Disciplining Your Children In Love

(Prov 13:24 NLT) Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them.

This morning we continue our series In this verse Solomon teaches us something that is not popular today – the importance of disciplining our children. As believers, the motivation for the discipline should be love. On the flip side, if we fail to discipline them, he tells that it is as if we literally “hate” them.

If we, as parents, fail to properly discipline our children and we allow them to grow up without boundaries or consequences, not only will we be accountable to God for our neglect (some day), but we will also have to deal with unruly children. Modern daytime talk shows don’t have to look very far to find children that were not ever truly parented and the results can be devastating; for both the parents and the children.

I want you to be sure about what Solomon is teaching so I will share this verse with you from a few other translations.
The traditional King James Version says,
“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.”

The Message Bible reads: “A refusal to correct is a refusal to love; love your children by disciplining them.”

The New International Reader’s Version says, “Those who don't correct their children hate them. But those who love them are careful to train them.”

While ‘sparing the rod’ immediately makes most people think about spanking young children, Solomon’s counsel is not just limited to physical correction. With these other translations we see that Godly correction is about providing careful training and instilling the proper discipline in our children that prepares them for their life’s assignment.

Is this painful? Yes! Does this take time? Absolutely! But if we did not want to parent, we should not have had children. As Godly parents we must take the time and make the effort to love our children enough to correct them when they are wrong.

Solomon has a great deal to say about this. He not only wants us to discipline/train our children, but He urges us to start early. Later in Proverbs he said, “Discipline your children while there is hope. Otherwise you will ruin their lives” (19:18).

You don’t want to wait until your children are adults to begin to discipline them, because by then they may not hear what you have to say trust me on this I am living proof. They need to know early off in their development that they have parents who love them enough to correct them when they are going astray. And this leads us back to physical discipline, because you can’t have an hour-long conversation with a little child. When my children were little and I would tap on the hand for doing something wrong, it registers with their little minds in a way that a five-minute conversation will not.

I am not talking about abuse, but rather discipline, performed in love. In chapter 23 Solomon said, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die. Punish him with the rod and save his soul from death.”

Remember, this is not about getting some form of sick satisfaction from hitting your child, but rather providing them the correction they need, as part of their development. Why? Because Proverbs 22:15 says, “Foolishness abounds in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far from him.” The Bible has much more to say about this, but I will stop here.

So what does this mean to you? Simply put, it means that if you love your children you will discipline them; and while they may include some form of physical correction, it is definitely NOT limited to it.

Take the time to parent your children, no matter how much it costs you. In the end, your labor will not be in vain!

Father, thank You for giving me the wisdom and insight to provide my children the training, correction, and discipline they need to develop into the women You have called them to be. I love my children JUST they way they are, but I also love them too much to leave them without correction. I declare, by faith, that you give me creative ways to reach my children, so that they can understand right from wrong, so that they prepared them for their life’s assignment, and so that I am able to stand before You with clean hands. I will not neglect my part in their development! In Jesus’ name. Amen!