Third in a series of 4 parenting myths.
I got a call telling me I needed to immediately come to the school. I was directed to the assistant principal’s office where I met him and my oldest son. Joel had been caught shooting paper clips with a rubber band during class.
The assistant principal began explaining to my junior high son the dangers of this behavior, why the school couldn’t permit it, and blah, blah, blah, blah blah. I sat patiently listening but thinking, “This is a total waste of breath.” Joel knows what he did was wrong and I know what will keep him from doing it again … and it isn’t a lecture on the dangers of sharp projectiles around soft eye tissue.
Myth #3 – It’s important we talk with our children about their feelings and try to understand why they’re misbehaving.
I agree that sometimes it’s important to understand why our child is misbehaving. ****
But most of the time we make this far more complicated than it really is.
Why do kids misbehave? Because it’s more fun to do what they want to do than what we want them to do.
Why was Joel shooting paper clips? Because it was more fun than listening to a boring lecture on English grammar.
Why won’t your son stop playing with his friends and clean up his room?
Why won’t your three year old put down the toy and get in the car when it’s time to go?
Why won’t your daughter go to bed without a drawn out fight?
In each of these cases there is a greater reward in disobeying, resisting or putting up a fight than in obeying. If you want your children to obey, you have to change that.
When “the happy way is to obey” your children will obey.
Not perfectly and not all the time but they are more likely to obey if they know for certain the consequences for disobedience are unpleasant enough that it’s not worth it.
In other words, if our kids regularly ignore us it’s because we have trained them that it’s more rewarding to ignore us than to obey us.
“If I don’t listen I get to play longer.
I won’t have to clean up my room.
Mom will give up and do the chore for me.”
If we make obedience the path of least resistance our children will choose it more often than the hard path of disobedience.
And isn’t that how life works and how God deals with us?
Let’s make sure “The happy way is to obey” and “the way of the transgressor is hard.”
Happy is he who keeps the law…but the way of transgressors is hard.
Proverbs 29:18 & Proverbs 13:15
*** If unpleasant consequences consistently do not produce obedience there may be other issues that require attention. In this story the reward for disobedience was so great that consequences did not matter. The parents had to find another solution.
Myth #4 – Next time.
Spanking teaches violence, is not effective and should not be used.
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