his heart; and the legacy of that will live for years.
I counselled pretty regularly for about 20 years and it always shocked me to see 35-year-old, 45-year-old, 50-year-old men and women who would begin to talk about the abuse of their home and they'd weep as if it happened yesterday. You must not slap, push, punch, pinch, pull hair, yank. If you're yanking your child, you are an abuser. If you're pinching your child, you are an abuser. If you're slapping your child across the face, you are an abuser. If you're pushing that child down the hall, you have abused that child. That is not Christian discipline. That is violent, angry evil of the heart against someone who has been placed in your care who must see you as absolutely safe. I think as we have pointed to all the abuse that is out there, I think there's all kinds of subtle, small abuse that's going on in Christian families and that child grows up, he's embittered against God. He's embittered against God's law because the way it was enforced was personally demeaning. You can't say that it's proper when a child is mouthing off to you, to reach across and slap them across the face. That is not thought through, careful, loving discipline. It's not. Now, is that clear enough? So what we're talking about is not that. We're not talking about abusing our children Here's the struggle. Look at 22:15. "Folly is bound up in the heart of the child." Here is the most dangerous thing going on in your child's heart: foolishness. You gave birth to a drop-dead fool. It's true. Now here's what a fool does. A fool sees the world inside-out and upside-down. That's what a fool is. A fool sees the world inside-out, upside-down. I look at good and I see bad. I look at right and I see wrong. I look at healthy and I see unhealthy. I look at unhealthy and I see healthy. You know that's your children. This child actually believes that he can stay up forever and not get tired. Well, that's foolishness. The child thinks that he can be regularly disrespectful to you and still have a good relationship. That's foolishness. The child thinks that it's your job to indulge all of his wants and that child will still not be self-centered. That's craziness. And so that foolishness is very, very important. Now, God knows that although your children have elaborate ability to understand amazing things, they still have limits to their conceptual ability, they're still not able to think in elaborate ways abstractly. You understand what I mean by that? And so God has designed this beautiful system. It's this. When the child acts in foolishness, God attaches a painful physical consequence to that because the child understands that. And so I begin to make the connection that when I do foolish things, bad things happen. That's a wonderful connection. Now, that means that this process must be very, very carefully done. Some common questions about spanking and some things about how to go about it. First question. This is the most important. When do I spank, in what situations? You only exercise this form of discipline when there has been a direct, clear rebellion to authority. When there has been a direct and clear rebellion to authority. You say, "What if I don't know?" Don't do it. This child lives with you, got to give you another opportunity. You'll have plenty of tomorrows where issues will come up. It means you don't discipline a child for being a child. That's abusive. Look at this example, if you're allowing little Frankie to pour milk into the glass and he totally misses the glass and pours milk down his pants, you don't discipline him for that. That's just being a child. His manual dexterity is not all that it's supposed to be. He's going to get a lot of things wet. But if you say, "Frankie, don't take the big container of milk and pour it yourself. You're not able to do that yet. Mommy will do that for you," and he grabs it and does it himself, then you have a clear issue of rebellion. You see the difference? You need to know that difference. People say, "Well, what do I do next?" The next thing you do when you've had that clear rebellion to authority is you get a hold of your own heart. Take time so that you're restrained and you do this thing well. Don't allow yourself to discipline in anger. Next, take the child to a private place. This kind of discipline should not be a
Transcript: Session 6
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
6 1
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs