Disciplinary Program’s Step by Step

Let's look at the first step, establish the rules that will be enforced in your home. These rules will be based on the definition of agape love in I Corinthians 13: 4-8. You go back to your definitions of each element of Agape love that you studied. You're teaching the parents about what love is and isn't. You're showing them that love is patient and kind. The rules have to work with, helping the children see when they're not patient or kind. You're also saying that love is not some things like envious, boastful, proud, selfish. So, you're looking for places where the children break those. I can give you a real simple example: they walk by each other and smack each other. That's rude, because usually when they do it and you get the resulting whine from the child. I'm thinking of my own two children from my first marriage. My son and daughter are about four years apart, and my daughter was wonderful at being the victim. Every time my son would walk by her, he would hit her, and then I would hear this high-pitched whiny scream. I asked my son what was going on. He would always say, “Nothing, Dad, I don't know what she's yelling about. I didn't touch her.”  When I found her, she had big tears rolling down her face, and she'd point at him and she'd say, “He hit me”. She neglected to tell me about all the times that she had taunted him, harassed him, and pinched him when I wasn't looking. So, I had to have a rule that says not to be rude or pretend you don't know what you're doing. We would discuss their behaviors and let them know it was not acceptable and how it is better to talk about what is bother us. When my children were older, now in my second marriage, we set up some other guidelines about behavior so that our home was not filled with hate, arguing and fighting. Instead, it was under the control and authority of God and His love. See our Discipline Family Agreement example.

If we bring children into our home, and we have predetermined that in that home, the person of Jesus Christ is going to control how we treat each other, how we solve problems, there won't be yelling or screaming or fighting, there won't be disrespect for property. There will be a willingness to resolve conflict through submission, prayer and time. Grace will be given to everybody, and we will give each other second chances. Then a real startling thing happens to that choice that you have made as a parent. Before you have a family, you dream about this wonderful family, where everybody loves each other. When you have a child, you look at this warm little bundle of joy, and you bring them home excitedly, amidst all the baby clothes, baby powder and diapers and the relatives. You forget one simple point found in Jeremiah 17:9, that says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” In other words, the heart, the mind, the will, the intellect of a child, is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it.” Our will and motives are focused on one thing: I want what I want, and I don't care what it takes to get it!  When you totally ignore your own level of accountability and responsibility, almost wistfully, decide that this little cute bundle of baby powdered smell good, blue-eyed joy isn't like that. Wouldn't do that. We set ourselves up for failure and heartache and despair. 

There's a predisposition toward sin in each child, that shows up as the child grows and becomes more independent. The parents have to make a decision to educate them, so that whatever age that child is, they parent spiritually by helping the child as he or she ages and becomes accountable for their choices. There will come a point in time when they've heard the gospel, they've heard the truth. They've seen consequences and choices. Ultimately, they will face a very important one. Do they put these things they have learned over the years from their parents into place, or do they turn their back on everything that makes them accountable. Do they choose to live a righteous life, loving God so that they can have the goodness that God wants for them. Or do they turn their back on all they learned and follow the predictable pattern of sin and consequences, misery and suffering. 

The following discussion in the text, is what I have learned from not only my professional experience, but also my personal experiences as a parent. The dialogue in the text is for you as a parent, grandparent and/or for you as a counselor. Be gentle, wise and discerning when giving feedback to the parents. Yet, the following dialogue is just that, how to support, teach and guide the parents who come to you for help with their child(ren).

As their counselor, tell the parent(s) something like, “You must base the rules on the things that God says are what they should strive towards. He will provide salvation that their submission will bring about. Anything that is disrespectful, manipulative, demeaning, destructive, hateful, mocking, sarcastic, lazy, rebellious, irresponsible, should be addressed in a rule, since this is ‘what love is not’. It can be a rule, like you'll put your clothes away, you don't throw them in the middle of the floor. It'll be you don't smack your sibling. It'll be you don't tell tales on your sibling. You don't put your shoes on the furniture. It may be that you don't back talk when you're disciplined. It may be when you're being disciplined, you don't march down the hall and pound the walls and stamp your feet. It may be that when you're in your room, you don't scream and yell and pound the door. Think about those things that make the child appear to be destructive and manipulative.”

I next tell the parents, “Once you've made those rules, and tell the parents think and pray about these things, ask the Holy Spirit to give insight into what you need to do with your children, what rules you need to have.” And once they establish them, they can change them. They need to add more, because sometimes kids get creative and make new ways to try to get around you. Now that there is accountability, tell them that they can add new rules. Also, the rules and the consequences have to change in relation to the age of the child. The next step, under number one, says that we should share these rules with your child, or children, and ask them if there are any that they would like to add. You retain the ultimate veto power over their suggestions and overall rules. The reason for sharing it is to try to soften the blow a little bit. In other words, say, here are the rules. Here's what we're going to start to do. You can give me some input, but I will control them ultimately what they are. Discuss the things that they think are the most problematic. Because they don't think they have a right to do this, or they don't have a sense of how to do this, talk with them and lead them through this. Sometimes you can help them get started by typing them on your computer or write them on a white board as you discuss options. Step two says, “establish the following procedure for enforcing the rules and relate the procedures to the children before implementation. Do not vary from this procedure. You must be consistent. This is usually part of what has been wrong. Consistency is of vital importance to the success of this program.” 

The next discussion needs to be about consequences, simply loss of privileges, isolation or payment for the behavior. If you look on page two of this this disciplinary process, you will see examples of consequences at the bottom of the page. Some of the examples are: 1) menial tasks, like writing out what was done wrong, say, 10 or 15 times, 2) losing privileges such as TV or phone in increments of time such as 5, 10 or 15 minutes at a time, 3) bike riding in increments of time, half hour, hour, hour and a half, etc., 4) isolation in a room for 15, 30, or 45 minutes at a time, or 5) spanking if there is an act of open defiance. For example, when I first moved into a home, there were a lot of dead trees and branches in the backyard of this house. For our consequences, the first one would be that the child went out in the backyard and picked up 25 sticks, put them in a bag, brought them back in the house, counted them out, and then we talked about what had happened and why. Now that might sound real silly, but the point of a consequence is that it needs to be short, it needs to be simple, and it needs to be something that can be repeated. 

One of the major mistakes you will hear parents say is that they ground their kids for two weeks, or a month, or the whole summer. The child gets angry because of the unfairness of the consequence. In other words, they don't learn anything. If the consequence is so heavy and laborious, there isn't any learning. The whole point of the parenting plan is using rules and consequences to make the child go through repetition in order to learn how to self-regulate his or her actions. This repetition keeps them from getting into how unfair it is. They're constantly faced with their bad choice to break the rule, resulted in the consequence. That's exactly how Jesus loves us. He parents us, in a sense, by giving us free will and the presence of the Holy Spirit. We have the right to choices and multiple different situations in which we do just that, we make choices. He wants to teach us and educate us so we understand what we do, which is the power and the strength, where it comes from to change. If we understand that God is helping us live through His grace and guidance, then we can learn to parent through the same means. Being heavy handed and having hard, long, enduring unreasonable consequences, we do not example how the Lord teaches us. Parents’ underlying motives (fear of child’s future misbehavior, anger triggered by disrespect or false sense of control or power), are revealed and surrendered to God in order to love their child to learn and grow from their misbehavior.  Instead, these harsh consequences cause the child to get bitter and angry. For example, when my children would fight, I would say to them, “I need to give you a warning. If you do that again, if you make that choice, you'll have a first consequence.” Then adding, “If you want to continue playing outside with your friends, you will choose not to argue and fight. “ Showing your children that many activities, including freedom to choose what they want to do, is a privilege to continue or choice to lose through disobedience. And then I would let them make their choice. They don't believe you when you first start this. They will be amazed that you all do it, and you are consistent, because you never have been before. 

The motivation for the parent is a realization that they weren't loving their child. They weren't letting Jesus give them love, and they weren't necessarily loving him. They have a strong desire to change, especially the active-sincere. Let me give you another example of consequences. In one case that I had, a girl who was about eight years old and extremely strong-willed, and the single parent lived on a third floor of a condominium with a gravel driveway. Her consequence was to go downstairs, pick up 10 stones, put them in a sack, bring them upstairs and dump them out, count them. And then her mother would say, “Do you want to talk about why you had to do that?” It was a pretty warm July day when we instituted this, and she went up and down those steps about six times. When she came up the last time, and her mother said, “Do you want to talk about why you had to do this? The girl said, “I know exactly why: I back talked to you. I got a smart mouth. I say stuff I shouldn't. I'm disrespectful. And if I want to quit climbing up and down these silly steps, I need to change my choice.” And that's the whole point of what you're trying to do. Set up repetitious, non-emotional consequences, so that you can keep bringing the child back to the fact that he or she is making a choice, which is not acceptable: like being rude, proud, or selfish. You are not mad at him, but you won't accept it either. 

The most important issue of these rules is consistency. Now what this means is that, in the past, the child knew how many times to prod or harass or poke the parent about an issue like going to bed. That's an excellent example, because a child will have figured out how many times the parent says go to bed, before they have to really to go to bed. It might be seven times. The child learns how to interpret the parent’s tone of voice and body language. In reality the parent is begging that child to respect their authority. The rules establish the boundaries for the child's behavior. The warning establishes the structure for accountability. So instead of telling the child to go to bed eight times, you say a rule has been broken. State that this is a warning. The rule says that when I tell you to go to bed, you are to obey by doing all of the things to get ready and then, go to bed. After giving the child the warning, you explain what they did wrong and you give them another chance to make a good choice.  Tell them at the consequence and privilege is if they choose (which is a critical word) to not go to bed. You broke the rule, I warned you and I will not discipline you this time. It is important for parents to use words like, “if you choose to break the rule again.” The point of this is helping your child to use his or her brain rather than emotions to make choices. When they break the rule, to talk to them about the reality that unless we're changed through salvation and led by the Holy Spirit, we will not make the right choice with the privilege to live with God forever. You can explain that our wrong choices come from our innate desire to sin and rebel against God. You just made the wrong choice, but God will help you learn to make the right ones. That is how I live. Explain how God has helped you overcome one of your areas of difficulty. If you choose to break the rule again, you will have chosen the first consequence and state whatever that is tomorrow during their play time. They are finding your consistency in following through with what you have said. You give them a second chance to make the right choice. 

The next day you remind them why they have to do the consequence during their play time. That night the same rule applies and they have the same choice to make again. Go to bed, and that's all you say. In other words, they have to face the same thought process again, only if they break the rule the second time, the consequence will increase. The consequences always have to be progressive in their effect. The second consequence will be done the following day so as to not delay the bedtime. 

After the rule is broken the first time, and the consequence has been done, sit down and talk with your child. The purpose of this conversation, this is very important, is to give the child an opportunity to discuss the choice that he or she made, which led to the consequence. This is not a time to force their repentance, but to provide the same atmosphere which God gives us for repentance. Some parents hate this, because they see their job as controlling their child. “I'm supposed to make this child do what's right. I've got to get them to say the words. I must make them face their problems. They need to change.” All of that may be true, but that is not how God deals with us. He doesn't force us to change. You can't say to the child, “I represent Jesus Christ and you listen to me. You know what you did was wrong. I want you to say you are sorry for disobeying me.”  It says the child may not accept this. Whether he or she does or doesn't, is not the point. As a parent, your job is to be an image of Christ and to provide the setting, the environment, the place for learning, growth, repentance and change, but not on your time schedule or the way it should be done. It's up to the child. You can model, you can lead, you can help, you can teach, you can instruct. But ultimately, it's up to the child to choose to embrace the lifestyle of Christ. You can’t force that to happen. If you live like Christ, and model it through providing choices and consequences, rather than anger, be clear minded rather than emotional and controlling. But the actual, literal choice belongs to the child, and that's not something a parent can take away and do them a lick of good.

Do the same when they follow the rules, chores and positive behaviors, whether at school, home, with friends or at church. Such as before going to sleep, acknowledge to them what you saw or heard about their positive behaviors and what they remember. Help the child understand his or her own actions; by asking them to reflect over their day, what they are thankful for and their choices.. You are trying to help them learn about making choices and having consequences (positive, negative or both), to prepare them for real life.

As her daughter followed the chore of putting her clothes away upstairs in her bedroom, the mother said to her daughter, “I like how you put your clothes away without being told, that a responsible young lady.” The young girl learned from her past poor choices, such as when the little girl came up the steps for the “umpteenth time”, the mother asked, “Do you want to talk about why this is the sixth time you've walked up and down these steps” And if you don't, that's fine. And if you do, then I will talk with you. What is your choice, daughter? What do you want to do?” When you ask this, you are giving them another choice rather than controlling them. If they don't, I don't want to talk about it, you say, “Okay, but if you choose to break the rule again, the next consequence will be somewhat worse and will take more time to do. I love you. I just don't like the choice you're making. It's not good for you, and I believe that you can make a better choice, and that you can have better consequences.” You can offer to pray with the child. Do you want to think, talk, pray for help with these things?” Or ask questions or pray about what it means when the Bible or teacher at church talks about salvation, the work of the Holy Spirit?

Be open to share how God has changed your heart and mind, including your decisions and why. What God's love is about, what kind of personality the child has, or any other thing that's pertinent in this situation. If the child says no, argues or attempts to manipulate, give excuses, or not face accountability, then the parent has to say, “I'm not going to listen to arguments manipulation or any other thing. Our conversation is over for now.” It may be necessary to keep this part of the discipline short and positive. “If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine. I think you can make a better choice. I'm going to pray for you. I believe in you. God will help you.” Release the child back into the home and go on with your own business. Don't mope around. Don't feel sorry for him. Don't feel guilty. You may have to work the parent who may have to work with the Lord, to not do all those things to him or herself. The rules, warnings and consequences are repeated until the child makes better choices. Each cycle has the same chance to talk about the choice that the child made and why.