Loving Children

Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them. [Proverbs 13.24]

Modern academia would largely have us believe that physical discipline is unnecessary in the life of a developing child. In the rare cases where they do concur to physical discipline, it is watered down to little more than a 'swat'. These conclusions are drawn from a scientific approach in the realm of psychology.

The first and foremost problem with this educated approach to discipline is namely that it does not work - not to mention the fact that it disagrees with what the Bible teaches. Education cannot replace 'heart' when it comes to discipline. Notice above that "those who love their children care enough to discipline them." (underline mine) No amount of education in the world teaches a parent how to discipline a child. It is love that activates proper discipline. And, love has to do with relationship. And, every relationship is different just as every parent and child are different.

This is a slippery slope however, isn't it? Who determines what is enough and what is too much when it comes to discipline?

The thing is, without the obvious direction and guidance of God's Word and His Holy Spirit, all hope is lost that any Biblical directive would be exercised in appropriateness. This is true as it pertains to both "too much" or "too little."

Strangely enough however, it has only been since governments have become increasingly proactive in child welfare that governments have become increasingly more necessary in child welfare. I am not even implying that children were neither neglected nor abused in the past. Nor am I implying that government intervention has increased the occurrences of abuse. What I am implying is we need to consider a factor that is mostly ignored in all social problems: the spiritual condition of the society. 

As our societies have increasingly become more secular (less Biblical and God-fearing), we have seen all kinds of problems. Child abuse and neglect are, unfortunately only a part of the problem, but they are indeed a problem.

Child abuse is what we hear about the most - children reprimanded with unthinkable methods that do lasting damage. So, without Biblical moderation, measures are handed down to prevent most, if not all, physical discipline. But, this too is abusive because it then contributes to neglect (the subject of the scripture passage mentioned in this post).

The all-too-prevalent problem with neglect is that it is a much, much larger problem than what we hear about in the news. Children desperately needing physical discipline are accepted by society as normal. Or, what's worse, diseases have been "identified" that require medication instead of discipline. In other words, evil has been relabeled as a disease, the child is a victim, and discipline is ignored. Does anyone besides me see a problem with this?

Here is an opinion worth considering: parents are too busy to spend the time and effort to correctly raise their children. Instead of discipline, medicine is applied. In some cases, parents can even be so busy in activities with their children that they still fail to properly connect with their kids. Now, just think about that a while...

Father, I sincerely hope no one ever takes what I say here, because I have said it, as truth. I do hope however, that my life will cause others to think and draw their own Biblical conclusions.