I will backhand you, with love

Discipline.  It's such a tricky issue to navigate as parents.  So many times, our Heavenly Father gives us mercy when we deserve punishment.  Other times, He lets the consequences of our mistakes hit us until we learn.  Sometimes it's the same lesson over and over again until it sinks in.  He knows the outcome, our hearts, our needs, but with our kids, so much is guesswork.  How do we know when to model Christ's mercy? How do we balance that with enough discipline to create responsible adults.  What form should that discipline take?

I'm sure this post is going to offend some people, and I'm okay with that, because it seems like not that long ago I was on the receiving end of many of the afore mentioned backhands, and without them, I fear I would have gone irreconcilably astray.  Let me also say that the person who should have administered said backhand, abdicated his role as parent, and opted instead for the role of fun guy, where he figured loosely in and out, until for healthy boundary reasons, I severed communication.  I learned from the stark contrast of these two men, the the parent who loves, is the parent who disciplines.

As you may have gathered from my previous posts, my oldest child is a bundle of will. As she tries to find her place in this world, and her role in our family, she tests boundaries, manipulates emotions, and has bouts of open defiance.  Lately, we have been reexamining our disciplinary arsenal to deal with back-talk, dirty looks, bad attitude, feigned ignorance, and intentional disobedience (it's like a mini teenager!).  Frankly, these things scare me, because I think that left unchecked they are the things that have led to a generation with a gigantic sense of entitlement and no personal accountability.  They scare me because often all of our efforts seem to have no impact.  She will say things like, "I'm never going to learn anything from this.", or (when I told her I was done messing around and it was time to get serious, " This isn't very serious!." They scare me because the line between too much and not enough is so thin, and peril lies on both sides.

So, one night after a trying day in the discipline arena, I prayed for fortitude and patience, and to be able to always discipline with love.  Afterword, we told her we love her, and explained that we would find a way to help her learn, and because we love her we will never give up.  We will keep providing consistent discipline again and again as long as it takes, and then I said to her, " Do you know you can backhand someone with love?"

It seems today there is so much fear of invalidating a child's feelings, that we negotiate with children as though they could reason like adults.  Our culture is afraid to parent, to expect obedience, to provide discipline, to teach our kids that our choices have consequences, before those consequences get too big and irreversible, and we are doing those kids a lifelong disservice. So, while I don't believe we should spank in anger, or for every circumstance, I do believe that when rewards don't work, and the " consequence jar" fails, when what my child needs is a good old fashioned smackdown, that's my job.  Sometimes the most loving thing you can give a child is a good swat.