Tiny Devotional for Tuesday, 07-13-2021

 A great good morning to all my friends and neighbors in Internet Land! And to family members who have dropped by, care for some enhanced pizza?

A wise son accepts his father’s discipline,
But a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.
Proverbs 13:1, NASB

Ain’t that a kick in the head?

“Discipline” is tied up with emotional connections from our youth: “You’re going to get a spanking.” And that was horrible news!

I was a middle-school counselor for 16+ years, and one of the core principles of my training was that my role was student advocate; therefore, I didn’t assign aversive consequences to kids for problem behavior. The short-cut term for this was “we don’t do discipline.”  

Malarkey.

Aversive consequences represent maybe 2% of discipline. The other 98% is providing information and feedback, modeling, correcting, and supporting. And that’s ALL counselors did. Well, that and bus duty.

In 2001, I earned my black belt in the discipline of Tae Kwon Do.  Not ONCE, over the course of three years, did one of my instructors spank me (which would have been kinky at best, but mostly just unthinkable). They did HIT me, and KICK me, however, when they were teaching me how to hit and kick, and how to block same. At no other point in the instruction, though, did they use hitting as a teaching method. Lots of repetition; no smiting.

Ah, but does this technique work for parenting? Based on my own experience, I think so. Dobson taught me to reserve a spanking for potentially lethal behaviors, and willful disobedience; otherwise, instruction and logical consequences were called for. 

Kids of parents who use that approach tend to listen and accept, rather than run and hide. 

Isn’t that a definition of wise children?


Peace be on your household.


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