For those who have stubborn kids at home, there will be a time that we will be tempted to pull hair out of our heads when we are angry. There will be time we will be angry and mad so much so that we may be tempted to discipline them in the wrong way.
Discipline is wrong if physical, emotional and psychological abuses are involved. There is big difference between physical and mental abuse and discipline. Discipline is guidance, like the GPS. It shows the right directions to reach to the ultimate goal.
When you read Bible to your child, you are installing a GPS system in your child’s life. When you pray the prayer with your children you are disciplining your child. When you walk the walk and talk the talk with them on certain issue on life, you are showing them ultimately Christ who is the good Shepard of our lives.
Discipline is not screaming, shouting, squeezing, pushing, pulling, shaking, throwing, and destroying your child with negative talk. These things are more destructive than most probably the issue we are mad at. These bad responses are most destructive to your child in the long run. They are the cause of bad attitude, negative life perspective, low self-esteem when the child reaches adolescence.
It destroys child-parent relationship, degrades self-confidence, kills creativity and learning abilities. Discipline is not punishment as God never wants you to punish your kids rather it is showing love, nourishment and protection. It is not aggressive behavior towards your kids.
This is all the shouting, screaming, yelling staff. You need to be filled with kindness and not anger as the Bible say don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, discipline is self-control to cool down quickly when things escalate.
Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
Discipline is never being revengeful by attacking your child and make him pay penny for penny for the wrong decision he make. Rather it is coming out of forgiving heart full of compassion and love.
“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you…”
If we know that we are always responding in bad ways when tested by our kids, why do we even do that? I think the fact that we grew up in similar type of environment where our parents did the same thing to us unknowingly negatively influence our character to do the same thing to our kids.
The bad thing is we end up doing the same thing to our children since that is what we were being fed since birth. We didn’t know better than to follow our parent’s footsteps. We didn’t know we are programming their mind to be vindictive and malicious when they grow up like we were programmed in a negative way.
Psalm 23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
In order to discipline our kids properly we need to lead them according to Psalm 23. It is the same way our Lord is being our competent shepherd that we are called to be guardian to our kids.
Jesus leads our soul to the green pastures to feed her from the pure word of God so that it becomes strong in faith. He also leads us beside the still waters. The water here is the fellowship with the Holy Spirit through prayer and worship. Otherwise with out food or water, our soul will wither and die.
Then when these two things are fulfilled, our soul will be restored. This means we will find the joy and peace because of the Holy Spirit begins leaving in us that we were looking for in the wrong places by doing all manner of things in the world.
Moreover, God will simply lead our soul in the path of righteousness. You see, without following these three steps, it is impossible to find peace within our selves and to lead our lives in the path of righteousness.
Discipline has to do with discipleship and not with inflicting pain on your kids. Rather, discipline as in discipleship is to train baby Christians to be strong worriers of faith.
Our kids are like baby Christians feeding from the bottle of milk. Our job is to help them start to eat from the meat part of the Word of God.
As a soldier is trained to be a mighty worrier in the training camp, we need to train our kids to adopt and learn when they face the real world out there.
All the negativity, bad influence, the resistance, bullying, bad friendship that corrupts the good behavior, insult, rejection, intimidation, disrespect they will face from the world might break them emotionally and spiritually if we don’t do our job as parents to make them as strong as steal before the impact and damage have already been done.
It is no use to say we should’ve done this before once the damage has already been done.
These impacts are very dangerous and can make their lives miserable if not properly handled with enough training. As parents, this is our job. We may not be paid for it, but it is a wise investment for the good of our kids and the peace we will get when we see everything is good.