Discipline or Training?

I had a sort of “aha” moment this week.

Blake is always getting out of his bed at naptime. He is allowed to have books in his bed but he can’t get up and play. Over the last few months I would go in there and spank him sometimes 10 or 11 times before he would pass out, exhausted from crying. What’s worse is that everytime that I would spank him, I would get more and more angry that he didn’t obey me. I tried something new this week, since that apparently wasn’t working. When I heard him playing, I would calmly go in to his room, pick him up and put him in his bed and say night night, don’t get up. I’d smile and leave, stand by the door, and wait for him to get up again so that I could calmly put him in his bed. Each time he screamed and kicked and yelled. I just walked out pretending to be unphased, though I really wanted to throw the child out of the window. He finally went sleep and I felt much better.

So here’s my point. Maybe my problem is that I am replacing training with discipline. Training is teaching your child to do something, whereas discipline is judgement for not obeying. But obeying is difficult if there has been no training.

Maybe there are times when it’s ok not to spank. Before we had kids I just assumed that spanking was the only acceptable form of Christian discipline. So we spank for everything. And I mean everything. It isn’t unusual for Blake to get 8 spankings before 6:30 in the morning. But now I have started to reserve spankings for more terrible offenses like hitting, biting, or yelling at me in defiance.

It seems to me like this is a biblical idea. In Genesis, God set up rules and boundaries and then lovingly talked to Adam and Eve before telling them what their consequences would be. But their consequences weren’t the same. Yes, they both experienced seperation from God, but the woman got pain in childbirth and the man got hard work. Maybe it’s ok then to use different punishments based on the offense and the child. Or maybe I am reading into it too much?

This much I do know. I am much less stressed when I don’t have to spank. Is that bad?

Is spanking gentle?

I have struggled with this recently. This is an article that someone sent to me and I didn’t agree with it at all. Read it and then look at my reasons for disagreement and let me know what you think. Her basic premise is that spanking is bad because it is just hitting.

http://www.gentlechristianmothers.com/articles/elizabethp/p1.php

1. She assumes that after a spanking a child is left to sulk. This is one thing that we do try to do with our son - restore our relationship after the spanking. If you let a kid sit and think, then yeah, he will hate you, but if you sit and talk about what happened and why you did it and tell him that you love him, then Blake, typically, will hug us and tell us how sorry he is.
2. I didn’t understand her second point at all. She said spanking takes away guilt. That doesn’t even make sense.
3. She says that spanking can lead to angry abuse. I agree. And eating can lead to overeating, and drinking can lead to drunkeness but that doesnt mean that we don’t do it.
4. In point four, she still hasn’t really said why spanking is bad. She says that it can turn into your only source for discipline, which isn’t a bad thing. Once again, she really hasn’t said why it’s bad, but just some pitfalls that we might fall into… if you can call disciplining your child the way that the Bible says to do it, a pitfall.
5. She refers to spanking as hitting. Hitting is reactionary. Spanking is calculated. It is sitting down with your child and explaining his punishment for something. It shows him that disobedience leads to a break in a healthy relationship. But then you don’t just leave him, you restore the relationship by forgiving and loving and hugging and singing and laughing. Spanking doesn’t hurt a relationship, it teaches.
6.She said that spanking doesnt work because you have to spank many times a day for the same offense. This is because kids are just as stubborn as their parents. There should be teaching through communication, as well as teaching through discipline.
7. She downplays Scripture and says that spanking isnt right because… she’s a Christian, and knows this… intuitively, I guess. She completely ignores the various verses on discipline. She said that the rod is something used by a shepherd and that he never hit the sheep. Even the King James Version in Proverbs says “Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.” Why is the child crying? Does it hurt? Uh. Yes.
8. Once again, she equates spanking with hitting. Spanking should not be hitting. Spanking is loving and kind. There is a reason for it that goes beyond my own anger at the moment.

I do agree with her last sentence “Positive, respectful, consistent discipline is the real key to raising well-behaved children.” We just have different views on what that means.

Let me know what you think.