Welcome back to our ongoing topic of discipline! How many of us are familiar with the following verse:
"Do not withhold discipline from your child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death." Proverbs 23:13-14
Spanking (or punishing with the rod) was of very little thought to me until we had our son. Even then, I knew it would be a long time before we had to tackle this subject, so I let it mellow on the back burner. Well, we're here. After my post yesterday, you'll see that I'm struggling with the actual act of discipline. While I have talked to several moms who share in my struggles, I've chatted with even more who have gotten way past it, and they, along with their husbands, have settled into a good plan of appropriate discipline for their children. This gives me hope that I am getting over my nervousness about the whole topic. I wholeheartedly believe in discipline, I know that scripture supports it, and I'm seeing the fruits of well-behaved and happy children who have seen their fair share of a spank, a time-out, or a privilege lost. Now, on to the hot topic...
I was spanked as a child. My parents did an excellent job of disciplining in love with both my brother and me. While other methods were used most of the time for various offenses, we were spanked for three reasons, agreed upon ahead of time by my mom and dad:
- Danger
- Disobedience
- Lying
With disobedience and lying, we were given a warning, and then my mom would proceed with the spanking, or we were told to wait until my dad got home from work for a spanking...a tool that I now see as a fantastic way to get your child to clean their room, behave perfectly the rest of the day, and think about what they've done all day, meanwhile hoping that Mom would forget. She never did :-) Well played, Mommy, well played. With danger, it was an immediate spank. Running into the street, touching the stove, etc. Those spanks needed to be surprising and super effective in order to curb the potentially lethal behavior. Other than danger, the spanking was done in love, with a full conversation about the behavior and the consequence, and we would cuddle while I cried afterwards while talking about repentance. Now that I'm a grown mommy who has been doing my research, I'm pretty sure my parents were in touch with Dr. Dobson's Focus on the Family ministry. I wanted to share a fantastic article on spanking. Click the links to the right of the article for more information about their biblical view of the subject:
My husband was spanked one time as a child. He was playing "tight rope" on the railing of their two-story deck. A dangerous situation, indeed! It was obviously effective since he can still share the story of his spank, but I frequently tease him that he needed his little bottom spanked a lot more! He was sent to his room a lot, something that he recalls as torture. When I was sent to my room, I was happy to take a few minutes of time to play quietly or look at a book. Different personalities...right?
You see, there is my question. Is spanking right for every child? I think it's too early to say whether or not spanking is/is not effective for our 13-month-old. He's still a baby. He is only on the brink of understanding right and wrong. No, it isn't working lately, so we're trying other methods while we all ease into consistent discipline. What I'm learning (and sharing with you as I go) is to not take on the world's perspective of spanking as merely beating your children into submission. I understand it's biblical. And, when done in love for your children and out of respect for our heavenly Father, it is incredibly effective at instilling godly behavior into our children. Perhaps there is a place for it for every child...thoughts?
The bottom line I've come to is that you need to be in absolute agreement with your husband of what discipline will look like in your home. Even though many of us stay at home with our children, thereby making us the primary disciplinarians, I strongly feel that our husbands should discipline, too. Maybe a little part of me just doesn't want to be the mean mommy :-) But in all seriousness, I feel it's important that our children understand that my husband and I are a team. We are in this together, and it's not to hurt them. It is to eventually create amazingly strong and God-fearing adults.
These are my ever-evolving thoughts on discipline and spanking. I'd love to hear yours! Please comment below. I promise to respond to every, single one. Be blessed, mommies!
MMSM #42
While I am
getting better at enjoying yard work, it still feels like a chore.
Often times, I kill whatever I plant, and I fill with rage when our
water bill comes. Really? You have to pay big bucks for something that
God drops from the sky? Anyway, we have to landscape...for our
enjoyment, and our HOA :-) Check this out! Hit up your local home
improvement store for clearance, end-of-summer plant deals. Make sure to
get perennials that easily grow in your climate (perennials come back
every year, whereas annuals must be purchased new each year). I found
mum plants for 88 cents a piece, and I found three pretty purple plants
(not sure of their name!) for $3.33 each. But the least expensive mulch,
and put in some work while your little one(s) naps. Voila! You have a
lovely flower bed that should multiply in beauty each year, for cheap! Happy planting!
Tip #30
Need some
help on garage organization? I've found that there is no reason to
re-invent the wheel. If you do a quick Google search on whatever
organization topic you may be looking for, you're bound to come up with a
myriad of helpful sites. I love this one for the honey-do list. Since
much of our honey-do list gets done by me (due to my husband's
traveling), this will make a great winter project. Happy organizing...of
the garage...Organizing your Garage.
Kindra, I'm new here. In fact, only brought here for this post. Randomly. My first thought is definitely praise to you for critically thinking about what you're doing. Parenting is a personal and rich experience; to do so with awareness, conscience, and thoughtful reflection is worthy of kudos. For sure. It can certainly be 'easy' to do what you're told to do and deal with quieting your own mind when feeling guilt or uncertainty about what you're choosing.
ReplyDeleteSo, truly, good for you. I hold a firm belief against spanking, personally. I spanked my first child and found how scary that was for him and since I consider my faith based on God-loving, not God-fearing, having my child scared of me wasn't working out. It took careful consideration between myself and my husband to decide to stop the spanking as we certainly didn't want to go back on his word and undo the trust he'd be having to find in us after hitting him for so long.
We did and we're all better off for it. I've never hit my daughter. And no one has gotten to hit either of them (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc) since we stopped with my son (which was before my daughter was old enough to consider such a thing).
All of this to say, my daughter is certainly, and by far, a more compliant child. And I'm not going to go opposite end and say it's BECAUSE she has never been hit by us. There's no way for any of us to ever know that. But I will say that she is who she is all on her own. Without being spanked.
So the idea of having to spank in order to 'raise' a child to be disciplined, obedient, or successful is, I think, an idea brought forth by a lack of confidence in parents. For generations people haven't been certain if their kids would turn out okay so they 'straighten them out' the best way they know how. Which is what they've been taught.
In all actuality, children need their parents to hear them, to teach them, to understand what it's like to learn. Falling off a banister will hurt. Yes. But so will a spanking. So is the parent's intention to really avoid the child being hurt? No. They hurt them themselves. What is their true intention? I don't know. But I think it's a key thing to reflect on so as to be clear with one's self. Similarly, you state: "Running into the street, touching the stove, etc. Those spanks needed to be surprising and super effective in order to curb the potentially lethal behavior." Touching the stove isn't potentially lethal. It just isn't. Unless your child has an incredibly rare disorder where their sense of touch doesn't exist. In which case you wouldn't spank anyway.
I bring that up because often parents hit out of frustration. Just as toddlers do. Parents are frustrated with fear that their child will become injured. Parents are frustrated with sharing their time with a person who has no sense of such. Parents are frustrated with not being 'respected'. Parents are frustrated with not getting their time as the ruler (they didn't get it when they were children and dangit... they believe they should get it now).
ReplyDeleteLastly, I've got to ask you. In all truth, and I don't even want your answer. I just invite you to really think about it. In your silence. In your reflection. In your heart, apart from the current dealings of disciplining your own children. Okay? You wrote: "we would cuddle while I cried afterwards" about your Mommy cuddling you after she spanked you. When you read that, does it feel good to be comforted by the person who hurt you? If your husband hit you, would you appreciate him consoling you after? Would you want to be physically intimate by being in his arms as he held you? Do you think your Mom would like to know that he held you after he hurt you? How about your siblings? If one of them came over and whacked you, would you feel loved and comforted in their arms after? How would your husband feel to see you being hugged by your brother or sister after he or she hit you?
I understand the fallback for most of those questions is often something about how they're adults though and you're an adult and that's different, but if one can believe with every inch of their heart that a fertilized human egg is a baby, has feelings, and has a soul then that's to also say that children have every bit of human protection rights that those unborn babies have and that the adults in their lives have.
I really think that if parenting is a religious and Christian quest then the struggle should lie in the adult who has been given the good virtue of having a child and not on the child themselves. How can we behave more Christ-like not only with our neighbors, not only with the poor, not only with our husbands, but with our children. The sweet, tender souls that we carried in our bodies. They're learning, every day, what life is about. And in a Christian home they're learning what Jesus is about. Jesus was a savior. Not a spanker. He healed people with his touch. He didn't inflame their skin with a harsh contact. He saw the best of intentions in those he came across. And that's what I believe Mothering is about. Seeing the best intentions in our children. When we do that we release any need to physically punish them as we recognize that each of their actions is asking us: "What is the right thing for me to do?"
Shannon, thank you so much for your response. I really enjoyed reading it this morning, and it gave me some great points to ponder. Spanking is off the table with our son right now, because of it's current ineffectiveness and also his tendency to "spank" me back. Not the desired result! My husband and I are still praying about the proper form of discipline, and we love seeing new ideas and thoughts from parents who desire what's best for their children. It is clear that you have put much thought into discipline for your two children, and I really appreciate your willingness to share. It's such a tricky subject when I see numerous families with well-behaved and respectful children who have been spanked as their primary form of discipline. Frankly, I'm really confused. In His Word, God does clearly speak about stern, and sometimes painful, discipline in order to train up a child in the way he should go. I understand that there are other forms of discipline that may instill some emotional pain in order to teach a lesson. Pain-free discipline, however, is not biblical. When we are disciplined by God, we often times must go through painful circumstances and situations. Obviously, I'm still processing my thoughts, but thank you for being willing to listen!
DeleteMay I ask how you discipline your children, and what are their ages? Have you found something that works best with each of them? I would love to hear about your experiences.
Once again, thanks so much for commenting and being willing to discuss. I love this aspect of blogging :-) Be blessed!