spectator sport. Parents say, "Well, I want my other children to know." Oh, they will. The word will get out, there'll be a hush in the house. Next, interview your child. Talk about the rebellion, so he's clear as to why he's there. Next, get an acknowledgement. It's wonderful if the child actually is willing to make a confession there. Get an acknowledgement. People say, "What do I use?" Some people say, "Well, the hand of love should never become the hand of discipline." What's wrong with that? Discipline is love. My brother, Ted, says one of the best things to use is one of those comeback paddles with the ball. It's a gift that keeps on giving. Something that's nice about that is that it sort of spreads out the force. It doesn't hurt your child. It's loud. Its limited pain will not injure the child. Now, you may have to do some disrobing. You know this is true. If your child has three layers of diapers and OshKosh B'gosh coveralls on, you could shoot him in the rear end and he wouldn't feel it. After the discipline, pray for your child. Hold him on your lap, hug him close to you, pray for him. Ask him to pray, but pray for him. Pray the grace of Jesus down on this child. Pray for Jesus' help and Jesus' rescue. And then having prayed, re-acknowledge your love for the child. Tell him that this is not about not loving him. Tell him how painful it is for you to do this. Tell him you hope you never have to do that again. I told my children that hundreds of times because that's true. And don't let that child run away until he's calm and your relationship is what it should be. Now there's a very loving, restrained, careful system of rescue. It's not expression of anger. It's not abusive. It's not yanking, pulling, pushing, tearing, slapping, slugging, all that evil stuff. It's very careful wanting my child to know that he does foolish, foolish things that are a danger to Him and God wants to remind them of that, so his heart would turn from that. Okay, let me pray. Lord, thank you for, again, the amazing wisdom of Your word that gives us such practical guidance. May we be a wonderful expression of Your authority in the lives of our children. In Jesus' name, amen. SESSION 7 Now we want to move to these middle years. Again, the character of these years are a little bit different because now you see the world of the child begin to widen. They begin to go to school. They begin to develop a wider circle of friends, a bit of a wider geography, more complicated levels of responsibility. And so, the issue, the central focus here is the development of character. Now, let me get into this with you. Not everything, every wrong that your child does is a direct rebellion to authority. Let me say that again. Not every wrong is a direct rebellion to authority. Some wrongs are the fruit of a lack of character. You get the difference? You're not there, you haven't made a command, so a child isn't rebelling against your authority, but they're still doing something that's wrong because they lack character. Let me picture this for you in a situation. It's Tuesday afternoon in the Snodgrass family and Mary Snodgrass, the mother, is – it's Tuesday evening, rather – is in full frenetic, fast speed work in the kitchen because in 45 minutes, a family of mom and dad and four children are coming over for dinner. She's a little bit behind. She can't possibly get done what needs to get done, and she's feeling the pressure. They have an open floor plan house and so right adjacent to the kitchen without a wall is the family room and the three children – 7, 9, 11 – are playing Wii bowling together. Okay? You get the scene. And they're actually playing pretty well. What's wrong with the scene? Some of you say, "Nothing's wrong with the scene. If my children would be playing together, well, I think Jesus would have visited my house." Well, what's wrong? They haven't directly rebelled against mom's authority, they lack character. What they're doing is unloving because those children should walk into the room and say, "Mom,
Transcript: Session 7
GETTING TO THE HEART OF PARENTING
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