Far better that [children] should cry under healthful correction, than that parents should afterwards cry under the bitter fruit to themselves and children, of neglected discipline.
Proverbs.
Faithfully disciplining (training, educating, correcting) your child in a manner that pleases the Lord is an expression of biblical love. It also is a step of obedience for you as a parent and provides godly direction for your child.
Self-Confrontation Manual, Lesson 17, Page 8, Used by Permission of the Biblical Counseling Foundation.
Tolerance and passivity define today’s approach to parenting. Restraint and correction are deemed too confining for the child’s psyche. Self-esteem has superseded self-control. Parents are afraid to correct wrong behavior. They are urged by experts to let their children express themselves freely. Too many parents are utterly absent from their own children’s sphere of moral influence. The child’s nature is simply permitted to take its course, and by the time the parent realizes the utter depravity of the child’s heart, things are already on a course for calamity.
Successful Christian Parenting, 1998, p. 33-34.
[Children] cannot bring themselves up properly. This cannot happen because God says “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child” (Prov. 22:15), and that “a child left to himself, a child who gets his own way bring shame to his mother” (Prov. 29:15). Scripture thus asserts that if you allow a child to bring himself up, if you raise him in an atmosphere of complete freedom, if you allow him to make all his own choices, to do his own thing, to express himself freely, the result will be shameful. God never intended children to bring themselves up. He gave them parents who are to be actively engaged in making the children what God wants them to be.
Strengthening Your Marriage, P &R Publishing, 1977, p. 148. Used by Permission.
The parent is to punish a disobedient child not because he is angry, but because he is right- because God requires it, and the welfare of the child demands it.
A Word to Parents.
You cannot control your children, you say. Then the Lord have mercy on you! It is your business to do it, and you must do it, or else you will soon find they will control you. No one knows what judgment will come from God upon those who allow sin in children to go unrebuked.
If we never have headaches through rebuking our children, we shall have plenty of heartaches when they grow up.
God wants to be loved and obeyed at all times, not just when the consequences seem great to us. You must discipline your children every time they are disobedient. As God’s agent, you do not have the right to excuse or ignore disobedience. God requires you to bring up your children in the fear of the Lord. You may not make obedience a trivial or occasional issue. When a child deliberately disobeys, you have no choice but to exercise discipline out of love for God and love for your child.
Everyday Talk, Talking Freely and Naturally about God with Your Children, Shepherd Press, 2004, p. 69, Used by Permission. Get this book!
