Thank you so much for these words of wisdom! I am have been thinking quite a bit about discipline lately and am going to do a post myself…I am going to include some of your suggestions.
What wisdom you share! Thank you!
Oh, Sally, thank you so much for this article. This is a continual battle for me. I want to stay right in the middle of relationship training not authoritarianism or too easy! Blessings to you for sharing such practical ways for us too. A huge help! HUGS!
This post is such a gift. I read it out loud to my husband last night and we both felt that this is the primer we needed as new parents. And it affirms us as we walk through these days as not-so-new parents. Thank you thank you thank you for sharing your wisdom!! You are much loved by this mom. Happy Mother’s Day a little early.
Love, Ann
I so needed these reminders as once again I have slipped back into my upbringing of rules and legalism. Not a place I desire to be.
I so want and desire our home to be a peaceful and joyful place to be. How do you do this when you feel broken to bits, your heart is aching and you feel so isolated and alone?? How do you get it back when you’ve already wounded young children?? Thankfully my children are very forgiving loving little people!
You are a blessing to me as well, Sally. Thank you for your words of wisdom. Any other words on dealing with depression in the midst of parenting several little ones would be most helpful. Thank you so much!!
Thank you for sharing the wisdom you have gained from your own experiences as a mother. I really feel blessed and encouraged every time I stop by your blog!
Sally,
Thank you for the practical and encouraging help to a mom with little ones. It was so helpful to read your thoughts. It is hard to remain balanced when in the middle of training. This helped me see some things I am doing well and some things I need to change and improve. Thank you for helping bring some focus and refreshment to this mom! I am thankful to have found your blog and have just started reading one of your books.
Gratefully,
Mary
Hi Sally. I have been following your blog for a while now and always find it so encouraging. Thank you so much for sharing your methods, I really respect your approach.
Thanks again, Sally. This is just what we’ve been talking about in our MomHeart group, so perfect timing! It’s great to hear of the great examples of what training and instruction looks like. Good words–relationship based not rule based for effective discipline and discipleship.
I can’t post my comment. Maybe it was too long?
Hmm. I guess I’m too long-winded. I don’t want to post my questions and comments one sentence at a time.
Would you mind if I email them to you?
Wonderful. Really wonderful!
Thank you for this post.
God Bless
Suzy
Hi, I wanted to say that I read your blog and really appreciated this post in particular. I love your approach to loving, training, thoughtful, discipline. Thank you for writing about it, it helps me process my thoughts on how I want to be with my daughter.
Also, I’m fascinated by Question 4 on your checklist when looking at kids behavior. I would really like to read more about that. Do you have a source or reference I could look into? Thanks so much.
You really trained your kids this way? Or is this a new idea now that they are grown? And what did you do when one child misbehaved at the store and the others were great? They all get the consequence of missing the park? What if there is only one parent at the park when the child misbehaves? Everyone sits in the car?
Is this something you actually used with your kids or an idea that you like now?
How do you keep the toddlers under control in public when you’re holding an infant and you can’t put them down at the moment?
My toddler always acts out when I can’t react and the redirecting/being nice does not work for her.
Thank you so much Sally. We feel like “fish out of water” sometimes, as the way we are disciplining is different than what our parents did. This article was so helpful!
This was REALLY helpful to me. Thank you Sally, for sharing this.
So refreshing to read this tonight. Thank you!
What do you do if your husband is 100% into rule-based discipline? I used to agree with him for the most part, but now that I’ve been following you I have started to really see that rule-based discipline is not what I want. I am trying to be more relationship based rather than finding faults with everything they do (I have a long way to go, but at least I feel like I’m on the right track). But the more I try to have a relationship with them, the more they dread when daddy comes home and the more they cry when I go out at night…I don’t think he will ever give up all his rules and regulations.
Sally, thanks for these thoughts, a good, refreshing reminder of relationship and discipline and training, all rolled together. I completely agree–we do use “the paddle” but not for everything, not even for most things. Training and disciplining my girls is more about our relationship together, shepherding their hearts to know and love Jesus, helping instill in them good habits of thinking and relating and acting, and encouraging them to be more like Jesus. We also encourage them to pray for help and strength when we see them struggling with certain sins (selfishness, anger, greed, etc). I think it’s so important to always be seeking to reach the heart of my child, not just behavior. Children (and dogs, for that matter) can be trained to do any number of things on the outside but it is their hearts that we are trying to reach for Jesus. After all, even outwardly compliant children need Jesus.
Thanks again for your continued ministry and help on these issues! May the Lord give you His strength, peace and JOY today!
Blessings, Rachel W