Discipline 101
“For the moment, all discipline seems
painful rather than pleasant.”
Hebrews 12:11 ESV
I’ve been thinking a lot about parenting lately. Perhaps it’s because we have a new grandbaby or perhaps it’s due to our oldest child’s upcoming birthday. Regardless, I’ve been remembering some of our key moments in those early parenting days.
Birdie James is almost six weeks old and still sleeping downstairs close to her parents. Our oldest child slept in our bedroom for four months even though our nursery was just across the hall. When I finally put Meredith in her own room, I slept on the floor beside the crib for most of that first night. Fast forward nine years and our youngest child roomed with us for 17 months out of necessity. At that time, we had four children, including one with special needs, and were living in a three-bedroom house.
The local elementary school hosted an annual third grade “invention convention” competition. Our nine-year old daughter was awarded third place in the event for placing a tight netting over her doll cradle. When asked about the rationale for her submission, Meredith simply said, “Oh, it’s to keep the baseballs off of the baby’s head!”
Meredith was about seven months old when I received one of my favorite Parenting 101 tips. While working in my kitchen, I would often place her in a small baby walker with rollers. Her little feet could barely touch the floor, but she quickly learned to scoot her way around my entire kitchen while I cooked or baked. One day Meredith also discovered my indoor plants placed nearby on the top of a small kitchen cart. Stretching her little arms, Meredith initially touched them. Gradually she began pulling them and finally she learned to yank them off the cart.
At first, I was thrilled with my daughter’s curiosity and persistence, but I soon tired of repeatedly cleaning up the mess from my kitchen floor. I began trying to reason with her using conversations that included, “Mama, touch! No, no Mama!” and gently popping my own hand while shaking my head vigorously.
Grinning, my daughter’s eyes would brighten as she reached for the forbidden plants and yanked as I said, “No! No!” We repeated this scene daily until one day my sweet Mama, a seasoned parent with her own three children, came to visit. Sitting at my kitchen table, Mama watched this scene unfold before casually remarking, “As long as you’re the one getting punished, she’s never going to get the message!”
Recognizing Mama’s wisdom, I changed tactics and began gently spanking Meredith’s hand when she disobeyed. The first time I finally popped her little hand, I cried even though she didn’t. Not long afterwards, Christian counselor Mary Glynn Peeples, author of All My Sheep, spoke at our church. After the service, I asked Mary Glynn when discipline for our children should appropriately begin.
“If you tell your daughter not to touch something and she looks directly at you with eye contact and then goes straight for the object you told her not to touch, then she understands exactly what she’s doing and needs to be disciplined. Draw a line and be willing to enforce the consequences.”
What was true for a fledgling parent is also good advice for university presidents and government leaders currently facing disruptive and violent campus protests on many college campuses across the United States. Draw a line and be willing to enforce the consequences. A drawn line without any consequences fails to yield the desired results.
British theologian Carl Trueman writing for First Things says:
‘The recent pro-Palestinian student protests on elite university campuses across the country offer fascinating, if somewhat depressing, insights into the state of modern American culture. It is not so much that the lunatics have taken over the asylum as the kindergartners have taken over the nursery. “
The Bible has a lot to say about discipline with these words: “For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” (Hebrews 12:11) The goal of godly discipline is training and maturity.
God draws the lines for us with his Word. He also defines and is willing to enforce the consequences for both obedience and disobedience (Leviticus 26). All of us should be willing to do the same. Discipline isn’t ever painless, but it is necessary for the training of toddlers, teenagers, and all of us in between.