The Narrow Path Ministries

As a parent, what is your approach to discipline and why?

What methods of discipline do you use?
(i.e. Timeouts, spanking, etc)

Hi Dave,

My wife and I use both positive and negative forms of behavior re-inforcement. When they behave as they should, we let them know that it pleases us.

As far as negative consequences go, it depends upon the offense. We use a combination of "timeouts" and spankings as the situation deems appropriate.

We like to reserve spanking for the more serious offenses which fall into the category of the 3 "D's". (Dishonesty, Disrespect, and Disobedience).

"Timeouts" serve as more of a warning that we are displeased with the behavior they are exhibiting at the time.

Spankings take much longer than do timeouts because we want to make sure we do it in a way that makes our children understand why they are being punished in this manner. We spend a lot of time after a spanking discussing the seriousness of the wrong behavior, our responsibility as parents before God to correct the behavior, and the positive results of the right behavior. It's more of a dialogue than a lecture so they can work it out in their own minds and take ownership of it. I think it also helps them understand that we as parents are being obedient to God when we punish them rather than just exercising our autocratic authority over them because we are physically able to.

We also pray with our children afterwards for help behaving correctly in the future and have them apologize to God, to us, and to anyone else they have wronged.

The spanking usually ends on a very positive note. Some of my most precious and loving moments with my kids have been during this time after a spanking. I think that both they and us feel that the situation has been resolved and "atonement" (if I may use that word) has been made so that we can all move on and put it behind us.

I don't know if our approach is the best one, but our kids are pretty well behaved and we have noticed that we don't have to spank very often when we remain consistent with our discipline.

Excessive warnings are an ineffective parenting trap IMO. Kids tend to push the limits when there are too many empty warnings. I've seen it way too often.

Anyway, that's our approach currently. I would also like to hear some opinions from others as well. I'm always up for gleaning the wisdom of parents that have gone before me.

Lord bless.

Christopher,

My wife and I essentially follow the same approach with one addition. If there is a more natural consequence that can be safely endured by our children, then we'll apply that as well.

For example, my son and I attend a mid-week Bible Study, which he loves. Afterward, he plays with friends, but he must stay in a common area. Last week, he followed some of his friends down a hallway away from this common area. When we got home that evening, he got a spanking. Before we left for this week's Bible study, he was warned that if he couldn't obey and stay in the common area, he would be able to go to Bible study for a while. He obeyed this time, and actually kept telling me that he didn't "go down the hall". This seems to be fairly impactful.