Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. (Proverbs 23:3)

I love conversations about parenting, maybe because I am a newbie in this kid raising stuff, I love talking about raising children, even if you served me no coffee and popcorn, we could still go on for hours.

But I have recently noticed something strange about my parenting fantasies, I fizzle out when the practicals arrive, I chicken out on spanking. When the naughty moment where I have to exercise my parental responsibility arrives, I begin to rationalize.

But she’s too small and cute.

They are too young to understand what I mean.

Next time maybe, since she had a long day.

I don’t feel like it, let her get a break.

Just warn them, and let them make their own decision.

This list can get longer, We give a truckload of excuses to avoid physical discipline, and it doesn’t help that we already live in a ‘progressive’ age where authority is despised and notions of independence and human rights and are espoused.

In such day, sparing the rod seems the convenient and humanitarian thing to pursue, yet texts like Prov 23:13 remind us, the goal of correction is way higher.

Discipline a son.
Forget it takes a village, your child is your responsibility Relationship matters, most parents abdicate the responsibility of correction to those who have no relationship to the child, maids, neighbors, school teachers, Tedd Tripp, in his volume “Shepherding a child’s heart” highlights this by implying, paraphrase; a father who takes her daughter for ice cream, changes her diaper and plays on the floor with her has the best context to correct his child, the teacher who only shows up to deliver assignments has no primary relationship with your child, hence their discipline is often punitive rather than corrective.

With a rod.
Growing up, many of us had a harsh history with discipline, the tools our parents enforced to ensure correction were enforced with anger, selfishness, and abuse of authority. Now that we have our own, we probably would like to consider abandoning the idea altogether.

Among contemporary parents, the idea of a rod does not mean we go inquiring at a nearby car garage but it means we consider combining our correction with appropriate correction aids, appropriate enough to inflict reasonable pain on these little bodies while passing on wisdom to the often experienced young fool, as the Bible calls him.

He will not die.
On the continent I live, for example, incidents of child abuse are temptations to avoid exercising parental authority, though valid sometimes, We sometimes hesitate because our correction may be interpreted as abuse.

Whereas it’s good to keep such a posture, it’s also pertinent to remind yourself the goals of intense and consistent yet loving correction, to save your child from eternal death, a just God and a sinful world stand already harsh to self-absorbed, independent soon-to-be adults, only wise parental means can rescue your child from such damnation, damnation of character in this world and damnation of the soul in the world to come.

If we spare the rod, the world will not, neither will God.

And because Pastors’ kids sometimes turn out as cohabiting polygamous deejays, believers also understand that making disciples, rather than well-behaved kids becomes our parenting goal, our part, therefore, remains to execute our God-given responsibility, trusting him with the outcome. Even when “victory belongs to The Lord, we still prepare the horse for battle. ” (Prov 21:31)

“A fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” (Ps 14:1) that’s the defiance our sweet looking toddlers, birthed in iniquity, arrive with. (Prov 22:15)

Only the rod of instruction can drive it out, spare it not fellow parent, spare it not!