_______Discipline out of Love

With my mommy small group, I'm currently reading   The Search for Significance by Robert S. McGee.  It's an awesome book, but I'm not finished yet and not ready to write a complete book review.  The section we read this week was too awesome not to write about though.  Below is a quote from the section we discussed today called "The Blame Game," which talks about the false belief we can buy into that those who fail are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished.  In this particular quote, McGee points out how our buying into this belief can have negative affects on our children and what we can do to overcome it.  (The bold emphasis is mine, although I nearly emphasized the entire quote because it is so powerful!)

"Our worth is totally secure in Christ, so our children’s success or failure doesn’t have to affect our value to the least.  We need to see our children the way our heavenly Father sees us: deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, and totally accepted.  Then, when they disobey, our discipline will be like the Father’s discipline of us: in love, not anger.  If we approach our children with an attitude of grief rather than anger when they disobey, it will make a tremendous difference!  What a difference it will make if we go to our children with the attitude and words 'It’s sad that you disobeyed.  It was harmful to you, and I love you so much that I don’t want you to harm yourself.  I need to discipline you to help you remember not to do it again.  Remember, the reason I am disciplining you is that I love you so much!' instead of 'You’ve done it again, and I’ll make sure you regret it!  I wonder if you’ll ever amount to anything!'

"Responding to our children in grief instead of anger will have monumental implications on both them and us.  Our children won’t be afraid of us, our relationship with them won’t be marred by anger, and they will be more likely to view God as a loving Father rather than a tyrant.  As parents, we will have a more accurate perception of God’s love and gracious discipline, and we will be more in control of our emotions.  We won’t try to deny that we are getting angry at our children’s misbehavior, letting our anger build and build until we explode.  Instead, we will be able to express our displeasure more quickly and acceptably because it will be wholesome grief instead of unholy anger.  These are powerful and welcome implications, indeed!”

To summarize what my actions as a parent need to be:

·        Don’t ignore the behavior just because you’re busy.

·        Deal with it before it gets to the exploding point.

·        Discipline out of love and not anger.

Too often, I find myself involved in a task and not willing to address the misbehavior of my children until I'm already at the exploding point.  This quote is such a good reminder of how important the task of parenting is and how it needs to be my first priority.  It is more important that whatever project I'm working on at the moment (even, gasp, my blog!).  If I can keep that in mind, I will be more likely to correct my children's behavior before it gets out of control and my emotions go out of control with it.  I so desperately want my children to grow up to know the loving and gracious God that I know and I believe that the relationship of the parent to the child is the best place to teach that kind of grace and love.  I'm going to print out this quote and put it up where I can be reminded every time I need to correct my children.