Raising Spirit-Led Kids Sample

 Discipline vs Punishment

We must refuse to make our children perform for our love and identity. Our children should not have to do anything that would cause us not to love them more or that would cause their identity to change in our eyes. It is important to remember that our children’s behavior does not reveal whether we are good parents or not—our behavior does. Many children who behave perfectly do so because they have parents who are controlling their behavior. We should create a place where our children learn the reasons that obedience is important. 

Allowing our children to experience consequences for disobedience, which is learning why it is important to obey, is possible only if we allow them to disobey. If they can learn this in the safety of our homes when the consequences are along the lines of missing out on a TV show or losing time to play video games, it will be easier for them to obey us later when the stakes are higher. 

By allowing our children to disobey and receive the consequences of disobedience, we are disciplining them instead of punishing them. Punishment should not be present in our homes. We know that if punishment is present, love is not. 

Discipline, however, protects our children’s futures. It creates children who grow the fruit of self-control, and it leads our children to move through confession and into true repentance. Discipline does what punishment never could—it raises children who live as sons and daughters who can be led by the Spirit of God. 

God was not punishing Adam and Eve when He enforced the consequence of them having to leave the garden. He was protecting them. God put them out of the garden so they could not eat from the tree of life and live forever in a sinful state. That is discipline at its finest. He gave consequences that were motivated only by the future wellbeing of His children. 

Thank Father God for being a good and loving Father who does not try to control you. Ask Him for the grace necessary to love your children through healthy discipline and consequences. Ask Him to help you give them the freedom to learn in a safe environment. Ask Him to reveal to you if you have made any inner vows that are having an effect on your parenting.