Tag Archives: children

The Discipline Years

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Matt is preaching a parenting series on Sunday mornings at our church. Yesterday’s message was about the discipline years. Here are some of the key thoughts.

5 Ways we try to correct our kids (wrongly)

  1. Embarrass or shame our kids
  2. Punish them for embarrassing us
  3. Force them into our personality
  4. Whipping boy syndrome- we take out unresolved issues in our life on our kids
  5. Break them down

What happens when we discipline that way?

  1. If we embarrass and shame them- Guilt
  2. If we punish or embarrass them- Anger
  3. If we force them into our personality- Insecurity
  4. If we take out our unresolved issues on them- Fear
  5. If we break them down- Low self-worth

The goal of discipline or correction is connection. If we correct our kids without trying to connect with them, we will only create in them feelings of isolation and rejection.

Proverbs 3:11,12 “My son despise not the chastening of the LORD; neither be weary of his correction: For whom the LORD loveth he correcteth: even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.”

God loves us so much that He corrects us. If we love our children, we will take the time to correct them. I love the end of verse 12. God uses the picture of a father delighting in his son. That is how much God loves us and why He corrects us.

When we realize the big picture, that God loves us too much to not correct us to help us to be more like Him, it helps us to do the same with our children. Love them and correct them with the goal of connecting with them.

connecting-to-my-kids-today-will-help-them-connect-to-god-tomorrow

Spend the Time Now; Spare the Frustration Later

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I have been so frustrated with my two-year old’s behavior the last few days. It seems we are always in a cycle of good behavior and bad behavior. Everybody will be doing so well; then it all falls apart. Our little Maggie has been throwing horrible tantrums all day long every day, and it is so frustrating!

I was reading in the book of Esther this morning. There is an interesting verse that caught my attention.

Esther 2:20b …”for Esther did the commandment of Mordecai, like as when she was brought up with him.”

Esther’s parents died when she was young, and she was taken in by her Uncle Mordecai. Esther learned to obey when she was young, so she was ready to listen and follow Mordecai’s instructions when the stakes were much higher. This verse challenged me. I need to train my children now, so that I can speak into their lives and they will listen when they are older and the stakes are much greater. When they start dating, when they are introduced to drugs and alcohol for the first time, etc.

I also read Proverbs 29 today. This chapter contains one of my favorite parenting verses.

Proverbs 29:17 “Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest; yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul.”

If I spend the time and energy now to correct my children (in this case- Maggie), she will give me rest. I will be able to get past these years of discipline and not have to correct her all the time. However, if I don’t put in the time now, I will still be just as frustrated and correcting constantly down the road. We have seen this firsthand with our six-year-old Malachi. We spent a lot of time correcting him in his early years; now we don’t have to as much. Now, he is by no means perfect, and he still gets into trouble; but the times that we have to correct him are a lot fewer now.

I am encouraged to spend the time now correcting my young children, and spare the frustration later on.long-2