HomeARC ML 1706
THE NEED TO DISCIPLINE!--By Maria #2 DO 1706 12/83
1. OUR PARENTS WHO WON'T DISCIPLINE THEIR CHILDREN ARE JUST GOING TO HAVE TO LEARN TO, & START NOW! And when they're not with their own child, they shouldn't be hurt or sensitive about his getting a spanking or correction from others! They're just going to have to let the people who help take care of him go ahead & do it, because we can't put up with foolishness & rowdiness & defiance in our children! Thank God for the parents & helpers we have who do discipline & know how to apply the rod & the Word!
2. I DON'T KNOW WHY ANYBODY WOULD MIND THEIR CHILD BEING DISCIPLINED. You know that every smack they get is helping them to be a better child in the future & it's really worth it all. Some people go to the extremes, of course, & if it's unjustified or harsh, that's something different, but that shouldn't have to happen in our Family! I'm sure the kids probably need it when they get it & I certainly think it's worth it, every little swat they get, because how else are little children going to get the point that crime doesn't pay?
3. CHILDREN REALLY NEED TO GET DISCIPLINED WHEN THEY'RE YOUNG, & ESPECIALLY TODDLERS! With almost any age I think you can remold & help even a bad child. The Lord will help you & you can "beat" it out of them in extreme cases, or discipline them out of it in some way. If you take in a little orphan off the street, like our Family did in Nepal, you'd of course need a lot of love & patience & discipline--good spankings! That orphan boy used to throw fits! He'd cry over & over, "I want coca-cola, I want to go back to Kathmandu!" He was a real case & along with lots of love they had to give him lots of spankings.
4. WITH ANY AGE CHILD I THINK IT'S POSSIBLE WITH THE LORD & HIS MIRACLE-WORKING POWER TO HELP HIM CHANGE WITH GOOD CONSISTENT DISCIPLINE & REAL PRAYER! You have to use discipline no matter what age they are & how good they've been. Everyone needs a standard of rules to abide by! If you miss administering correction too often, you're going to eventually have a big problem to untangle.
5. I NEVER MIND THE KIDS GETTING SPANKED! I wouldn't like it unjustly given, of course, but I don't think anybody does that around here, & I'd rather they get a few more spankings than not enough!
6. BOY, OH BOY! I MIGHT HAVE TALKED ABOUT "LOVE IS THE ANSWER" BUT I'LL TELL YOU, I AM HAPPY WHEN SARA SPANKS MY KIDS. I WOULD TOO IF I HAD'M! That is love! And I might even spank them more than she does! I don't have much patience & I would really clamp down if necessary & they had better behave! I might even be too hard on them if I were with them fulltime, just because I'm very impatient. I think I'd really be tough on the poor little things & difficult for them to live with, but I wouldn't put up with any foolishness or rebellious behaviour, when in fact maybe I should have more patience in some cases. I tend to get very impatient if the kids do anything they shouldn't when they're around me.
7. NOT HAVING MUCH PATIENCE OF COURSE, IS NOT A GOOD REASON FOR DISCIPLINING, JUST BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN IMPATIENCE, but I mean I wouldn't let kids get away with bad behaviour, because I know it's just not worth it to let them get away with things, even for a short time!
8. EVERY MOTHER OR PARENT OR HELPER SOMETIME OR ANOTHER LOSES PATIENCE. Even if you occasionally swat them when you've lost your temper or something, it isn't going to hurt them, especially if you apologise later & say you're sorry, & explain that you should have been more patient. Once in a while if you get upset & angry at them unjustifiably, if you're honest & fair about it & tell the children, they'll forgive you & it's not going to be disastrous, you're not going to do any irreparable damage! Hopefully even if we lose our temper & spank them one time in anger, we're not going to be in that much of a rage. We've got the Lord & He'll control it, & surely we'd never be so severe that we'd ever really hurt or injure the child! It might not be a good sample, of course.
9. BUT I KNOW SARA HAS DONE THAT SOMETIMES & SHE'S APOLOGISED TO THE KIDS & TOLD THEM HOW SORRY SHE WAS that she was out of sorts & lost her temper, & she should have been more patient. That doesn't hurt them, they respect that at least you're being very honest & sorry. She sincerely apologised & was really broken about it. Many of us probably got spanked in our parents' anger & it didn't damage us for life--of course, we pray our Family avoids letting that happen! We have lots of others around who can help discipline the kids for us when we're out of the victory ourselves or not in the right spirit. There's certainly no need to fear spanking at all, that you may do it wrong, so you just don't do it at all!
10. ON THE OTHER HAND, THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH DISCIPLINING IN RIGHTEOUS ANGER over wrong-doing. God does that! We should get angry over sin.
11. MAYBE IT'S GOOD NOT TO BE TOO PATIENT & TOLERANT WITH SOME CHILDREN, BECAUSE AT LEAST THEN YOU DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THINGS! Patience isn't always a virtue. It is in some cases, but boy, with misbehaving children you shouldn't have too much!
12. SO I DON'T THINK DISCIPLINE HURTS ANYBODY & I THINK IT'S GOOD FOR CHILDREN, THEY NEED TO GET IT, AT THE VERY LEAST IT KEEPS THEM HUMBLE. It's very humbling to get discipline--at least it keeps the children from getting so spoiled, proud & self-righteous, & feeling like they never do anything wrong!
13. THE THING I DON'T LIKE IS NAGGING CONSTANTLY AT KIDS WHEN THEY'RE NOT DOING ANYTHING REALLY WRONG, but just things that annoy you. In that case, you need to find some way that you can direct the child effectively without your having to nag & nag & nag.--What you're doing obviously isn't effective if you have to keep nagging & telling the children over & over to follow through with your instruction.
14. IT'S THE PARENTS' OR HELPERS' FAULT IF THEY HAVE TO KEEP NAGGING AT THE CHILDREN ABOUT SOMETHING. It'd be better to give a little swat if they don't obey or carry out your request, & just get it over with than to nag about it over & again. If every little thing they do bothers you & you say, "Don't do this, don't do that!"--Well, the children won't take heed to any of your warnings. After a clear warning, next time a swat would enforce that you mean what you say! Parents have got to get used to a few annoyances by children, & if what they're doing isn't really bad, they shouldn't be continually nagged about it or disciplined for it.
15. THE YOUNGER THE CHILDREN ARE THE MORE THEY PROBABLY NEED SOME SMACKS OR SPANKS OR SOME KIND OF PUNISHMENT WHEN NECESSARY. You probably can find other ways to discipline, but if after a few warnings or a few different attempts to train them you still find they just won't behave, then I think a smack is pretty effective, especially on little kids & strong-willed toddlers! Whatever kind of discipline you impose, whatever you find works best, I think you should surely enforce it & carry it out, & it's really worth it! The Bible says so! (Heb.12:11)
16. JUST AS I BROUGHT OUT IN "LOVE IS THE ANSWER", I DIDN'T LIKE BEING SPANKED WHEN I WAS GROWING UP. But if my parents had not only spanked me but talked to me & prayed with me, I don't think I would have had any problem. I really didn't learn my lessons as well as I would have, had they handled me more in the Spirit. When I was wrong they whipped me, but surely I would have done better if they had also talked to me & prayed with me. But I'm glad I got the spanking at least! I'm glad I got some discipline! I was strong-willed & would've been a horror without it!
17. ANY CHILD THAT DOESN'T GET THE NEEDED DISCIPLINE IS GOING TO TURN OUT THAT WAY! Look at all the Scriptures on chastisement! You've got to chasten a child, it's a command, & obviously the Lord knew they had to have it, or else! Not just children, but all of us need chastening to keep us in line!
18. THERE IS SUCH A THING AS HAVING TOO MUCH PATIENCE. There are a lot of times you shouldn't have patience, because you need to nip things in the bud & not wait too long. Patience is perhaps not such a good virtue in this case, because you need to get stirred up & angry once in a while & you need to immediately punish disobediences & correct problem situations before they go too far.
19. THAT'S THE PROBLEM WITH A LOT OF PARENTS, THEY LET BAD BEHAVIOUR GO ON & ON & ON, & finally they get angry because it's so annoying or damaging that they just finally explode! Then the poor child wonders, "Well, why didn't they tell me before? Why did you wait? I'm doing the very same thing that I've been doing for a long time, but now you're suddenly exploding at me over it, but before you didn't say a thing!" That's confusing to the child! The child naturally wonders why you're getting so upset at them now when you didn't before! Especially small children wouldn't be able to reason: "Mommy used to have a lot of patience & it suddenly ran out." That's Mommy's problem, see, the child hasn't been doing anything different. He's been bad all along, but finally the Mother blows up at him about it & finally spanks him--the poor child!
20. IT MUST REALLY BE CONFUSING TO CHILDREN, THE INCONSISTENT WAY ADULTS TREAT THEM, REALLY CONFUSING. Even if the childcare helpers do a good job at child training, it is all torn down when the poor child goes back to his mother, who never spanks him when he needs it the most! Even if she does reluctantly agree to letting the helpers discipline him when they have him, if when he comes back to her & she doesn't carry out the same type of firm discipline & has a completely different standard, it's quite a problem & the child is soon spoiled rotten!
21. THE POOR LITTLE CHILD MUST BE CONFUSED ABOUT THE DIFFERENCE IN STANDARD! He may think that everybody else is mean to him & only Mommy is nice to him, or maybe he has enough of the Spirit to know he's getting what he's supposed to get from the helpers, but he gets away with too much with his mother, & then he of course won't learn to respect her. If you don't discipline children, you really will have a problem on your hands. If kids aren't disciplined properly & trained in the fear of God, my goodness, they'll just be little monsters like System kids!
22. INCONSISTENT DISCIPLINE IS SUCH A BAD SAMPLE FOR THE OTHERS IN THE HOME, not only the other parents--they should know better--but the other kids! When you have either inconsistent, different standards of discipline for a child or different standards for different children, or if some children are allowed to get away with bad behaviour in front of the other kids, it's a very bad sample! Then of course, all the other kids try it, but they can't understand why they get spanked or corrected when they misbehave, & the other child doesn't get it when he misbehaves!
23. A MOTHER LIKE THAT IS JUST GOING TO HAVE TO START DISCIPLINING THE CHILD WHETHER SHE WANTS TO OR NOT, & THE BEST TIME TO START WOULD BE RIGHT NOW! She'll have to just sit down & have a talk with her child & tell him she hasn't been good to him because she hasn't been spanking him when he's naughty. She needs to spank him like the Bible & Grandpa tell us to, so he'll be a good boy. Doesn't he want to be a good boy & grow up to be like Jesus & be a good boy?--Well, then, that means he'll have to get spankings when he's bad. "Mommy's been wrong in not using a firmer hand on you & now I'm going to do what's right & start spanking you when you disobey or have a fit. I'm very sorry that I didn't before! Please forgive me."
24. IT'S NOT GOOD EITHER IF THE ONLY TIME YOU SIT DOWN & TALK WITH A CHILD IS WHEN YOU'RE GIVING HIM A SPANKING OR A SCOLDING. That really isn't very good for the child when he needs so much more love & praise for the good things he does! Children need someone to be close to, they need to feel needed & appreciated, just like everyone, & one of the best ways to show your love & concern for a child is to talk with him, hear him out, cuddle him close & let him know you're trying to help him through his battles. This is what I do with David & Techi when I can. Besides the love & attention our children here have received, probably one reason why they're so good now is because they got the discipline & spankings they needed when they were younger, & they learned their lessons!
25. (FAM: I JUST CAN'T HELP BUT REFLECT ON WHEN DAVID & DAVIDA WERE SMALL. I saw Sara take them forcibly from the table to the back room & let them have it when they misbehaved, but I also saw the fruits of it & I've never in my life seen such good kids! I saw the fruits of how it brought forth such good behaviour & how they were so good during long dinner talks & all.) And now they hardly ever do anything bad, really!--I mean once in a while, of course, but Sara had to admit at the dinner table, when Dad really questioned her, "Well, are they really always so good?" She told him, "Yes, really!" You talk to them once & they'll usually get a good victory right away, TTL!
26. LORD HELP US ALL TO FIND THE RIGHT BALANCE IN THESE IMPORTANT MATTERS OF DISCIPLINING OUR CHILDREN. Each Home is going to have to really pray desperately for the Lord's love & wisdom to know what to do in each individual situation. Thank the Lord we have Jesus, the Bible & the Letters as our standard & guideline, & our children can be trained in the way that they should go!--Amen!
27. PERHAPS PARENTS & HELPERS SHOULD ASK THEMSELVES THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS REGARDING THEIR STANDARD OF CHILD TRAINING:--Do you strive to teach your children according to the Word, in love & train him to love Jesus & others?--Do your children have a healthy fear of the Lord & want most of all to please Him?--Do they fear you & want to also please you by being good & obedient?--Is your disciplinary standard according to the Letters & are you obeying the rules as you expect the children to do?--Are your children fully aware of the house & behaviour rules & know the consequences should they not obey them?--Are you praying unitedly daily for wisdom in the training of your children & anticipating their needs?
--Are you putting the Word & the Lord first in their lives & being an example of this yourself?
Copyright (c) 1998 by The Family
