If so, I’m conquering that decision today and helping you understand what you need to be doing when it comes to disciplining your children.

Listen to this episode on Influencing Your Kids Podcast.

How to Discipline the Right Way;

Now, I was raised in a Christian home and heard a whole lot of Christian things. I graduated from a Christian school and when I became a kindergarten teacher, I had the responsibility of actually disciplining my students. I was the only class that had to discipline their children with the rod.
So the rod was very much a part of all of my growing up years as well as my first few years of adulthood.

Now, when I became a parent, I knew right away that I was using the rod as a tool in parenting. Now, I fell prey to a lot of advice in the Christian school, in the Christian environment of community of them using the rod when there is not instant obedience.

Allow me to say to you that I’ve used scriptures along the way and I have used the rod along the way, but there became a time when our daughter reached adulthood that she and I, well, we always had issues in her teen years, but as she reached her adulthood, her and my relationship became like we were both walking on egg shells. I mean, it was pretty, pretty intense at times. We loved each other, we had lots of really good times with each other, but there was something that just wasn’t quite right underneath and neither one of us could really put our fingers on it for quite some time.

Well then a few years back it came to a head and we really struggled.

In that process I worked really hard to say, what is it that I can do to fix this and make sure I don’t repeat that.

Now, I’m not gonna go into the all the story because there’s not enough time for all of that. But the key aspects of it is that as I dug back into scriptures and I dug into Charlotte Mason’s original writings and understanding the importance of influence and how influence works, I came to this place of saying, did I use the rod too much? Did I pick up the rod when my daughter’s heart was willing?

But I was believing the instant obedience was what was required. In other words, I was parenting the behavior and not the heart.

In scripture shows us in the Old Testament, it’s about the actions and the New Testament is about the heart.

When I started to make those connections of saying in the Old Testament it was do not murder in the New Testament is if you even hate your brother, you have committed murder. If you commit adultery in the Old Testament and if you lust on a woman or a man, you have already committed adultery.

That’s where I was.

It began to really look at scripture again with a clear and open mind to say, when is it the right place to use the rod and when is it not the right place?

What I found was not what I expected.

So what I found is that wonderful verse in Deuteronomy six where it talks about fathers when you’re walking and when you’re talking and when you’re sitting and when you’re lying down, impress these things on your children, talk about them.

These are things that we have been doing for all of our years as parenting. But then I see versus of teach and instruct your children, then I looked at the word discipline and I realized that discipline isn’t just using a rod or some force of punishment, some way of punishment, but instead it’s a place of teaching and instructing.

Then and only when someone does not go the right way, do you discipline.

We’re looking at discipline completely wrong.

We’re looking at discipline as a way of correcting behavior, number one. And we’re not looking at discipline as a way of instructing and teaching our children.

In other words, we are not taking the time to teach our children and instruct them in the way to go.

We are just pointing out things,
obey without letting them see obedience.

And let me just say a little bit, we as parents are still required to obey. When you come home from work and you complain about your boss and you don’t wanna obey your boss, guess what’s gonna happen? That same spirit of disobedience is gonna fall onto your children and they are going to have a spirit of disobedience on them because they see it in you.

If you are having problems with your adult parents as adults and you’re complaining about it in front of your children, guess what? They’re gonna have the same problems as well because they see the spirit of disobedience and dishonor in you as well.

If you are seeing if your kids are watching you speed all the time and you’re not obeying the speed limit, guess what? That spirit of disobedience is falling on your children as well.

We as parents need to be teaching and instructing our children in obedience by walking in obedience.

If we know scripture tells us to read our Bibles and pray every day and our children are not seeing us reading the Bible and praying every day, guess what’s gonna happen? They’re not gonna wanna do it either, and that spirit of disobedience and dishonor is going to fall on them.

So we had to first, before we even pick up a rod or start to punish our children, we have to ensure that we number one, do not have the spirit of disobedience in that thing.

First of all, because the scripture tells us, fathers, do not exasperate your children.
Do not anger them.

If we are saying do as we say and not as we do, that is wrong.

We need to be emulating the right way so we do not cause anger in our children. Okay? So we have to first show obedience ourselves, then we must teach and instruct our children.

What does this look like? What are we trying to get them to obey us in?

Give them time to learn it, making sure that we are coming alongside them like we did when we taught them to walk and talk and to feed themself into potty train.

That same type of patience and endurance and persistence and consistency. That’s the same thing we need when we’re teaching our children something as simple as obeying about picking up their toys on the floor or obeying with their heart about not having dishonor, not rolling your eyes.

Then and only then do we step into a warning if they go the wrong way.

In Proverbs it says that a wise person, learns more from from a warning than a foolish person learns from a hundred lashes.

So a warning comes next, not the rod, and I, I’ll have to tell you, the constant warning will never work either.

If you’re constantly warning your kids, if you don’t pick up your room when your father gets home, you know those kinds of things I have done. You can’t do and expect obedience and then expect when you’re serious.

Your kids are going to listen to you when you’ve already showed them all these acceptable behaviors because you are a warning parent and not a following through.

So when a warning, it’s a single warning, okay? A wise person learns more from a warning than a foolish person learns from a hundred lashes. That’s in Proverbs.

So after that warning then, and only then do you pick up the rod in the way of disciplining, but that warning must include you do this or you’re going to have this punishment in that.

And only in that is a child able to then make a choice, not a choice of action, but a choice of consequence.

I’m in right standing with my parents if I obey or I’m choosing this discipline, if I choose to ignore that warning and still do the wrong thing, that is the equivalent of foolishness, knowing the right way and doing something different.

Then is when the rod comes in.

But the rod must be given in a way of love and accepted, not as forced and threatening.

We need to make sure that our attitudes are right.

So back to my daughter, when I had done this big research, when I had taken time before the Holy Spirit and just said, show me what I’ve done wrong so that I do not repeat that error with my other children. Help me to know where I need to correct why I need to correct it so that I have scriptural backing up to know that I’m going the right way and growing to frugal purpose in my parenting.

This is what happened. I had to go to my adult daughter and say, you know what the Holy Spirit showed me and I have to apologize. This is what I think has caused the problem.

Immediately my apology opened her heart and she quickly said, yes, mom. That’s it. That’s exactly it.

So when I shared with her what I was learning, her heart opened up and we were finally able to really heal, not just forgive, but to heal and our relationship just blossomed even better.

I want you to recognize how important it is to not pick up the rod quickly, that you must do all of these other things, and it starts with you showing them what obedience is in your life. Because if you have a spirit of disobedience over anything in your life that’s authority, you are going to teach that same disobedience to your children because you’ve brought that into your home and that spirit moves from you to them.

This is what the Bible talks about is the sins of the fathers passed on to their children.
The nature of us, the sin nature of us are being passed onto our children. So you must be careful with that and be cautious when you’re picking up the rod. Make sure your attitude is right, their attitude is right, and it’s for the purpose of reconciliation, not just between you and you and your child, but between God and his child and get their hearts right.

That is the only way to be disciplining your children. That is the right way to be doing it, and it is not before you have instructed and trained them in the way that they should go. It is not before a warning. It is not without them and the knowledge of the consequence they’re going to have if they disobey.

I hope that helps you in overcoming the very things that we’re stumbling box in our parenting, and I hope it equips you to get started in making things right in your family.

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