Punishment and Discipline
Monday, 28. January 2008, 06:08:36
I have been percolating thoughts of parenting for the past several weeks, and have come across a couple of key problems that I think most parents encounter at one time or another. The first of these is the problem of discipline.
You are in trouble as a parent when you begin to replace discipline with punishment. Punishment is purely negative: don't do this, don't do that; if you do this or that you will get punished. This has its place as part of discipline, however there is more. Discipline is not merely instruction on what not to do. It is also instruction on how to live. Now punishment can also be used in encouraging children to do the right thing, but even still it is used negatively: You didn't do this, and you should have. Punishment does not provide reason.
The immediate effect of this approach is that you break the relationship between yourself and your children. Instead of raising them up to know and love you (and God as an extension) they grow up to know only rules. The extension to this (hinted at in the previous set of parentheses) is that you present a more incomplete picture of God, our Heavenly Father. No, no earthly father can give a full and perfect image of God; we are just not capable. But if we raise our children to respect rules instead of us, we damage that relationship with God, and either they grow up to fear a vengeful God they can never please, or they give up on God the Just in favor of the equally incomplete 'buddy-Jesus'.
So, how do we discipline instead of just punishing? Well, we still must have rules, and those rules still must have consequences. But we must work to maintain the relationship. With my daughter, any time punishment is impending there is a conversation: "You are going to get a time-out. Do you know why? Okay, let me tell you: you did this. Now, why are you getting a time-out?" After the punishment has been measured out, another conversation follows: "Okay, why did you get a time-out?" and we make her say what it is that she did. She is only three, but we work on they deeper why's too: "When you do this, [you could get hurt / you could hurt someone else / it makes it hard for us to trust you / etc.]"
The point is not just for the child to not hit her little brother. The point is for her to learn to love God, and to love her neighbor as herself.
You are in trouble as a parent when you begin to replace discipline with punishment. Punishment is purely negative: don't do this, don't do that; if you do this or that you will get punished. This has its place as part of discipline, however there is more. Discipline is not merely instruction on what not to do. It is also instruction on how to live. Now punishment can also be used in encouraging children to do the right thing, but even still it is used negatively: You didn't do this, and you should have. Punishment does not provide reason.
The immediate effect of this approach is that you break the relationship between yourself and your children. Instead of raising them up to know and love you (and God as an extension) they grow up to know only rules. The extension to this (hinted at in the previous set of parentheses) is that you present a more incomplete picture of God, our Heavenly Father. No, no earthly father can give a full and perfect image of God; we are just not capable. But if we raise our children to respect rules instead of us, we damage that relationship with God, and either they grow up to fear a vengeful God they can never please, or they give up on God the Just in favor of the equally incomplete 'buddy-Jesus'.
So, how do we discipline instead of just punishing? Well, we still must have rules, and those rules still must have consequences. But we must work to maintain the relationship. With my daughter, any time punishment is impending there is a conversation: "You are going to get a time-out. Do you know why? Okay, let me tell you: you did this. Now, why are you getting a time-out?" After the punishment has been measured out, another conversation follows: "Okay, why did you get a time-out?" and we make her say what it is that she did. She is only three, but we work on they deeper why's too: "When you do this, [you could get hurt / you could hurt someone else / it makes it hard for us to trust you / etc.]"
The point is not just for the child to not hit her little brother. The point is for her to learn to love God, and to love her neighbor as herself.
WIDGETIZE