As parents, we are instructed by God to train our children up.
Proverbs says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Ephesians says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”
Some of the areas of training that we discuss include teaching your children right behavior and practicing it, instructing them in God’s Word, encouraging right behavior, and correcting wrong behavior by getting to the heart of the matter and giving out consequences for disobedience.
Teaching right behavior and then practicing it is what we call training time. There are two ways to have training time. One way is to schedule 15-30 minutes to work on areas that you feel could use some improvement. You could make it an “every Thursday at 7 o’clock” thing. You explain what you expect from them and then give them a chance to practice it. We gave an example last week of teaching walking aged kids how you want them to answer and come to you when you call them; or how you want them to answer you and report when you’ve asked them to do something. A few other ideas are…..list (if you need a copy of the training ideas and ages list, please let me know.)
You can practice going to the grocery store. Talk about how you want them to hold hands from the car to the shopping cart. Let them know that when you go to the store, you have a list of the things you need and they are not allowed to ask for anything. One of those nanny shows would have you cut out pictures of everything on your list and have your child help you shop. Not only is that a lot of work but it’s really a means of distraction. You’re just trying to keep them occupied and avoid them being bored. They can learn that life is boring and you’re just there to help them get used to it. Also, practice how you expect them to act in line. Be sure to let them know during your training time that if they do not follow through when you are at the store, there will be a consequence. Do not bribe them. If you have to leave a whole shopping cart of food sitting in the store while you go out to the car to discipline, do it. This will make an impact. If they do well, praise them and thank them for showing love to Mommy by being respectful and obedient.
Whatever you are having trouble with, practice it at home. You can role-play during “training time.” We role-play to show them the wrong way to act and then show the right behavior that we expect. We’re going to show you how we would do this:
Taking a toy – Both wrong One wrong – one right Both right
Friend’s email: I have to be honest - but I thought the whole idea of role playing was a bit silly. But after this afternoon - I'm lovin it! We had to put our library books and movies back because [my 5-yr-old] disobeyed me and went back to the puppets and proceeded to growl again and shout. He got a spanking - then we put everything back. So after lunch - we role played how we behave in the library. And it just so happened that [the baby] was "shouting" while [my 5-yr-old] was trying to read me something and he didn't appreciate it - great tie in!Anyway he loved it - "can we do it again" I swear we did it some umpteen times - the "bad way" AND the "good way".
Role-playing is a great way to show the kids how they look when they are acting selfish and sinful and it makes an impact to then show them the right way.
The second type of training time is impromptu – or when the need arises. You lay your one year old down to change her diaper and she squirms and fusses to get away. Train her to be still by holding her still and saying, “Be still”. If she disobeys, she gets a swat and you tell her again to be still. If she isn’t squirming but is protesting, you would say, “No fussing.” If she doesn’t stop, she gets a swat and another “No fussing”.
What if your son reaches for something on the coffee table that he should not have? Instead of removing him or the object, what if you decided to train him not to touch it. As he reaches for the object say, “No touching” and move his hand away. If he reaches for it again, swat his hand and say again, “No touching”. Continue until he submits his will to yours and he can stand there without touching it. Redirecting him to something else is distraction and it does not teach self-control.
You may be thinking, “But wouldn’t it just be easier to move him or rearrange the house?” Actually, no. Remember, you don’t have to child-proof your house, when you house-proof your child. And when you go somewhere else, you won’t have to rearrange your host’s house or follow the children around constantly checking what they are getting into.
What about the child who tries to remove your glasses. Instead of turning her around so she can’t get to them, what if you train her not to touch them at all? Go through the same routine. “No touching.” And if she does it again, swat her hand and repeat your instructions.
Someone had a great question last week about using the word “No”. She had heard not to use it for everyday occurrences because of its negative connation, and to only use it in dangerous situations. But if you said, “leave it” instead of “No” it’s all the same to a toddler. No is no more negative than any other word. It is simply part of a command. For me, I always used a more urgent no for dangerous situations like sticking things in the outlets. What you can do to counter the fact that you may be using it a lot is by saying “Yes” when they reach for something they can have. And Yes, good job obeying when they stand at the coffee table looking at the off-limits item but not touching it.
Impromtu training is not just reserved for the littlest ones. One Sunday I was headed out to the car after church with all the kids. Roddy’s usually with me but for some reason he wasn’t on this day. I had my hands full with Bibles and craft projects and Iris wanting to be held. The big kids ran ahead and stopped to wait before going across the parking lot, but Charlie started to run out. So I called for him to stop and he did. After we crossed the first line of traffic and made it to the first row of parked cars, we needed to turn left but I had to put Iris down to reposition everything I was carrying. Well she fussed at me while at the same time Charlie started to go across traffic without even looking. So I grab his collar to pull him out of the way of the oncoming car and he fussed at me. We finally got to the car just about the time Roddy got there. But instead of everyone loading up and getting the heck out of there, I decided we should have some training on how to walk out to the car together. I explained to them how I expected them to walk beside us and without being held and we were going to practice it. So we walked together back into the E2 building and then out to the car again.
Another Sunday night we were walking to my parents’ church which is on the property behind our house. It’s separated by woods so we had a few minutes. I decided to talk to the kids about how Roddy is the leader of our home and we should follow his lead. To illustrate, I had the kids line up and play follow-the-leader. Now, we can say, “Follow the leader” and they line up behind Roddy.
If we invest time in training - *teaching and practicing right behavior – we will spare ourselves and our children a lot of unnecessary discipline time. I don’t mean it will cut it out altogether but it will minimize it.
That leads us to another part of “bringing our children up” which is discipline. What do we mean by discipline? On dictionary.com, Discipline had 12 descriptions. For the purposes of this discussion, we will define discipline as consequences given in order to train in self-control.
Now let’s talk about the when, why and how of discipline. Discipline is reserved for disobedience. There are 2 types of disobedience: thoughtless disobedience and willful disobedience. Thoughtless disobedience means your child broke a rule but had no intention of breaking it. It may have been an accident. They put no thought behind it. It was completely unplanned.
Consequences for thoughtless disobedience should relate to the offense. Don’t take away TV time because they broke something. Require restitution. They can either help you clean it up and fix it or use their money to buy a new one.
Let’s say you’ve told the kids not to slam the back door when they go out to play. This is a known rule in your house. But one of the kids in their excitement runs out the back door and thoughtlessly slams it. They weren’t thinking. They were just childish. A consequence could be having them come back and practice several times going in and out shutting the door the right way. Our kids often forget to shut the door at all. So we’ll have them come back and do the same thing.
Another example of thoughtless disobedience would be if you ask them to play quietly because someone is sleeping. They thoughtlessly forget and start playing loudly. You could take away their privilege to talk for a few minutes or take away the toy that was the accomplice in the noise making.
Complaining about food or playing at the table could get them the loss of a meal. It can then be served to them again at the next meal. There are 2 verses that we wanted to share when thinking about what your standards will be at mealtime: Phil 2:14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning, and Luke 6:31 And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. You decide how you will deal with mealtime. According to Phil. we should teach our children not to complain – not only about food but anything. And according to Luke, we should teach them to think about how they would feel if someone complained about something they worked hard to prepare. Our mealtime rule is: be thankful for what you are given. If they don’t want to eat it, we put it in the fridge for the next meal. If it is something they have never had before, they have to take as many bites as they are old.
Consequences for thoughtless disobedience should take into account the situation as well as the child’s age. If your 2 year old starts running through the house, you might go to her and say, “No running in the house. You may walk.” If she starts running within minutes of that, you would spank her because she was just told what you expected and disobeyed. If you had to correct her several times throughout the day, you’d give her a spanking, too. But, if you told her once 2 days ago, because of her young age, you might just correct her again. With older ones 4 and up, set the standard and let them know the consequence. Then follow through consistently
Also, look at their hearts. Let’s say we’re sitting at dinner and we’ve just told Charlie to sit in his seat. If Iris drops her spoon and he jumps down to get it, he is serving and loving his sister. We would praise him for being such a kind big brother and if needed direct him back to his seat.
We ran out of time at this point. Next week we will go over Willful Disobedience and the consequences for that. Try to read through chapter 6 this week.
