God's Plan for the Family: Training Children

The God of nature has designed that parents be the chief protectors, educators, and trainers of their children. Humans are born with a clean slate, so to speak, morally and intellectually. It is the responsibility of the parent to train the child in the way that they should go: not only to educate them in the ways of God, but to train and discipline them into compliance.

This tract focuses on the discipline of children, but this is a relatively small part of effective parenting. The child-training the Bible encourages is practiced in the context of love, administered by a parent who truly wants what's best for his or her child, who reads the Bible to them, who takes them to church, who spends time with them, who plays with them, who prays for them, and who leads by example. Angry outbursts, yelling, and uncontrolled violence do not contribute to effective child-training, but work against it. The first step for parents who want to learn to train up their children properly is to respond to God's call to salvation with repentance and faith, to commit ourselves to love God supremely and to love our neighbors - and our children - as ourselves.

Our children are the only earthly possessions we get to take to heaven with us. They are a priority for God and they are to be a priority for parents. All the wealth in the world is not to be compared to the eternal soul of one child. If God has given us the priceless blessing of children (Psalm 127), we should be good stewards of this blessing. God requires us to raise them up in the way that they should go, to teach them the ways of God and to lead by example. We need God's help to be faithful to this very important calling.

Certainly, godly parenting and training cannot assure that children will completely abstain from sin, otherwise Adam would never have sinned, God being the ideal parent. But the Scriptures are clear that parental teaching and training is the primary means of educating and assuring compliance with God's ways. Parents - not the federal government, not television, not the church, not school teachers - but parents are the God-ordained chief care-givers of children.

Many Christians are fearful of defending what God's Word says about corporal punishment for fear of the wrath of government social service workers. But the faithful should never compromise the truth of the Scriptures for fear of man. On the contrary, outlawing the bold proclamation of a particular divine truth should invite saints to proclaim that truth with all the more courage and authority, as that is the point of contention, the front lines where God's authority is being challenged.

A Child Unspanked Is a Child Unloved

In spite of rampant abortion-on-demand and the epidemic of physical and sexual abuse of children in our society, I am convinced that not spanking children is the most common form of child abuse in our society, causing social devastation on a massive scale. The Scripture plainly says that parents should correct improper behavior with physical coercion. We should not fear man more than we fear God, and when God and man contradict, God is right. God's Word is unambiguous:

"Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with a rod (a paddle), he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with a rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." (Proverbs 23:14)

"The rod and reproof giveth wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame." (Proverbs 29:15)

"Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." (Proverbs 22:15)

"Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." (Proverbs 19:18)

"He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes (many times)." (Proverbs 13:24)

Failure to spank your child is equated with hatred for your child! Loving your child through consistent corporal punishment "delivers his soul from hell." That's very strong language!

"But doctor, I would never hit my child because I love him soooo much!" You wouldn't believe how many times I have heard that from a parent requesting that their child be chemically restrained with psychiatric medication. Love is not a feeling, but benevolence, or good-willing, and it is always loving to follow God's instructions. We would instantly and naturally affirm that a man who sexually molests his child or breaks his child's bones in anger hates his child, but the Scripture also states that those who do not exercise corporal punishment in the discipline of their children hate them. God is the standard of love, and according to the Scriptures, He lovingly chastens His children (Hebrews 12:4-17).

One of the things I appreciate most about my father was his willingness to lovingly employ corporal punishment to correct misbehavior. I had a terrible temper as a child, and when I was twelve years of age, after being sent to my room after a loud argument with one of my four brothers, I began to throw a temper tantrum! I punched the wall, screamed, threw things... My father came in with his belt in hand, calmly instructing me to get control of myself. He gave me five whippings on my rear end with his belt, and then told me that if I didn't stop crying within five minutes, he would come back and do it again! Every five minutes for the next thirty the ritual continued. I would commence my temper tantrum and loud crying and he would re-enter, give me five whippings, then, calmly and patiently, he would warn me once again. After the last whipping, I collapsed and wept - not out of pain, but in submission. He had broken my will - that was a very good thing for me. He had broken my rebellious heart will but won my spirit! The temper tantrums stopped on that day. I hardly ever needed a spanking after that for the rest of my life. I learned to honor, respect, and obey my father. My heart submitted to him - he was the boss. The times of corporal punishment were miniscule by comparison to all of the fun times and encouraging words I received from him, yet he loved me enough to resort to corporal discipline to mold my character. I feared his disapproval more than his belt, and I learned to trust his love and wisdom more as I grew older. Although I did not like the spankings when I was a child, I love my father for it now. If you spank your disobedient child's bottom with a paddle or a switch now, he will love you for it later in life.

Many of you perhaps have a child who was much like I was as a rebellious twelve year old: a rebellious, uncontrollable, ungrateful, disrespectful child that you don't like being around. Does your three-year-old hit you, thrown temper tantrums when he doesn't get his way? Does your six-year-old try to manipulate you, embarrass you in public? Does your fourteen-year-old disrespect you, yell at you, disobey your commands? Do your children hate being around you, and you them?

All this can change. You can't rise above your faith, so you need to believe it can change before it ever will. With God's help, these things can change! Not primarily through your child's behavior changing, but through yours! You need to change. You need to repent, and obey God's Word regarding the training of your child. You must employ loving, consistent discipline and corporal punishment in the training of your child. Childhood rebellion is not just a phase, it's not just a temporary aberrance, it's disorderly, and it's only going to get worse the older they get if you reject the instructions of God's Word. If you do not exercise corporal punishment, then the Scripture says that you don't love your child and rather than be an impediment to him going to hell, you're showing him the way. The change must start with you.

How does corporal punishment influence children to voluntarily submit to Christ later in life? What keeps sinners from the Lord is sin (Isaiah 59:1-2). Our sins separate us from God. Sin is a transgression of His commandments (I John 3:4). Sin is gratifying our natural, God-given appetites outside of God's will, contrary to His law. All of our appetites, whether for food, sex, friends, comfort, wealth - all of these can be fulfilled within the will of God. It is when we seek to gratify these desires contrary to God's will that we break our fellowship with a holy God and become alienated from Him.

Parents play a critical role in training children to keep their appetites under submission to their mind and will, instead of the other way around. God designed that, from infancy, we are inclined to take the path of least resistance that provides the greatest amount of pleasure to our appetites. He obligated parents to be the teachers and disciplinarians that will temper the gratification of these appetites with moral law and sanctions, to assure that the path of least resistance is the path that's best for their kids. Unlike adolescents and adults, who can be reasoned with and intellectually persuaded to conform to the moral law, children require behavior modification through corporal punishment. God has designed it that way. Through corporal punishment and training, parents should teach their children to subject themselves to authority, to be cheerful and thankful. The child who has learned to master his appetites out of both fear of the parents' rod and out of desire for the parents' favor will have much less troubles in the flesh when the Spirit calls him to repentance and faith in Christ. Your children will be disposed to treat God how they treat you - if they have been trained to respect your authority, they are much more likely to respect God's. This is how corporal punishment from loving parents "delivers the soul from hell."

When your children enter puberty, a whole new world of desire opens up to them. They face new temptations and overwhelming peer pressure to conform to the celebrated evils around them. It is so very important to these youth that they have a respect for parental authority, rules, and discipline. Their emotional stability and social security are dependent upon firm discipline in the home. Even at this age, youth will take the path of least resistance. Teenagers must be confident that the sanction for breaking parental rules is greater than any temporal benefit there can be for transgressing them. They need to know that their parents love them enough to make rules that are in their best interests and that they have the fortitude to enforce those rules. Teenagers must have a healthy fear of displeasing Mom and Dad, and without this, they are handicapped at resisting the temptations, the peer pressure, and the delicious candy-coated poison that the devil is offering them. In the loving environment of a Christian family, consistent, firm corporal discipline is as important to the healthy development of your child as nutritious food.

As the child matures, non-corporal forms of discipline may be more efficacious at securing submission, but all means are at the parents' disposal to train up the child in the way that he should go. Spanking should never replace instruction and education. The child needs to be thoroughly instructed why the misbehavior was wrong, to maximize the child's benefit and lessen the need for future spankings.

It must be remembered that no discipline or punishment will be effective at securing obedience, especially with teenagers, if it is not within the context of a loving relationship. Your child must be convinced that you love them, that you are treating them as you would want to be treated if you were in there shoes. This one of the reasons why you shouldn't spank your children while angry. Now, God gets angry too (Mark 3:5), and so anger is not necessarily sin. The Bible says "Be angry, and sin not" (Ephesians 4:26). But if your child has caused you disappointment and you are naturally angry, you need to send the child to his room until you calm down. Spanking should be done calmly and methodically, without anger, shouting, yelling, or uncontrolled swings. "Wrath" is one of the sins listed in Galatians 5:19-21, which can prevent one from inheriting God's kingdom if it leads to unloving choices. You can avoid anger by quickly and calmly punishing disobedience after the first transgression, as opposed to allow your anger to brew through the first, second, and third transgression.

Pro-active Child Training

Unfortunately, so much of the discipline that families do practice is reactive in nature. The child misbehaves, and so the palm, paddle, belt, or switch falls to bring repentance and obedience. That is certainly appropriate for children that have the capability to understand right from wrong and can comprehend the reason for the punishment dispensed, but what of the child who cannot yet speak or understand language? Is he to be left to his own devices? No - even these are to be trained. Hear this Scripture:

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Proverbs 22:6)

A parent need not wait until the child has reached the stage of moral accountability with a fully developed conscience before they begin training them. If horses can be trained not to buck riders, if cats can be trained not to scratch furniture, if dogs can be trained not to jump on house guests and to sit and roll over, then your children can be trained to obey your word - even before they learn to speak! Years before the child comes to the age of reason and moral accountability, children can be trained to be submissive and to have good attitudes. And the more intensive the training, the less often corporal punishment needs to be utilized later in life. Perhaps if I were proactively trained more at a younger age, I would have never become the angry, rebellious twelve-year-old that required such severe corporal discipline in order to be brought into subjection to my parents.

How do you proactively train a child? Well, how did the God of the Bible do it? Let's go back to Genesis. Did he lock up the tree of the knowledge of good and evil behind a barbed wire fence? No. He put it in the center of the Garden of Eden! It was a test, a tool of training, and what good would it have done if it were locked up out of reach?

So often, we child-proof our homes rather than home-proof our children. Every electrical wire, every stairwell, every lamp, every light switch, every oven knob, every faucet, every bottle of Gerber baby food provides an opportunity to train your child! For example, when you set your child in the high chair to feed him his Gerber, rather than place the jar out of his reach, put it right in front of him, within his reach; point to it, calmly say "No" one time, then enforce your words. Naturally, especially before he learns what "no" means, he will reach forth his hand and touch it. Then, you thump him or swat him on the arm with a small wooden spoon or a switch. Typically, they will cry a few seconds, and then stop. The swat shouldn't be so harsh as to cause any significant pain, just a little sting. There simply needs to be a brief negative stimuli associated with the behavior you want to discourage. You point at the jar again, say "No" - calmly and confidently - and then enforce your command as needed. The baby's little brain makes the association between touching the baby food jar and the negative stimuli, and with consistency, the path of least resistance becomes the path that you deem best for him!

Some would charge that this is cruelty, but I believe that the opposite is true. Taking everything your child wants to touch and putting it out of reach is cruelty, and can result in harm to your child. It's impossible to keep our children away from all electrical wires, all electric outlets, all lamps, all medicine bottles, and all cans of bug spray all of their young lives. It is in our child's best interest that we train them on what they should not touch, so that when they are in Grandpa's garage years later and they see an electric wire or an outlet, they will have been trained not to touch it and won't get injured.

We have a couple rooms in our house where our crawling babies are not allowed: the kitchen and the stairs. The kitchen for obvious reasons - many a child has been severely injured by having boiling water spilled on him by a mother who turns with a pot, not knowing that her child is on the floor beside her. The stairwell is forbidden territory because it is an obvious threat to the child. We don't put a fence in front of our stairs - why waste a good opportunity to train? We spend time training our children to not touch the stairs: doing so results in swift, consistent punishment. Now, we cannot monitor our children every second of the day, so rather than be reactive in our training and punishment, we are proactive. We put the child in front of the stairwell, set a toy on a step, point to the stairwell and calmly say, "No. Don't touch." We'll leave the toy on the stair for several hours and keep a close eye on it. If the child transgresses, then, we enforce our command with swift sanction. After a few training sessions, the child adjusts very well. And the child at a very young age has already learned the meaning of a very important life-saving word: "No."

Training works! It's good for children.

Common Sense Advice

Social workers have been known to interpret an ordinary spanking as child abuse, and children have been removed from homes because their parents employed corporal punishment. I would be remiss not to talk about ways that loving parents can minimize this.

First, some children bruise easily. Even the gentlest spankings can cause a brief red mark on the skin, especially on fair-skinned children. Be sensitive to this. An anonymous phone call from a genuinely concerned neighbor is all it would take to get a social worker to your home wanting to examine and interview your children.

Second, as I said earlier, never spank your child when you are angry. Self-control is a fruit of the Spirit, and angry outbursts may be sin (Galatians 5:19-25). Far too many truly abusive events occur because the parent lost his or her temper after the child exhibited several episodes of rebellious behavior. If the disobedience is punished swiftly and calmly, the child is better trained and you are less likely to become angry at persistent, unrestrained rebellion.

Third, consistency is much more important and effective than severity. Discipline that is too severe may merit a loving neighbor's concern. If we train our children pro-actively and consistently, reactive chastisement need not be as frequent.

Fourth, don't spank publicly if at all possible. It is true, especially with younger children, the punishment must be given swiftly enough so that they can associate the sting with the misbehavior that merited it. But the proper training at home will prevent the need for corporal punishment in public.

Fifth, there is common sense to the "rod" that the Scripture admonishes parents use to discipline their children. Hands, surprisingly, can cause bruising very easily. The aim is not injury but a temporary sting, and a paddle or a switch can do this much better with much less lasting discomfort than a hand. The pain of a pop on the forearm with a switch, or on the buttocks with a belt, or on the thigh with a wooden spoon should never cause lasting pain or dysfunction, but only a temporary sting that should pass in a brief moment. If the child is wearing a diaper, be especially careful not to swing your hand at the child's padded buttocks. Because of the padding, parents are inclined to swing harder, and they can dislocate the child's hip or hurt his back with a heavy swing on a diaper. It's much safer to use a wooden spoon on the thigh than to risk injury by spanking a padded bottom with your palm.

Sixth, never let a social worker inside the home without a court order. Never let them talk to your child without you present. Many social workers, unfortunately, have zero tolerance for spanking, and if they learn that you "hit" your children, they will not hesitate to take your children and then you will be at the mercy of the courts. You are not obligated to tell them anything about your children. If they ask you if you spank your child, don't answer them. If the social worker at your door asks you if you have guns in the home, or if you believe in the Bible, or what church you attend, you do not have to answer. Tell her that you love your children and that you're uncomfortable with the spontaneous interview, and that she can ask her questions in the presence of your attorney at a later date. Don't be rude: the social worker at your front door might have genuine concern for the well-being of your children. She's seen enough authentic child abuse - broken bones, internal injuries, shaken baby syndromes - that her concern about an anonymous neighbor's complaint may be justified. Smile, thank her for her concern, and be kind to her, but be firm and insist that you will not submit to an interview without your attorney present. The expense of an attorney at the onset is much more desirable than having to hire one after the social worker has implicated you for abuse.

Lastly, obey God! He loves us, and His ways are best!