What If Nothing Works? There are two ways to look at this problem. First, you need to assess whether there are some holes or inconsistencies in what you are doing. Secondly, you need to be prepared to be obedient to God whether or not it seems to bear fruit immediately. It is my experience that most claims that biblical childrearing doesn’t work can be understood in one of two ways. Either there is a failure to be consistent in discipline and nuture, or there is some basic lack of integrity in the parent’s relationship with God, his child, or both.
To limit the reasons to why spanking does not work to these (only) two reasons is what I used to believe. But it is completely erroneous and potentially dangerous. Such a statement was the basis for the leadership, a portion of a church, and the private school community to judge and shame my wife and I for being bad parents. Life is not as easy and simple as this. Such a law, which we do not find expressly given in the Bible, is at best incomplete and at worse, destructive. Our adopted child behaved in many different ways that were unacceptable and even rebellious. As we can to learn, the child had/has reactive attachment disorder, the consequence of damage on the brain because of early and severe abuse and neglect. It was not because we were inconsistent nor lacked integrity in our relationships.
