The Need for Self-Discipline in order to Discipline

Disciplining children is such a challenge because it requires so much self-discipline.

You have to be prompt. You have to be consistent. You have to be discerning and wise (and by this, I mean biblical). You have to be loving (not disciplining out of anger or irritation). And the hardest of them all: you have to be sure not to dangle temptation before their eyes.

The lack of discipline in the home can come in many disguises. I know this because I am so often guilty of hiding behind them. It doesn’t appear to be that way at first, until the moment when you want the child to behave in a certain way and you cannot get them to.

I know that for the first-time parent, there is that point in time when you realize that your child really is capable of understanding reason, or the distinction between unacceptable behaviour and good behaviour. There was a point when I realized that I didn’t have to wait for Nathaniel to fully understand the English language in order to not do something I deemed unacceptable or to follow instructions. Early on, he could tell by my facial expressions, gestures, pick it up from the words I used.

I could be doing chores in the kitchen and he’d be playing by himself in the living room. From time to time, I would catch him looking over at me—either it was because he wanted a smile of affirmation from Mommy or he wanted to see whether what he was about to do would receive a look of disapproval. Nathaniel knew.

Now that Nathaniel is two-years-old, discipline on my part is much more crucial because he is so aware of what I am doing or what his daddy is doing. When he was a baby, we could still do whatever we wanted (go on the laptop, turn on the TV, etc.) because he had no clue what we were doing. At the toddler stage, it’s a different story.

Mommy and Daddy can rarely partake in our own leisure activities while he is awake now because Nathaniel always wants to be a part of whatever we‘re doing. On most days, I am successful with not watching television so that Nathaniel doesn’t either—but on other days, I give in, and turn it on to watch one or two of my own programs.

Sometimes, I think it’s okay to give ourselves a little bit of grace. A couple of weeks ago, I came down with a cough and cold. I had a splitting headache for two days—for two days, I forgave myself for using the TV as a babysitter. The past summer, whenever Daddy came home from work, after we ate dinner together as a family, Daddy liked to turn on the TV to watch baseball. The husband, I understand, had had a long hard day at work. Baseball was one of his ways of relaxing at the end of the evening. Nathaniel loved sitting on the couch and watching baseball with him (actually, the nerd—he just liked reading the numbers at the top of the television screen). So I thought this was okay. The program was safe. And the son got to bond with Daddy.

In most other circumstances, however, we try to keep television watching to a minimum. On days when I know that the television has been on for a little bit too long, I pray to God for grace—I‘ll do better tomorrow, God. I‘ll do better tomorrow.

But the worst case I have seen by far was back in June when the IPad and IPhone made their way into our house. At first, it seemed harmless. Nathaniel was fascinated by the games. He was laughing and having so much fun. Until it came time to part with the toy. Nathaniel threw the biggest tantrum I had ever witnessed. After a few more times of letting him play with it and receiving the same reaction, the husband and I decided that Nathaniel had lost all privileges of playing with such devices. Any object that elicits such an awful reaction results in the loss of all privileges of playing with the toy.

Trust me, there are times when we are out when it is tempting to pull it out to keep him preoccupied. And there are times when I have given in. But now, there is that loud voice in my head that tells me that it is not worth it. It wasn‘t simply that the toy was causing him to take tantrums, but that, from a biblical perspective, these toys were becoming objects of worship. When they were in his hands, he paid attention to nothing else around him.

As I have mentioned, our new parents small group at church is currently doing a book study on Douglas Wilson‘s Standing on the Promises: A Handbook of Biblical Childrearing. His advice about not leading our children into temptation really spoke to me, particularly the following passage: “Parents must not lead their children into temptation. Our heavenly Father minimizes temptation for us; we must do the same for our children (Mt. 6:13; 1 Cor. 10:13). For example, parents should not keep them up to all hours, and then marvel when they are crabby. Parents must not issue commands like a machine gun, and then wonder why all the commands are not obeyed. Parents are to imitate God, not some tyrannical agency of the federal government. Parents must pick their battles carefully, and then win all the battles.”

While self-discipline is hard for us parents, when properly executed, it actually makes the home atmosphere a lot more peaceful. The children are not perpetually exposed to temptation and the parents stuck with dealing with the aftermath. Furthermore, we are not forced to deal with getting into the same battles again and again. At the same time, disciplining for any one behaviour often requires a long process. It is so easy to give in or to be lenient when feeling tired or distracted. But I have seen it. God has enabled me to see the results when I really put the time and effort to correct Nathaniel’s behaviour (a recent battle I have been fighting is his whining and complaining—I praise the Lord that the situation is improving). God teaches us to rejoice always, to be content in whatever circumstances, and I have been trying to instil this attitude in my son.

Wilson describes the way we ought to look at discipline:”Discipline is corrective; it seeks to accomplish a change in the one being disciplined. Punishment is meted out in the simple interests of justice... God disciplines His people as He takes them through the daily process of their sanctification. He has their final glorification in view, and all His discipline works toward that end... Because discipline seeks to correct, it has accomplished its purpose when the correction has been made.”

Given that I still have to wake up twice in the middle of the night to feed the baby, I have found it hard to stay awake to read books. Even when I do read, it doesn‘t seem like much of the information is entering my head. As a result, I have resorted to listening to sermons before going to bed. I have transcribed an excerpt of a sermon I listened to last night, entitled “Be Zealous” (preached by Dr. Joel Beeke). The part that I chose addresses precisely what I have been trying to discuss—how we are to strive toward being godly parents when we, ourselves, are struggling with our own sins:


“What a challenge it is to be a zealous parent for Jesus Christ in front of your children. You are called to lead little ones to God and yet you struggle against the rebellion pent up in your own heart, your own natural backwardness to the things of God, your pride, your love of self, your irritation with your children, the inherited corruption of their nature, and yours, for that matter, your own sinfulness. How can you be zealous when you are constantly correcting your children, you are constantly trying to make things just even morally decent. You feel like a hypocrite, nagging endlessly when your own soul often goes in the direction that your disobedient children are going in. What do you do as a zealous parent?

Well you turn to God. You turn to God for strength. You use those means. You ask him to work personal holiness and true repentance in you, that you be an example and encouragement to your children, that your children can look at you and say, ʻMy mom and dad, well they are not perfect, but one thing you cannot take away from them, they really love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. They love my soul. They love my soul even more than I do.ʼ

Our children ought to really be able to say that of us. We ought to want to make such a difference in the lives of our children that even the friends of our children when they come into our houses can see something different about our house. ʻThere are people in this house that walk with the Lord, that are zealous for the Lord, zealous for a life of real communion, a life of repentance, a life of faith.ʼ

And that is why, with all our parental shortcomings, we are called to press on zealously, with a biblical discipline, loving discipline, with instruction, teaching our children the things of God even when it seems that they are not listening.

But especially, a zealous parent will be on his knees. We use our knees more than we will use the rod. We will be more in our prayer closet than at our parental lectern. We will be talking more to God about our children than to our children about God. And we will do so with cries and sighs and tears and faithful, regular earnest pleading until the Lord answers. And we will bring them up to Godʼs house with a hope in our heart, ʻthis will be the timeʼ. As we return from church, we will talk to them as enabled about what they have heard. We will show them with our lifestyle what a joy it is to serve the Lord, how foolish it is to go our own way. And in family worship, we will want to reinforce it always, always, never tiring of telling them how wonderful the Saviour is and they need to repent and turn to him and find real life and real power and real prayer. We will use our Scripture readings for that, prayers, singing... oh we want to show them that Jesus Christ is altogether lovely!”

There is a long parental journey ahead. There may be moments when we feel exasperated. And yet we must remember that we are not doing it alone. Thank God we are not doing it alone. By God‘s grace, his power, may we parents learn to practice greater discipline in our lives—for the sake of our children. Not simply for this life, but with our eyes set on eternity.