More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
What I find is this. Spanking is most effective in dealing with young children. They fear being spanked. The spanking gives weight to your words. The spanking sobers and humbles the child. As children get older they get more stoic about spanking. They learn how to deal with it. The intensity of spanking required to make the same impression on a 12-year-old that you make on a 2-year-old would be excessive.
This is inconsistent with how the rod was used in Proverbs and the rest of the Old Testament: it was used primarily on the 12 and older "son."
God calls parents to spank their children. As a parent you do not have the right to say, “I don’t like God’s idea; I like my idea or the culture’s plan better.”
There may be days in which nothing much gets done because of the demands of consistent discipline. But, faithfulness will yield a good harvest.
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.
circle of blessing,
What does this even mean?
The Problem of Phariseeism The alternative to addressing character issues in your children is to structure things around rules. You then produce children who learn to keep the rules.
Correct
Parents tend to see their children’s behavior in very naive terms. We see the fight over a toy as simply a fight over a toy, when actually it is a failure to prefer others. It is selfishness. It is saying to others, “I don’t care about what your wishes are; I want to have what I want.” It is a determination to live in the world in a way that exploits every opportunity to serve oneself.
Being concerned with character will move you from dealing with your school-age children like they are toddlers. I hear people responding to school-age children as if they were 3-year-old kids. They bark commands. Their children are hearing the same old orders but not growing in discernment and understanding. They are not being equipped for the next stage of development—the teenage years.
Teens feel vulnerable about everything. They worry about their appearance. Do they have the right clothes? Are they wearing them right? What will their friends think about this shirt, dress, or new haircut? What if they get to wherever they are going and everyone is dressed differently? They feel anxiety about their understanding of life. Will they know the right thing to do or say in the restaurant? They worry about whether their fund of knowledge is big
This is very dated
The teenage years are often years of rebellion. Some of the rebellion is simply a misguided attempt to establish individuality. But often, teenage rebellion has deeper roots. In some kids, it is an expression of rebellion that has been latent all along.
What you must do is shepherd your teenagers toward living out of the fear of God rather than the fear of man.
The teen who understands the fear of God will be delivered from danger. He will possess wisdom. He will grow in the knowledge of God.
If you are living in integrity with God and your children, none of the above is overstated. If you are honestly sharing your life experience and how you have come to know God more deeply and find him more and more satisfying, you are showing the viability of Christian faith.
The primary context for parental instruction is set forth in Deuteronomy 6. It is the ordinary context of daily living. Your children see the power of a life of faith as they see you living it. You do not need to be perfect; you simply need to be people of integrity who are living life in the rich, robust truth of the Word of God. Whether you are watching a video or playing a game, whether you are doing work or fielding an unwanted phone call, whether you are being successful or smarting from failure—in the ordinary context of daily living, you show the power and viability of Christian faith.
The most powerful way to keep your children from being attracted by the offers of camaraderie from the wicked is to make home an attractive place to be.
It should be clear by now that I am not talking about “getting them saved” in terms of an evangelistic event. I rather envision leading them along the path of a deepening understanding of and commitment to God. Repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will be a part of that life of deepening understanding of and commitment to God.
Authority Vs. Influence One of the foundational elements of shepherding is influence.
if you are seeking to influence, you will move toward her with the gentle reproofs of life. “I see you are having a problem with being a pleasant person. I love you and I want to help you learn to speak in ways that are constructive.”
In the final analysis, you must entrust your children to God. How they turn out will depend on more than what you have done in providing shaping influences. It will depend on the nature of their Godward commitment. Ultimately, you leave them to God, knowing that you can entrust your children to the God who has dealt so graciously with you.
This is good and helpful insight.
