When you teach your children what you expect of them and give them a time of practicing it, you are setting them up to win. I Cor 10:13 “ No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, an dhe will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” When we teach and practice right behavior with our children, we are providing a way of escape for them.
Thoughtless disobedience is when your child breaks a rule but did not intend to. It’s an act of carelessness or childishness. There is no rebellious intent. Examples: accidentally breaking something, forgetting to play quietly when the baby is napping, karate-chopping the glass door just to see what would happen.
Consequences relate to the offense. Check out chapter 5 for a review.
On the other hand, when you have set clear standards of what you expect, but your child knowingly and willingly disobeys, that is Willful Disobedience. It is a decision on the child’s part not to follow through with the instructions given to him by his parents. Remember that Ephesians 6:1, Colossians 3:20 and Christ’s example with his Father, command children to obey their parents in everything. The earlier you teach and expect this, the better.
Willful disobedience can be divided into two categories: Active and Passive Rebellion. Examples pages 75-80.
Don’t allow kids to correct you.
The consequence for active or passive rebellion is chastisement/spanking. This is often an area of controversy because spankings are not always done the right way. Giving a spanking in love and spanking a child because you are angry are completely opposite.
Reb contrasts the difference between biblical discipline and abuse so well. Pages 70-71. (READ)
I was flipping through this book one day that we had on taming toddlers and the author addressed spanking as being “negative and emotionally degrading as well as being an extremely ineffective form of control.” But he also said on the page just before that, that spanking should be used for “the following two situations: 1)after some dangerous, life-threatening act, [and his examples were trying to climb off of second story balcony or running across busy roads] or 2) to defuse the rapidly escalating, no-win confrontation.” He says, “a quick, sharp smack may be most valuable in defusing a deteriorating situation that is about to get hopelessly out of control.” So he says it’s extremely ineffective, but when the situation is important enough, you should use it. He sounds confused to me. I Corinthians 14:33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace.
Why do we spank? Proverbs tells us in chapter 23 (vs. 13, 14) Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. If someone came up to you and tried to take your child, would you just stand by and watch? Of course not. But that is exactly what the devil is trying to do. He’s just more subtle. Everything we’re talking about in here is to help you fight tooth and nail for your kids. That includes spanking for willful disobedience.
22:15 Folly (or foolishness) is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.
Every training opportunity is a chance to remove the foolishness in your child. Foolishness is not playfulness or child-like innocence. Foolishness means being full of selfish desires.
29:15 The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. I want to point out that the rod alone won’t do it. Training and communicating why what they did was wrong based on Scripture is equally important. Using Scripture as our standard of right and wrong removes our agenda from the picture and reminds them of their ultimate accountability to God.
13:24 Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.
3:11-12 My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights. I love this verse because it doesn’t say, "a father disciplines the son who makes him crazy all day and has worn him out so that he can’t take it anymore and he is just sick and tired of it." He disciplines the son in whom he delights. And it compares the Lord’s discipline to the earthly discipline a father should be giving his child.
When you hear the “experts” say that spanking is wrong, it is because they are referring to child abuse – which is absolutely wrong. You should NEVER, EVER spank in anger! If you are angry but your child needs to be disciplined, put yourself in time out. Tell him you are going to take some time to talk to God and ask Him to help you calm down. Remember Galatians 6:1 “if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” It doesn’t say, restore him harshly or in anger.
James 1:19 says, “…let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Don’t jump to conclusions. Find out what really happened. I know that we’ve made the mistake of giving consequences and finding out after we shouldn’t have. Be quick to listen to them, slow to speak and especially slow to become angry. I used to think the kids needed to know I was angry with them in order for the spanking to work. I thought, “If I hug them after their spanking, they’ll think they’re being rewarded for misbehaving.” But I’ve learned just the opposite. Spanking in anger is counterproductive. Like I said, put yourself in time-out until you are ready to handle the situation in a way that is for the child’s benefit, not yours.
Be careful not to say, “I can’t spank?” We have a friend who went to Reb’s seminar when her son was a year old. Although she appreciated the insights, she thought, “I can’t spank my baby.” Two years later, she went through the ACTS class on Wednesday nights. One night we saw her afterwards and she said, “I should have spanked him.” It is a lot harder to retrain than to train correctly in the first place.
We have a very strong-willed child. Some kids are born strong-willed, some have their wills strengthened through lack of proper training. Ours was born that way. When he was a baby learning to sleep through the night, we’d go in and pat his back to settle him just like we did the other four children. But instead of calming down, he would get mad. When he was 6 months old he would fuss every time I put him down. Now you know as the 4th child he was not spoiled. He just wanted what he wanted. The terrible twos (which by the way is not an excuse for wrong behavior) lasted 2 years. There were days that were so hard and draining that I thought, “If someone came by and wanted to adopt him, I’d let them.” It sounds awful and I hate to say it, but he was so hard. You could tell him to have a nice day and he’d get mad at you. The other kids had trouble wanting to play with him. He’s the one that took 4 trips back to the car before even making it in the door of the grocery store. We would avoid asking him to do anything because we didn’t want to deal with the inevitable “No” that was sure to follow and then the ordeal that came with the spanking for saying “No.” We do not recommend doing this, because we missed out on opportunities to train him just because we wanted to avoid the conflict. And it really just prolonged his training. Anyway, when we finally realized that we were avoiding training opportunities and started being consistent with discipline, not to mention encouraging him greatly when we saw the right behavior, that’s when we started seeing a change in him.
He has received a lot of spankings. But this is the child who now says, “I love you Mommy.” And I’ll say, “I love you too.” Then he says, “I love you more.” He does the same thing to his siblings. The world says that spankings make kids angry and aggressive. But if you consistently spank for willful disobedience, and you do it in love and with patience, you will find that they are absolutely wrong. If we had spared the rod, Charlie would be a miserable, angry child. He is not perfect and still has a harder time with some things than the other kids ever did but he knows his mommy and daddy love him and only want what is best for him. He knows what’s right and wants to do it. He’ll pray at bedtime, “Help me to be nice and not selfish and do the right thing. And help me and Iris not to throw fits.” He is loving and kind and sweet. And because God made him strong-willed, he will be a man with strong convictions. It’s our job to give him the right convictions. At one point I had to make up my mind that this kid was not out to make my life miserable. Instead of labeling him “hard”, I started saying, “This boy is going to do great things for God!” And I believe that with all my heart.
Hebrews 12:5b-11
"My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.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. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
We have seen that in all of our children but it’s especially evident in the life of our sweet 4 year old.
So I want to give you an example of how you might handle a situation that requires a spanking. You tell your child to do something and they don’t do it. If there are others around, tell the child to go wait for you in another room - for privacy. When you get there, you want them to acknowledge what they did by asking, “Why are we here? What did you do?” They answer and you ask, “So what has to happen?” “I have to get a spanking.” For children who can’t yet articulate, you would tell them, “You disobeyed Mommy and you need to get a spanking.”
Use something that stings but does not injure – like a rubber ruler or plastic spoon. And don’t use your hand. We spank over their underwear not on top of pants and not on the bare bottom. After the spanking, pull the child to you and hug. Say I love you and pray. Then give them another chance to obey.
For those of you with children 3 and up, before you implement any of this, be sure to sit down with them and explain that there are going to be some changes. Maybe read Col 3:20. Tell them instead of repeating yourselves, or yelling, or making threats, you are going to speak instructions one time, calmly. They must obey the first time you speak or they will get a spanking. Younger than that, don’t need an explanation. I will tell you, the first 3 days will be the toughest. But you’ll see a difference as long as you are consistent. Inconsistency only frustrates and confuses your kids. They need to know every time they disobey, they can expect the same response from you.
It is very important to make sure that your time of discipline is complete. If we dole out spankings but fail to see a change in attitude or heart, you will actually strengthen your child’s will instead of subduing it. There are three things you want to observe after a spanking. If you don’t see these, your time of discipline is not complete.
1. Is the child humble before your authority?
2. Has he taken responsibility for his actions?
3. Is he submitting to the consequences of his actions?
Here are some telltale signs that the spanking didn’t work:
1. anger, pouting, throwing things, crying loudly because of anger not pain or sorrow.
2. blaming someone else or tattling or asking, “why aren't they having to …?”
3. crying for the other parent
4. won’t hug you or let you touch them or hold their hand.
5. shows disrespect by saying things like, “I hate you” or “You’re mean”.
6. complaining that the spanking was in the wrong place (usually happens because they’ve moved).
If you decide the spanking didn’t work you might say, “I can see you are still … So we need to do this again.” If they correct you and say, “No it worked!” You’d say, “Oh you just corrected me. You’ll have to get a spanking for that, too.”
Now, some children need a few minutes to collect themselves before showing humility. In that case, after you hug them, you would say, “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” However, if you try this and they are not humbled toward you, don’t bother trying it again. And they will need another spanking.
So let’s say you are careful to discipline when necessary but you still can’t seem to get your children to submit to your authority. There are reasons that spankings won’t work.
1. If you fail to complete the time of discipline
2. If you spank in anger
3. If you don’t try to reach their heart by communicating why what they did was wrong based on scripture
4. If you aren’t careful to restore your relationship afterwards – hugs, I love yous
