I recently heard a sermon about children that didn’t sit well with me. I held my breath through it waiting for the pastor to get to “discipline” a.k.a punishment in most Christian circles.
While he didn’t come right out and talk about spanking/hitting children, his words and phrases implied spanking such as:
”This is gonna hurt me more than you.”
“When a football player gets a penalty, they get it and then move on to the next play.”
“Sixty seconds of pain helps prevent sixty years of disappointment.”
And he cited James Dobson a couple times in his sermon which anyone familiar with Dobson knows that he advocates spankings and other harsh punishment for children.
It’s sad that he even mentioned the children in the sanctuary looking like, “oh no, not discipline” as true discipline should not make children squirm in their seats. As I have pointed out a great deal throughout my book and this blog, yes, discipline can be painful as children learn how their actions affected another person or when they don’t get something that they really wanted. But discipline never inflicts pain on a child!
So, does 60 seconds of pain really help prevent 60 years of disappointment?
In my experience, no, it does not. Yeah, I was abused, but even people who were spanked/hit “lovingly” experience disappointment throughout their lives. Why? Because disappointment is a part of life.
If anything, being spanked and punished makes it harder to deal with disappointment because it doesn’t teach us how to handle it in a healthy manner. For example, spanking/hitting a toddler for either not accepting a limit or getting very upset about it doesn’t teach them how to handle disappointment. It just makes them more upset and confused. They either lash out more, which will end in more spanking/hitting and/or other punishment or it teaches the toddler that his/her feelings don’t matter. This can lead them to lash out as adults or repress their feelings as adults when disappointment comes their way. It can lead to real problems in their lives.
The pastor used an example for this “sixty seconds of pain” concept of a child that was permissively parented and ended up in prison. Yes, permissive parenting also sets up children to not be able to handle life’s disappointments in an unhealthy way. If they always get what they want in childhood, then they will probably get very angry as adults when things don’t go how they want.
The problem is that trying to imply that if you don’t spank/hit children they will become criminals is very erroneous. The fact is that the majority of prisoners were physically punished as children! Violent parenting makes children feel powerless. This can lead some to use aggression as adults to get what they want as that is what their parents did to them.
The rest of the prison population is usually permissively parented.
Pain makes us angry, sad, confused, and anxious. Why would you set up children to experience pain from you in order to “prevent” sixty years of disappointment? It makes no sense.
Disappointments happen from birth and its our job to get on their level and say, “I’m so sorry you are sad, frustrated, and disappointed. This is the way it has to be but I am here to help you.” Teach them healthy ways of expressing their disappointments by giving them words, encouraging art expression, using music, petting an animal, reading a book–anything productive that truly helps them.
The number one thing we can do to prepare children for disappointment is to show them that we are there for them and will listen to them. Teach them that they can always count on us and God. Because sixty seconds of pain will never prevent sixty years of disappointment.
As I have been corresponding with people who are on the fence about gentle discipline, it hit me that God is a relational God. Everything He does is to get us to become closer to Him. That’s why it makes me sad that so many Christians believe that He does bad things “for our good.” That doesn’t make us feel closer to Him unless we have some sadomachistic tendencies going on in us.
When it comes to disciplining our children, I find myself covering the same issues with punitive parents who just don’t understand what discipline really is. So I am going to cover it again here.
Discipline looks at the whole child instead of focusing on behavior. When you understand the child and where he/she is in his/her development, you can set appropriate limits and figure out the whys behind behavior. Children are so much more than a set of behaviors or “sins.” They are complicated, competent human beings that need our guidance. They are new to this world and have immature brains and bodies. This should not be used against them, but it often is.
Going from using external control such as spankings, time-outs, and taking away privileges in an arbitrary way to using internal motivation by meeting needs, setting limits, allowing natural consequences of choices to happen, validating feelings, allowing appropriate choices, giving alternative appropriate behavior and/or ways of expressing feelings, using time-in to settle down with the children and connect instead of isolating them is tough. It takes a lot of work and patience.
We use the Fruit of the Spirit A LOT when we choose to discipline rather than punish. But this is true discipline. To grow heathy fruit, we must cultivate it, water it, and give it plenty of sunshine. We must also do our best to protect it from the enemy, usually bugs and other animals. We don’t beat the sprouts and fruit as that would ruin it. So why do it to our children by beating them?
God is a relational God, so using discipline is focusing on keeping our relationships intact with our children. You may think that your relationship with your children is fine despite using punishment, but it isn’t what it could be as all children want to please their parents. They may behave out of fear instead of out of respect. We want our children to behave because it is the right thing to do! We want our children to have healthy relationships with others and with God. Only true respect can teach children respect. We must model respect to our children by respecting them and other people! They are learning from our actions more than our words
Also, I am sure I have covered this in other posts, but I know people learn through repetition too so I will cover this again. Fear and respect mean two totally different things.
The definition of fear is “a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.”
The definition of respect is “esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability.”
Notice fear contains the word “evil” in its definition but respect doesn’t. And throughout the Bible God tells us to NOT be afraid. Therefore, to be reverent means to respect, not afraid.
Since God is a relational God, shouldn’t we do everything in our power to treat our children in a manner that produces a healthy relationship with us? We work hard to have good marriages by treating our spouses with love and respect. Why should it be any different with our children? God is over us and yet He calls us His friends (John 15:15, James 2:23, Romans 5:10). May we treat our children how God treats us.
Some researchers in Australia conducted a study in which 43 infants ranging from six months to 16 months were either allowed to cry for longer periods of time, had graduated extinction, or had their bedtimes moved back to help the infants fall asleep quicker claim that the infants who were allowed to cry-it-out had no negative effects.
There are a number of problems with this study from a scholarly standpoint.
1. The study was extremely small and did not specify what ages were in the different groups. Allowing a toddler or older infant to fuss for a few minutes with our support as they fall asleep is much different than a young infant being left to cry for ten or more minutes. This leads me to my second issue with this study.
2. We are not told how long the infants in the cry-it-out group were allowed to cry. Were they totally alone when they were allowed to cry-it-out or was the parent nearby? Sometimes when weaning or adjusting bedtime routines, infants cry and if you hold them or rub their backs as they cry, their stress levels are much lower than just being put down in a crib alone with no support.
3. The researchers claim to have “measured the stress hormone cortisol in the babies’ saliva in the afternoon and the morning during the treatment. They also used ankle monitors to track how often the babies in each group were waking throughout the night” (Bowerman, 2016, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/05/24/study-infant-baby-sleep-method-cry-it-out-wont-damage-child/84838958/). The morning and afternoon but not at night when the stress is happening? This makes no sense. Especially when many, many other studies measure the infants’ heart rates, blood pressure, and stress hormones have shown that being left alone to cry-it-out does, in fact, stress infants out. Just swabbing the infants’ mouths twice a day and using a bracelet to count how long the infants stay asleep is not enough to conclude that cry-it-out isn’t harmful.
4. They allowed the parents to change groups and the control group was the one that just continued with their bedtime routines. So, we are not told what the bedtime routines of the control group were. We are not told what the other groups routines were either. We don’t know if the infants were teething, sick, co-sleeping, or what happened when the infants woke up in the night. We are not told about the family life of these infants. We are not told about their development. So many things can affect an infant’s sleep pattern.
5. So the study claims that infants allowed to cry-it-out slept longer. This is not necessarily a good thing! Being exhausted from crying does not lead to healthy sleep. Any adult who has cried themselves to sleep knows that you don’t wake up very rested. Actually, you’re exhausted. Also, for infants their brain actually shuts down from crying because of all the stress of nobody answering. This is NOT healthy nor is it good! In fact, reliable and valid research shows that:
”Sleep techniques that employ prolonged crying to ‘teach’ an infant to sleep simply teach the infant that the mother will not respond as he or she expects. As a consequence, the infant cannot rely on the mother’s care and for survival, and he or she must conserve energy, since the mother as a food source is now unpredictable. The infant therefore ceases to cry when crying fails to produce a response, and presents the appearance of sleep (shuts down activity). This leads parents to think they have successfully sleep trained their baby, while the baby is responding to the possibility it has been abandoned, and attempting to conserve energy to stay alive“ (Ball, 2015, http://www.bellybelly.com.au/baby-sleep/cry-it-out/).
6. There are years and years of research by credible doctors and early childhood professionals that prove that cry-it-out is emotionally and physically harmful to infants. And what about the studies by Rene Spitz, Harry Harlow, Mary Ainsworth, Emmi Pikler, John Bowlby backing up and proving how detrimental it is for infants if they don’t receive sensitive, respectful care 24/7? Are we supposed discount all thes valid and reliable studies by top researchers in the field for this one very flawed study? Gosh, children are people too!
Dr. Bruce Perry is another person that shows neglecting babies’ need for touch and sensitive care has detrimental effects on their brain development. The first 5 years are crucial. So many people don’t understand just how vulnerable the young brain is. Yes, most survive harsh parenting practices such as cry-it-out andspanking/hitting but the damage IS there!!
7. The researchers do not define what secure attachment is. The children can seem attached on the surface but there are a number of attachment issues that can occur in children who are not sensitively cared for. Please read this post I wrote for more info about different attachment issues.
In sum, this was a very flawed study. It is not credible nor reliable. Infants need sensitive, respectful care 24/7. There are resources to gently help infants and parents sleep such as Elizabeth Pantley’s book, The No Cry Sleep Solution.
Cox, S. (2011). Attachment Theory- Why NOT to Train a Baby. http://whynottrainachild.com/articles/attachment-theory/.
Epstein, V. (2015). Should You Let Baby Cry It Out? http://www.kars4kids.org/blog/cry-it-out/.
Kim, M. (2005). Cry It Out: The Potential Dangers of Leaving Your Baby to Cry. http://drbenkim.com/articles-attachment-parenting.html.
Narvaez, D. (2011). Dangers of “Crying It Out.” https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201112/dangers-crying-it-out.
Sears, W. (2016). Let Baby Cry It Out: Yes or No? http://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/fussy-baby/letting-baby-cry-it-out-yes-no.
Word of Mom Blogs. (2016). BLOG: Letting Your Baby Cry It Out – Really Bad Idea. http://www.whattoexpect.com/blogs/parenting-three-when-can-i-pee/letting-your-baby-cry-it-out-really-bad-idea.
As I am once again plunged into the dark place of grief since I just lost my grandpa only nine months after losing my mother-in-law (I was extremely close to both of them), I am confronted with well-meaning people trying to distract me in order to make me feel better. I’m also confronted with people who are not compassionate at all towards my deep pain. I had no idea I would have the latter problem.
But with this post I want to focus on validation and distraction. From the moment infants are born, many well-meaning people tend to distract infants when they cry instead of validating them and telling them that they will meet their needs.
I mean shushing the infant and saying, “You’re okay.” is not validating them. They are crying for a reason and it’s up to us to validate them and figure out what they need.
Unfortunately, this tendency to use distraction over validation occurs throughout life. People just aren’t comfortable with anyone of any age showing negative emotions. And yet, the Bible says:
“Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15, NASB).
The Bible also says:
“Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2, NASB).
We can rejoice easy enough with people, but when it comes to weeping and mourning with them, many run the other way. I believe this is due to being taught distraction from birth. It’s easier to say, “You’re okay,” and try to make someone smile and laugh than to sit down with them and listen to their pain and cry with them.
I find the most peace when people tell me that everything I am feeling right now is normal and to take my time. After all, to truly semi heal from great loss is to feel the pain and let it pass. God never distracts us from our pain. He is right here feeling it with us and comforting us. Encouragement is also so helpful to anyone of any age.
All this being said, I believe there is a place for respectful distraction. But it must always come after validation. Offering a young child something to do after he/she has pretty much worked through his/her upset is fine as long as the child can refuse it. Sending a funny video to a hurting person is okay as long as it is preferenced with “I know you’re having a hard time. I thought this might give you a smile.” Offering to take a grieving person out is okay as long as you are ready to hear them talk about the pain and maybe even see him/her cry.
Hurting, upset people of all ages need validation over distraction! Yes, taking a break from our pain is important, but without the support and validation of others, it makes the healing process take longer. It also causes children to learn that negative feelings are unacceptable and that they should repress and deny their pain.
If there is physical pain then validating it should still come before distraction. I use distraction as a coping mechanism but I recognize that I must feel the pain too as, unfortunately, pain is a part of this life on Earth.
May we always validate each other so that no one must carry their pain and burdens alone.
The above describes my grandpa! I am broken-hearted as I write this because Grandpa went to Heaven on the evening of May 2, 2016.
He loved his cars, especially Corvettes. He always took me riding with him. Most of the time you could find him in his garage working on one of his cars, but he always made time for me. I enjoyed sitting in the garage, listening to music, and playing with the vice he had on his work table.
He played board games with Grandma and me. He watched tv with me. He read “the funnies” to me on Sunday mornings when I was there.
My grandparents took me to DisneyWorld. They dragged my wheelchair across the beach to watch the sunset over the ocean. Grandpa took me in the ocean for the first time and a wave almost knocked us down.
He truly loved caring for me. As a child I slept with him and he would make up the best bedtime stories before I fell asleep. He made me feel safe. I was never ever ever afraid of him because he never intentionally hurt me.
When other family members rejected my now husband, Grandpa accepted him and watched for thirteen years that my husband meant it when he told my grandpa that he would never get tired of caring for me and divorce me.
Grandpa cheered me on through college, grad school, and writing my first book. He was the best Grandpa I could asked for.
He called me his “tiger.” It wasn’t until yesterday that I really understood why tiger is a huge compliment! Tigers are strong, courageous, and beautiful.
If you have been following my blog, you know that we lost my husband’s mom nine months ago. Losing two people I was very close to me has been unbearable. But the legacy they leave behind is wonderful!
Grandpa, you truly were the BEST GRANDPA EVER!! I am proud I got to be your “favorite granddaughter” because as I would say, “I’m your only granddaughter.” I miss you so so much already! But you are finally free from the pain you have dealt with for so long! I love you! Your “Tiger.” 💜
My grandpa. April 1, 1928-May 2, 2016 See you in Heaven someday, Grandpa!
People who spank seem to believe that if they don’t spank, the only other alternative is to let the kids run wild, rule the roost, and become tyrannical delinquents.
But for those of us who have stopped spanking, we know how hard it is to “do” something without hitting.
Just recently my 10 y/o and my 8 y/o had a conflict. The 10 y/o was mostly at fault. She’d called her little sister a name and pushed her. When things like this happen, it triggers the old spanking circuits in my brain. Everything inside me wanted to scold her, yell at her, and punish her…to make her suffer for having done wrong.
So I called her to come talk to me and gave myself a quick “pep” talk as I waited for her.
I resisted the urge to scold and punish…and chose…to discipline instead.
I asked her questions about what happened and I gave her examples I hoped she could relate to. She told me her little sister, “was being rude and irritating me so I called her a baby.”
I asked her if calling her a baby helped the situation. I asked her if when she got mad at her little sister for being rude to her, if calling her a baby was polite. I asked her if calling her a baby taught her little sister not to do what she’d done to irritate her again. And I asked her why she did it. Her answer was typically childish. In her mind she did it because her little sis had irritated her. (I know grown-ups who think this way).
So I asked her if she could have done X, Y, and Z (different examples) instead of calling her a baby. I used some funny examples too that made her smile. But with the examples of other choices she could have made, I helped her then to see that because her sister did something, it did not make her make the choice she had to call her sister a baby. SHE made the choice after her sister irritated her. She could have made 1,000 different choices but she chose to call her sister a baby. She chose to be mean.
At the beginning of the conversation she thought, “I called her a baby BECAUSE she irritated me.” At the end of the conversation she understood, “I called her a baby because I made that choice when I felt irritated by my sister.”
As we talked, tears came to her eyes several times usually when I asked the right question and I could see she came to the right conclusion. But the whole time her eyes and attention remained focused on me.
Then she told me some things that have been bothering her about what her older siblings have done to her, and more tears came. We talked about those things and I encouraged her not to follow their examples.
It took 10-15 minutes to get through this conversation and in the end…she sat down on my lap and hugged me, thanked me for helping her, gave me a kiss, and told me, “I love you.”
A few minutes later…all on her own…I heard her tell her little sister in all sincerity, “I’m sorry I was mean to you.”
THIS is what happens when you don’t spank your children.
Had I still been a spanking parent…this would have ended in 30 seconds with a few whacks of a paddle, resulting in tears of pain and an obligatory apology. But instead it took 10 minutes and ended in tears of thankfulness and understanding.
NOT spanking is more painful for the (usually busy) parent in that it takes a lot longer to handle things…and takes a lot more mental energy, willpower, maturity, thoughtfulness, and creativeness on the part of the parent…but the results are worth the effort.
There are a few points I want to cover in this post. I know I keep saying this stuff in different ways over and over again, but until the abuse of children ends, I will never stop speaking out for children. After all, children are human beings!
So let’s get started!
The first thing that struck me as I half watched the video of the kindergartener about to be paddled/hit at that school in Georgia was the paddle was almost as big as him! A small child got hit by a big wooden paddle. Am I the only one who sees a major problem with this? I can’t even imagine how painful and scary that was. We had a paddle with holes in it at my house growing up and I was terrified of it even though, thankfully, I was never hit with it. But I saw it used on my siblings.
Hitting a small child with a big paddle can cause major injury. And from the testimonies I have heard from people who were paddled at school, the staff don’t hold back much when hitting the children. This is very disturbing. And even if they flick their wrist first, most children have lower pain tolerances than adults do. I can guarantee that kindergartener was in a lot of pain after the spanking/hitting which is not a good thing!
Imagine having to sit the rest of the day in a hard desk after being hit hard by a wooden paddle that was almost as big as you! Could you focus? Could you learn? Of course not! Research shows that pain and fear inhibit learning. Plus, Kindergarteners should be playing, not sitting in desks!
Corporal punishment should never be used with children! It is time to ban it in all schools and homes! It is not your “right to hit your child with a paddle, wooden spoon, paint stick, tree branch, or hand.” Can you imagine how scary school is for the children in the nineteen states that still allow corporal punishment in schools? It does not make children better behaved either.
So, how would I handle a child who spit? I would explain that spitting is gross and would have given him alternative ways of handling conflict after hearing what happened from both children. I would guide them through conflict resolution. And I would have told the child that he may spit outside on the ground or in the bathroom toilet.
It’s all about being willing to discipline (teach and guide) instead of punishing them.
After all, paddles are for boats, NOT for hitting children!
My husband and I recently took a family trip to Florida. It was an absolutely wonderful trip. I got to meet a couple of my gentle parenting Facebook friends and their children during the trip.
It was interesting though because there were a few conversations about parents not “controlling” (I hate the word “control” when it comes to children. Children are not for controlling!) their children by a few people who don’t completely understand about gentle parenting. It did seem though that what they described, children running around a restaurant with no boundaries, was permissive parenting.
Sadly, many people mistake gentle parenting for permissive parenting. These two styles of parenting are completely different! Let me define them before I talk about why permissive parenting is hurting the gentle parenting movement.
There are actually three parenting styles. These three parenting styles are authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive. If parents physically punish their children, they are authoritarian, even if they do some of the things that authoritative parents do such as listening to their children at times or offer some choices to the children. This is because authoritarian parenting stresses obedience without question, first-time obedience, strictness, and the use of punishment, especially corporal punishment, with their children.
Authoritarian parents also have very high (usually beyond what the children are developmentally capable of) expectations for their children. While authoritarian parents, in general, love their children very much and simply want the best for them, these parents tend to focus more on keeping control of their children than on using effective discipline strategies that respect the actual needs of the individual child.
Authoritative parents are firm but gentle with their children. They take the time to learn about child development and know at which stage their children are developmentally in order to gain a better understanding of their children’s behaviors.
Authoritative parents set firm, realistic boundaries and limits for their children based on the developmental stage of their children. While these parents stick to their guns on some things, such as bedtime and not allowing their children to eat cookies before suppertime, they always listen to all of their children’s feelings and validate those feelings.
In situations where negotiation can occur, such as allowing five more minutes of playtime before having their children clean up, these parents do so. These parents also give their children simple choices when appropriate, but they are not afraid to let their children know when something is not a choice and cooperation is absolutely required. When children don’t cooperate, authoritative parents will gently but firmly help their children cooperate. And these parents use natural and logical consequences with their children instead of punishment.
Permissive parenting, on the other hand, is the direct opposite of authoritarian parenting. Permissive parenting is just as harmful and abusive to children as authoritarian parenting, even though these two parenting styles are on the two polar ends when it comes to parenting styles.
Permissive parents do not set limits or boundaries for their children. And when these parents do set limits and boundaries for their children, they often don’t consistently enforce them. Some permissive parents allow their children to “walk all over them,” to have whatever they want, and rarely do these parents give their children appropriate consequences when necessary.
Other permissive parents outright neglect all of their children’s needs. They do not even give their children appropriate and necessary care. All of permissive parenting, as I said above, is abusive because either type does not provide children with what they need to thrive. It also exasperates and frustrates children not to have any discipline just like spanking them does. Permissive and authoritarian parents break God’s charge for parents not to frustrate or exasperate their children in Ephesians 6:4 and Colossians 3:21.
So when I hear about parents letting their preschool children run around in a restaurant, I cringe. Everyone there was probably thinking, “Parents today let their kids run wild. I wish they’d spank those brats.” Spanking/hitting those preschoolers would not teach them how to behave in a restaurant. Rather, spanking/hitting them would teach fear which is not a good thing.
Plus, referring to children in a derogatory manner is never good. But permissive parenting brings out the authoritarians with force.
So, how would a gentle (authoritative) parent handle this situation? First, they would have been practicing in a fun, playful way how to eat at a restaurant. They would have been modeling manners from the time the children were infants.
Second, they would know that young children can’t sit quietly for long periods of time and would have brought crayons and paper for the children to color. They also would have engaged the children in the family conversation.
Third, they would have ordered the food as soon as possible so the children didn’t have to wait as long.
And finally, if the children would have gotten antsy and started running around, the gentle parent would have stopped them and perhaps they would have left early.
Yes, gentle parents allow their children to be children, which for authoritarian parents, this may look like permissiveness because the children aren’t being “controlled,” but it isn’t. It’s respecting the children for who they are.
I had the pleasure of going out to eat with a gentle family while in Florida and the children were excellent! They were allowed to play quietly at the table. They were included in the conversation. Not once did they act up.
Respected children are better behaved because they are seen and treated like the little people that they are. Their needs are met. They are taught right from wrong without it being scary. They are aware of limits and consequences.
Permissive parenting does not treat children as little people. Children are not taught right from wrong. And they crave limits and consequences.
Worse yet, people mistake permissive parenting with gentle parenting!
If these people could hang out with children who are gentle parented, they would never confuse it with permissiveness. They also would be against spanking/hitting and other forms of punishment because gentle parented children are amazing!
Yes, all children have their not so nice moments, but hey, so do I. What I see in children who are respected is that they have empathy and can eventually put themselves in other’s shoes as that is how their parents teach them. They also don’t need to act up to get attention because attention is automatically given to them. And they don’t regularly get put in situations where it’s too much for them to handle.
Permissive parenting creates self-entitled and struggle in life just as spanked/hit children do. They don’t learn self-control either which can lead them down a bad road.
Gentle, authoritative, attachment parenting is truly the best way to raise children. Yes, there will be times when gentle parents lean toward authoritarianism or permissiveness depending on the situation, and that is okay. But people should be able to look at a family and tell if they are gentle.
I’m asking all parents to please look at your parenting and make sure you are in the authoritative, gentle, respectful parenting style. Stop making people confuse the three parenting styles. Make authoritarian parents want to come to the middle and become authoritative.
Respectful adults come from children who were respected throughout childhood!
I continue to ask this question every time I see a “Christian” claim that children must be spanked/hit in order to receive forgiveness and understand God’s mercy someday.
But God doesn’t do this to us. All we, adults, have to do to be forgiven by God is ask God to forgive us. God never punishes us before forgiving us and extending His amazing grace and love to us. So why is it supposedly different for children?
Guess what! It isn’t! Nowhere in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, does it say that children must pay a price for forgiveness. In fact, this is what the Bible says about mercy, and it applies to children too:
Titus 3:3-7, NASB:
“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”
So, yes, God’s mercy, grace, forgiveness, and love is for children too!
I’ve had many Christian pro-spankers say that I was doing the work of the “devil” after engaging in discussions about why spanking/hitting children is neither Biblical nor from God. When some of these people learn about my book, Gentle Firmness: Conveying the True Love of Jesus to Your Children Through His Example, they get even angrier and say that I am from the “evil one.”
It turns out that I am in awesome company when it comes to being accused of being from satan when it comes to teaching and promoting peace, love, mercy, forgiveness, and healing. Jesus Himself was accused of being from satan after healing a blind and mute man in Matthew 12:22-37.
Let’s look at that passage:
“Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw. All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, “This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?” But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons.”
And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand.
If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.
He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.
“Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit.
You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:22-37, NASB).
Here Jesus did something awesome by healing a man and what did the people around Him do? They questioned who in the world He was. Then the Pharisees concluded that Jesus must be “satan.”
I love how Jesus answered them by pointing out:
“And knowing their thoughts Jesus said to them, ‘Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand? If I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? For this reason they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.’” (Matthew 12:25-28, NASB).
What Jesus was saying was that satan cannot and would not drive out his own demon. Also, it is interesting that throughout this chapter whenever Jesus did something good and right but contradictory to the Law, the Pharisees and other teachers of the Law of Moses got angry and accused Jesus of doing the devil’s work. I find this interesting because there is no good in satan.
Yes, satan disguises himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14) because, after all, he was once an angel full of God’s light before he got proud and fell, but there is no good or light in satan. Satan comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Jesus, on the other hand, comes to give life abundantly (John 10:10).
So, why would supposedly “God-loving Christians” accuse other Christians who are trying to teach Truth and peace regarding how God wants us to treat our children of doing satan’s work and/or of being heretical? And why do they actually boast and laugh about hurting their children in Jesus’s name?
I believe the passage above has our answer. Let’s look at the end of that passage.
“Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good; and the evil man brings out of his evil treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:33-37, NASB).
As I discuss in great detail in my book, most Christian pro-spankers were “lovingly” spanked/hit by their parents, and thus, have the message literally ingrained in their brains that having been spanked/hit in Jesus’s Name was good and right. They have denied and repressed the physical and emotional pain of being hurt by their parents.
Therefore, as this passage points out, a good tree will bear good fruit and a bad tree will bear bad fruit. We can force our children to behave exactly how we want them to behave, but this does not guarantee that they’ll have pure hearts and will bear good fruit. In fact, spanking/hitting children tends to make them angry and resentful. As Greven (1992) states:
“Anger is a child’s best (and often only) defense, for it arises out of a powerful sense of self, a self being violated and abused by painful blows and hurtful words. The child has been hurt on purpose (bolding for emphasis by author) by an adult in order to teach a lesson in discipline, but the child experiences this pain and reproach as an assault upon the self as well as upon the body. Often the result is not only anger but also hatred and a powerful desire for revenge, which often takes the form of imagined mutilation or murder of the person who inflicted the pain. These powerful emotions are permanently stored in unconscious memories, but sometimes people also remember them quite consciously, years after the events that provoked the feelings” (p. 124).
The devil is our accuser. He is the one who puts us down and tries to get God to be mad at us.
“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down’” (Revelation 12:10, NASB).
So when angry “Christian” pro-spankers hurl accusations at those who are trying to help them see and understand God’s amazing love for all of us, especially children, God’s love does not shine through them. Only anger and hate comes through. The Bible makes it very clear that we are to love and bless each other and leave revenge up to God.
“Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. “BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:9-21, NASB).
Yes, we are to gently correct each other of sin according to Galatians 6:1-2, but the key word is gently, because accusing people and inflicting pain on them only causes fear and defensiveness. Jesus told it like it was with the Teachers of the Law, but He was always gentle. And no, He did not hit anyone with the whip He made to drive everyone out of the Temple. He loved people.
He still loves us and uses His gentle love to bring us to Him so that we may be saved.
“Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:4, NASB).
Christ does not hurt, accuse, insult, or punish us to make us come to Him. He offers love, mercy, grace, and forgiveness to us. He is the Prince of Peace.
However, satan hurts, accuses, insults, steals, kills, and destroys. Do you really think satan wants us to discipline (teach and guide) our children in a graceful manner without inflicting pain? Jesus created children. He knows how vulnerable the young brain is and how harmful spanking/hitting is to that young, vulnerable brain. Why would the Prince of Peace who, despite being absolutely sinless, suffered and died for all of humanity’s sins call us to physically punish our children for their mistakes?
Out of our mouths come the things that are in our hearts.
I leave us with a beautiful passage that describes exactly who Jesus is.
“Like a shepherd He will tend His flock,
In His arm He will gather the lambs
And carry them in His bosom;
He will gently lead the nursing ewes” (Isaiah 40:11, NASB).
Disciplining With Gentle Firmness 