[Steps to the successful discipline of a child:] 1. Consistency. Train your children to respond on the first command. 2. Always put your discipline in the context of love. 3. Reference Scripture. 4. Make sure it hurts. 5. Hold the child until he or she stops crying. 6. Use the discipline event to rehearse the gospel. 7. Ask them to verbally confess the specific sin for which they are being disciplined. 8. Have your child perform restitution.
Summarized from Gospel-Powered Parenting, 2009, P&R Publishing, p. 167-170, Used by Permission. Get this book!
You will see many in this day who allow their children to choose and think for themselves long before they are able, and even make excuses for their disobedience, as if it were a thing not to be blamed. To my eyes, a parent always yielding, and a child always having its own way, are a most painful sight – painful, because I see God’s appointed order of things inverted and turned upside down – painful, because I feel sure the consequence to that child’s character in the end will be self-will, pride, and self-conceit. You must not wonder that men refuse to obey their Father which is in heaven, if you allow them, when children, to disobey their father who is upon earth.
The Duties of Parents, 1888.
The parent who studies to subdue self-will in his child works together with God in the saving of a soul. The parent who indulges self-will does the devil’s work, makes religion impractical, salvation unattainable and does all that is in him to drown his child, soul and body forever.
