Determined Discipline -- Deflecting Disorder

Discipline and Parenthood

As it is with every blog I write, I ink it out on paper then translate it onto this site. I try to bring my audience closer and closer to the reasoning on how it relates to me... So please bare with me and pardon any context that disturbs you. I am going to extend my "freedom of speech".

The battlefield, in my home growing up was a horrid affair. Fists, words, actions, forks, spoons, paddles, electric cords, shoes, hammers, books, and basically anything within reach was used as a weapon. Abuse ran ramped throughout the home. Broken spirits, broken home, broken hearts, and a broken family is all I had to show for the abysmal failure that equaled my life.

Thank God that my past does not determine my future. My future, my life, is determined by my choices after the fact. I can still do anything that I want...

So, now as an adult, what I have to show for that traumatic childhood are scars that are now blessed. Please don't be confused. My scars show that those events are no longer festering wounds of affliction. They have healed in the best way possible, and in the end, have helped strengthen my own testimony of life, love, and God. Coming to that resounding foundation in one's self and in God took many hills and valleys, and was many years in the making. But, in the end, it is an essential part of me.

But why burden you with a heavy heart over my strife? Simply put, all homes and families are a battlefield. Some just fight the battles with tools of love. And I hope, using the coming sermons, people gain a perspective into their own relationships with their family and God.

Discipline is not about being mean. It is a correction driven by love.

It is not something that you do to your child, but for your child...

"A child who has not been disciplined with love by his little world will be disciplined without love by the great big world." Zig Ziglar

So, if you have been paying attention so far, you might realize that the responsibility falls on our shoulders. It is our burden to bear for the rest of their lives. There are many types of parents, and we are going to go over a few and see if some of the readers can relate. Maybe finding kinks in their own chain, they can strengthen themselves for their children.

• Lifeguard Parents... They rescue a child from the consequences of their actions. As much as we all want to be stunning beauties from Baywatch, we can not do this, for it will be detrimental to our children. Just remember the best lessons in life are learned the hardest of ways...
• Etch-A-Sketch Parents... No it's not like Pastor Mark said, "A Redneck Laptop." These parents are consistently inconsistent. Drawing lines, or boundaries, one day. Then shaking things up, and the next day those boundaries do not exist. If you keep your word to God, then why not keep your word to your child? Do not confuse them.
• Split-Decision Parents... Those that are un-unified. Parents, even those from a broken home, need to have a unified stance in front of their children.
  

No matter what parent you might be, you expect first-time and cheerful obedience from your children. And that is what God expects of us.

So make these vows to yourself and your child:

• Agree to never discipline in anger.

• Discipline promptly and with instruction and reconciliation.

1. Instruction -- Ask your child, "What did you do wrong?" or "How could you handle it better next time?"
   
2. Reconciliation -- Do everything in love. Once it is resolved don't bring it up again. God does not do this with us. He forgives and forgets. We have to do this with our children or we burden them with more than they carry.

Point your children to the cross of Christ.

We may never get where we thought we would in the end. We can live on through the wisdom and faith in God that we instill in our children.

In honor of Mother's Day, and parenting in general, I thought I would leave you with something special that I wrote for someone that needed to hear it...

"The True Measure of A Mother...

Is Not Whom You Birth...

But Rather Whom You Love... "