Page 105 - Family Life Student Textbook

Discipline

Remember that training our children ought to involve 90% discipleship and
10% discipline. Making Billy suffer the consequences of his decisions is a form
of discipline which is very effective.

However, sometimes parents do have to discipline a child for disobedience.
Parents ought to use different forms of discipline for different offenses of
varying seriousness. And parents will learn which form of discipline is most
effective for each specific child.

Physical discipline that causes pain to the child without causing damage to his body is biblical.

Proverbs 13:24 “Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their
children is careful to discipline them.”

Proverbs 19:18 “Discipline your children, for in that there is hope; do not be a willing party
to their death.”

Proverbs 22:15 “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it
far away.”

Proverbs 23:13–14 “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you discipline them with the
rod, they will not die. Discipline them with the rod and save them from death.”

Proverbs 29:15 “A rod and a reprimand impart wisdom, but a child left undisciplined
disgraces its mother.”

There are also other forms of discipline which can be used. Parents can make their children sit in the corner
for a time without any toys, do an extra chore, or deny them something they enjoy, and so on.

We discipline children for rebellious decisions of disobedience. We do not discipline them for immaturity or
for accidents like spilling milk at the table. But if they lie to us, and do not tell the truth, we need to
discipline them so they learn not to lie to us.

When our child wrongs someone else, we need to teach them to apologize to that person for what they
have done. They need to ask for their forgiveness. If making restitution is possible, we should teach our child
to pay back what they have taken. For example, if we catch our child stealing something from a store we
should help them go back to the store, apologize to the store clerk, and return the item. This kind of lesson
is not easily forgotten.

Sometimes parents are too hasty to discipline before they really know the facts. We should make a habit of
asking questions and learning about the situation to determine what our child has done wrong and what the
discipline should be.

We must do our very best to be fair as we discipline our children. We dare not discipline one child more
severely than the other for the same offense.

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