See the previous post for more information on Dealing with Rebellion in Children.
One of the tools Dale and I found very useful when our sons were younger is a book entitled, "How To Be the Parents of Happy and Obedient Children" by Roy Lessin. There were a couple of especially helpful takeaways from this book. First, we learned the value of aiming for repentance when we disciplined our sons. We noticed three types of responses to the discipline we at times had to administer. Only one of the three was true repentance. The other two were hurt feelings and anger.
We've all witnessed those times when a parent is trying to discipline a child, and the child responds as if his or her feelings were hurt by what just happened - a "how could you do this to me!" type of attitude. Most of us also have looked on when children have become angry in response to a parent's discipline. I've even seen some children lash out at their parents and try to strike them. Imagine that!
Hurt feelings and anger are not the responses to discipline likely to assist in heading off more open rebellion in a child later in life. The response we parents desire is true repentance. In this response, a child truly is sorry for having done wrong, against his or her parents, or against God, or against all of the above. Dale and I noticed a direct correlation between the severity of our discipline and whether we received the desired response of repentance. Keep in mind, we only disciplined for behaviors that were disobedient or defiant. We did not discipline for ordinary childhood types of things. But when our sons disobeyed or directly defied us, we responded with severe enough discipline to elicit a response of repentance. We found that less severe types of discipline only made the matter worse, yielding nothing more than hurt feelings or anger.
Other types of parental responses to defiance and disobedience that also engender hurt feelings and anger in children are things like yelling at children, calling them names, badgering them into obedience, or being too severe with them. Keep in mind, the goal is never to beat children into submission. That is both immoral and illegal. The ultimate aim is to positively impact their hearts with the desire and bent toward honoring God and their parents with happy obedience.
I'll write more about the second takeaway later.
1 comment:
My family has been dealing with rebellion from our 3-year old recently. I agree with what you are saying, but am having trouble convincing my wife that we need to deal with open defiance more severely. I would really like to read, and more importantly, allow my wife to read that book.
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