“Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?” - 1 Kings 3:9 (ESV)

Parents are not typically kings and queens of nations in addition to being parents. Nevertheless, many parents can sympathize with King Solomon’s preoccupations and worries regarding his ability to govern the nation of Israel. Solomon recognizes various important points in his prayer that are also good for parents to remember: first, he sees himself as Yahweh’s servant. Parents should see themselves as servants of God first too. Second, Solomon knows he needs a mind full of understanding so that he can discern between good and evil. He does not know these things by default, but needs to learn them. And third, Solomon recognizes that he is inadequate to govern God’s people; the task is beyond his ability apart from help. All of these principles are true of us parents as well, aren’t they? 

 This post includes five more general principles for discipline. By sharing these general principles, my hope is that parents from a variety of cultural backgrounds will recognize transcendent biblical wisdom to apply to their specific contexts. 

Discipline should never be harmful

It should go without saying that discipline should never be harmful. The difficulty, of course, is in defining what counts as harmful. There are schools of thought, mostly rooted in what is known as Attachment Theory, that see most forms of discipline as harmful. This is because Attachment Theory holds that any form of separation or disapproval by parents, especially the mother, negatively and potentially permanently impacts the development of children. Attachment Theory is quite simply wrong and must be rejected by Christians. The Bible grounds for parents what is harmful and what is not harmful. The Bible presents beatings, rejection, harshness, and vengeance as harmful to people, including children. 

Discipline needs to include understanding the child

This may be the most ignored and under-estimated aspect in the entire question of how to discipline children. Each child is different from the next. Children have unique motives, desires, and intentions. Why a child does something is as important as what a child does, because every action any person takes is a step in a particular direction. Many steps counted together constitute a way of life, or how a person “walks” in life. Think of the many passages that use walking as a metaphor for how a person lives (e.g., Psalm 1, 15, 26; Acts 14:16; Ephesians 2:2, 10; 4:1, 17; 5:2, 8, 15; that is just a sampling). When a kid does something wrong, parents must prioritize understanding, as much as is possible, why the child did what they did. Some parents think it is impossible, but it is not. Some parents are unused to examining their own hearts to understand why they do the things they do. This is a tragedy that must be remedied. Parents have little hope of understanding their children apart from a solid self-understanding. Why do children do what they do? Many parents shrug their shoulders and show their palms to the sky. This is unhelpful and unnecessary. Children are understandable, but it takes work and real interest. I am running a few minutes late; my previous meeting is running over. 

It is possible, and necessary, to produce theories for why a child does what he does. Some parents are hesitant to do this because they do not want to judge hearts, or because they believe it is impossible, or because they don’t want to be wrong. Inevitably, however, parents connect what their children do to a larger narrative, which includes by definition a theory of why children do what they do. Parents who believe it is humble and right not to judge their children’s behavior will find it an impossible standard to keep. This is because, in constructing a narrative or story around the child’s behavior, parents connect events prior to children’s behavior to the behavior that is a problem. Whatever connection parents make represents some form of belief about what led to their children’s behavior, and a belief about what leads to a child’s behavior is a way of saying what causes a child’s behavior. It is at this point that I have seen parents become frustrated, sometimes extremely so. They sometimes appear trapped and surprised, trapped because constructing a reason for why their child did what he did is inescapable, and surprised because they also thought they were doing something right but now realize it is wrong.  

Once parents discover that interpretation and judgment are inevitable, they sometimes jump to conclusions about their children and make facile and reductive judgments. They might say things like, “He always…,” or “She only cares about …” Such absolute judgments are typically wrong because even a child’s behavior is complex. There are usually multiple motives and reasons behind any particular behavior, and reducing a child’s behavior to a single reason or explanation does not promote understanding, but misunderstanding. 

Discipline needs to include instruction.

Discipline is not sufficiently accomplished if there is no instruction. The Book of Proverbs is full of pleas from parents describing the way in which their sons should walk, meaning how they should live. God instructs His people over and over again regarding how they should live in the Old Testament, especially through His prophets. We see the same thing in the New Testament Gospels and epistles. Parents are called to bring up their children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4). Discipline is not comprised of merely doling out painful consequences for sin. There needs to be instruction about how a child ought to live, what choices ought to be made, and why.  

Discipline does not need to take an excessive amount of time

There are some recommendations for discipline that require a parent to spend something like fifteen minutes or more every time a child has to be disciplined. The majority of the time is spent with the parent and child talking. The fewer the kids are in the home, the more possible this is. The more children are in the home, the less possible it is. Discipline is too multi-faceted, too complex, too involved, to prescribe in detail how it should be conducted. The different kinds of circumstances and occasions are manifold. I have seen a few proposals for how discipline should work, but I have rarely heard someone with multiple children describe discipline as anything other than requiring great creativity and improvisation. Perhaps especially in the case of, say, mothers in the home during the day with young children, there are multiple things that need to be juggled at once, with different priorities vying for supremacy. Laundry needs to be started, meals need to be saved from being burnt, other children need to be kept from danger, and yes, one or more children need some form of discipline. Discipline will not always include a significant time investment, and that must be ok.  

Discipline should be connected to the gospel

The more I write about discipline, the more important each aspect of discipline appears to be. The connection between the gospel and discipline should be clear in parents’ minds. What is the connection? There are many potential connections. As parents think of their children, they should be seeking to model and communicate the gospel in their discipline. Parents should share with children about the love of God through Christ Jesus. The gospel contains within it a worldview because it answers the biggest and most comprehensive questions that can be asked. Why do I exist? What is wrong with me? Is there any hope? What happens in the future? The gospel answers that we exist because God created us, but the world fell into sin through the first man, and so death and sin spread to all people, and the whole world is condemned by God as deserving His condemnation. But Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who became a man to die in our place and rise again so that each person who trusts in Him can live with Him and His people forever in a new heaven and earth. How could these things not affect the way we discipline? 

Conclusion

In this post, I have argued that discipline should never harm children, that parents should seek to understand their children, and that discipline should include instruction, not take a prescribed amount of time, and include the gospel. Each of these aspects of discipline make their own contribution to parents being able to discern between good and evil regarding the discipline of their children. They also are intended to contribute to parents having the kind of understanding mind that Solomon knew he needed to be able to govern God’s people. By God’s grace, parents can continue to grow in their understanding of discipline and how to conduct it in a way that shows love to their children and honor to the Lord.