Day 82: Discipline Correctly

Proverbs 23:13

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die.

Principle

It requires discipline to discipline correctly.

The purpose of discipline is to teach children that doing wrong will cause pain in their lives. There is a raging debate on whether or not children should be disciplined. Raising children in a disciplined environment would seem to be common sense but there is a whole lot of argument against any form of corporal punishment.

My wife and I raised three children – interestingly, we had to use physical punishment on only a few occasions. Our children knew that I would not hesitate to correct them so they consistently obeyed our directives and respected our leadership.

My goal in discipline was to demonstrate … obedience basically. They could live under my rewards or they could lose those rewards by disobedience. It was their choice. I would continue to meet their basic needs – food, shelter, etc. – but they would not have the privileges and my gracious rewards. It was a pretty simple yet proved to be an effective process.

One more thought about children…I learned early on that most of the time, the strong personality traits that could cause them to misbehave were positive traits undisciplined. For example, stubbornness was often a conviction misdirected. Rebellion could be creative thinking without guidance. You see the point?

This process helped my children understand God’s reward system – grace and truth – grace is there at times, but there are also times for truth. Too much law and children will never live up to your rules and demands. Too much grace and they will run wild without restraint.

Remember:

Punishment is temporary pain to avoid permanent judgment. Click To Tweet

Read Proverbs Chapter 23


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2 Comments

  1. Henry Bennett on May 24, 2018 at 7:10 am

    Kudos well put I see people in the supermarket all the time threatening their child with a timeout the kid kicking and screaming in a car 6 7 8 years old sitting in the cart instead of walking and trying to grab everything off the shelf and whining and complaining when they can’t have it and you can tell this child has never known a rod. Give them everything they want and they’ll grow up wanting everything.



  2. Tony Carter on February 23, 2020 at 4:59 am

    Tkanks Neil: Great advice, God’s word is always true no matter what man’s political correctness says. May we always listen to truth