Raising Home Runs Kids
Second Base: Think Season, Not Game
Sycamore Creek Church
May 17/18, 2015
Tom Arthur

Let’s play ball!

Today we continue this series raising home run kids.  In week one we stepped up to the plate and realized that we are our child’s first coach when it comes to faith and following Jesus.  And before we’re a coach, we need to be a player first.  You can’t coach something you don’t know.  Week two, we rounded first base as we learned that raising your kids isn’t a solo sport.  You need a team.  Today we hit a double as we get to second base.  We’re thinking this whole raising kids is about the long haul.  It’s a whole season or even multiple seasons.  Not just one game.  So as we get to second base today, I want to look at training over an entire season.

Have you ever trained for something?  I remember when I took what was then called a “keyboarding” class in Jr. High.  We were learning to type.  It wasn’t just one day at the typewriter learning where all the keys were at.  It was an entire semester of learning followed by years and years of practice.  I also played baseball growing up.  By high school being on the baseball team meant a morning gym period with the team during the winter, and daily practice after school the rest of the year.  Then there was training to read Hebrew in seminary.  Learning Hebrew was three years of daily study.  Or I think back to hiking the John Muir Trail in southern California with my friend, Bill, who is an Iron Man.  I spent months and months of walking and exercising on stair masters.  I remember the first time I got on a stair master.  I could barely do it for five minutes, but by the end of my training I was easily doing sixty minutes or more on the stair master.  These are all examples of things I’ve had to train for over a long period of time to do well.  What is something you’ve had to train for over a long period of time to be able to do well?

I think it’s helpful to understand that training is a long-term process with some setbacks but an overall general movement forward.  So when we think of our key verse for this series, we should think of it in the context of a season, not a single game:

Train children in the right way,
and when old, they will not stray.
~Proverbs 22:6 NRSV

Or as Dave Stone says, “God is more concerned with your direction than he is with your perfection.”

As we look toward training today, I want to explore a topic of parenting that vexes the best of us.  Another word for training is discipline:

Discipline – noun dis·ci·pline \?di-s?-pl?n\
Training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral character.
~Merriam-Webster

Isn’t that what we’re trying to do?  Correct, mold, and perfect (or at least steps toward a kind of perfection) of the mental and moral faculties and character of our children?  Discipline is a kind of development of self-control.  We read in the ancient wisdom of the Proverbs:

Those who do not control themselves
are like a city whose walls are broken down.
~Proverbs 25:28 NCV

The walls of an ancient city were the primary defense against enemies.  Children without training and discipline are like a city with no defense against enemies.  The problem is that discipline or developing self-control in children is hard work.  Really hard work.  Really really really really hard work!  But discipline isn’t achieved in one game.  Discipline is achieved over an entire season and even several seasons back to back to back.  Search Institute, a research group that has done significant research on the faith development of children found that “Single factors alone do not usually explain much of young people’s well-being, but that it takes multiple influences operating in multiple parts of young people’s worlds, and over multiple points in time, to promote positive youth development.”

So what I want to look at today are four drills for faithful discipline that will help you win over a season even if you’re not necessarily winning every game.

1.      Faithful Discipline is Based on God’s discipline

First, it’s important to understand that faithful discipline of children is based on God’s discipline of us.  Paul, the first missionary of the church and the writer of many books of the Bible, says:

Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do.
~Ephesians 6:1 NLT

Parents’ discipline of their children is rooted in the character of God.  Our children belong to the Lord.  We all do.  So parents are essentially stewards of someone else’s property.  Our children belong to God.  Therefore, it is the right thing for children to obey parents and for parents to train and discipline their children.

I think that discipline can sometimes come across as a rules vs. heart kind of activity.  Should we as parents set down rules that kids are to follow or are we to try to speak to the heart.  I think the ultimate aim of God’s discipline is always heart formation.  But rules play a part in that heart formation.  Looking for direction from Paul we find that he makes an interesting observation about the role of the law (the rules guiding personal, religious, and national behavior) in the Old Testament:

The law was our [paidagogos] until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.
~Galatians 3:24 NLT

The word “paidagogos” is translated in different versions of the Bible as guardian, tutor, schoolmaster, governess, guide, or pedagogue.  So let’s put that back in the verse:

The law was our guardian/tutor/schoolmaster/governess/guide/pedagogue until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.
~Galatians 3:24 NLT

So the rules governing or disciplining our behavior were like a guide until our heart was formed in the right way.  Or as the prophet Jeremiah said:

I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
~Jeremiah 31:33 NLT

God’s goal was never just to give us a set or rules to live by.  Rather, God gave us a set of rules to live by so that our hearts might be formed in love for God and others.  In this way we could get to a point where we could “love God and do what you like” as Augustine, an early church leader, liked to say.  If we love God, then what we like will ultimately be what God loves too.

Faithful discipline of our children is rooted in the character of God and God’s discipline of us: heart formation.

2.      Faithful Discipline Is an Expression of Love

Second, faithful discipline is an expression of love.  Sometimes when you’re in the throes of disciplining your child and your child is pushing all your buttons, you can lose sight of the motivation here: love of your child.  Of course, your child doesn’t feel like you’re loving them.  As the author of Hebrews says:

My child, don’t make light of the Lord’s discipline,
and don’t give up when he corrects you.
For the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.
~Hebrews 12:5-6 NLT

If you didn’t discipline your child and gave them no training in self-control, you would be building a city with no defense.  Any enemy could walk in and do whatever they wanted.  It’s tough to remember, but don’t forget, discipline is an expression of love.  Or as the ancient wisdom of the Proverbs says:

A refusal to correct is a refusal to love;
love your children by disciplining them.
~Proverbs 13:24 NLT

Or as more literal translations have put it:

Whoever spares the rod hates his son.
~Proverbs 13:24 ESV

Now this verse can really send us for a loop these days, can’t it?  We’re in the thick of the parenting wars now.  To spank or not to spank?  At the risk of spinning us perilously out of control, let me share with you my thoughts on this modern day discipline controversy.

First, Sarah and I haven’t felt a need to spank to discipline.  We find that there are a lot of other creative ways we can accomplish the same thing.  And we’re committed to active non-violent resistance as a method of change that finds its roots in the nature and character of the cross.  Jesus could have taken the world by storm, but instead he chose to empty himself of his right to divinity and take upon himself the nature of a servant, even a slave who willingly gave his life for us.  Somehow that doesn’t seem to jive with us with the act of spanking.  Add to that theological understanding modern day research on spanking.  Psychological research shows that spanking has some pretty negative long-term results that most of us would probably not want to train our child in (http://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/spanking.aspx). And yet, even as I read all this research, I don’t really see an important distinction being made about spanking.  I think most of our ideas of spanking look something like the child in the grocery store line crying because they want some piece of candy.  To stop the crying, ironically, the parent swats the child’s bottom.  More crying, just of a different kind ensues.  This kind of impulsive on the spot spanking really isn’t very effective at accomplishing much of anything.  On the other hand, my mom practiced a very different kind of spanking with us.  If we did something particularly egregious, we would be asked to go to her room.  A couple of minutes later she would show up and ask us if we’d prefer to be grounded for a set amount of time or to be spanked.  I always chose spanking because it was over quicker.  If we chose spanking, she would then spank us.  I can remember maybe three times that she ever did this.  It was not impulsive.  It wasn’t an expression of frustration or anger in the moment.  It was very deliberate, and she even put the choice in our hands.  When I read the literature about spanking, I don’t see this kind of spanking represented in the literature, and I can think of a lot of other worse ways to discipline a child.

I’m not certain there’s a perfectly clear answer to the question of spanking, but I do know this, the principle of Proverbs 13:24 still holds: if you don’t discipline your child, you’re doing them harm.   Faithful discipline is an expression of love for your child.

3. Faithful Discipline is United

Third, faithful discipline is a united front between parents.  This united front requires submission.  Paul tells the church at Ephesus, particularly husbands and wives to:

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
~Ephesians 5:12 NIV

I know you usually hear about wives submitting to husbands but this is always in the context of husbands and wives submitting to one another.  Notice how it’s also rooted in the character of Christ.  We see Christ practicing submission when John, one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers, says:

So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does.”
~John 5:19 NLT

How confusing it must be for a child to get one set of training from one parent and another set of training from another parent.  Faithful parenting is united which requires submission to one another.  Or course, this is the ideal.  So let’s take a moment and talk about the less than ideal situation when parents disagree on how to discipline children.  And then throw into the mix co-parenting between divorced parents.  Things get really sticky and messy.  How do you faithfully discipline your child as a united front when you aren’t a united front?

My friend Bill, who I mentioned earlier is an Iron Man who I hiked the John Muir trail with, is also a research psychologist at Duke. He’s been studying child development for over a decade.  He has a theory of parenting he’s developed after studying kids longitudinally over several decades.  Basically, Bill has noticed that there are only a couple of things that can really throw your kid off the tracks: abuse, domestic violence, and sustained bullying.  If those three things aren’t in your kid’s life, then Bill has noticed that kids are really resilient.  He wrote me a summary of his research in an email saying:

Most negative experiences and parental missteps – even some things that we all agree are suboptimal – don’t affect children’s functioning long-term even if they are unpleasant in the moment. Contrariwise, there is very little evidence to support the long-term value of many of our ‘enrichment’ activities. Read to your kids, yes, and certainly give them a broad range of experiences and opportunities. Just don’t be under the illusion that baby Einstein or Spanish-immersion preschool is going to super-charge their development. Implicitly this suggests that parents’ every decision is perhaps less important/critical than they may fear. I hope that it frees parents up to relax a bit, put their parenting foibles in perspective, co-parent without judgment, and avoid viewing parenting as a minefield where they might inadvertently step wrong and cause irreparable harm.

In other words, it just might be more important that you show a united front by not complaining in front of your kids about your divorced spouse’s parenting methods.  If your spouse or ex aren’t abusing your child, abusing other members of the home, or putting your child in situations where they’re getting bullied, then it’s likely that your child will turn out OK.  Give your co-parent some grace even if he or she doesn’t parent quite the way you want him or her to parent.

Faithful discipline is united.

4.      Faithful Discipline is Consistent

Fourth, faithful discipline is consistent just as God is consistent.  The prophet Malachi says:

I am the Lord, and I do not change.
~Malachi 3:6 NLT

God doesn’t change.  Of course, none of us are God, and when we realize we’ve been doing it wrong, we should change.  But the principle here is that God is consistent, and in as much as our discipline is good, it should be consistent too.

Sarah and I were recently looking for some help from our Facebook friends on ideas about how to set up a chore and payment system with our kids.  I wrote on Facebook:

Pondering with Sarah Faulman Arthur how to set up chores and payments for our four year old. I’m curious to hear how others are thinking about this. List of chores? How much you’d pay for each? Etc…

Dave Hemingway, a Facebook friend and regular attender of SCC, commented:
Our plan was to be haphazard and inconsistent. We found that approach kept them on their toes as they never knew what to expect. It also helped them develop their sales techniques as they continuously had to think of new arguments to convince us to buy things they wanted. Our approach also helped them develop their drama skills. As I recall they responded to the chore of loading/unloading the dishwasher as though we were dabbling in medieval torture.

Of course, Dave is being sarcastic to be funny, and funny it was.  I laughed out loud!  But he makes my point for me by stating the opposite.  Haphazard and inconsistent doesn’t work as a discipline strategy for children.

So what method do you use to be consistent with your children?  I don’t think there’s any one right method, but one that we’ve found helpful was suggested to us by Jana Aupperlee, a child psychologist who is a partner at SCC.  When Micah was about two, we found that we were wrestling with him being really fussy.  We didn’t know how to navigate our own emotions and frustrations with his fussing.  So we asked Jana to come over and give us some parenting coaching.  She did what she does best and mostly asked us really good questions.  But she also gave us some tips and left us with a book titled 1 2 3 Magic.  The basic gist of the book was a strategy for responding to behaviors you wanted to see stop, like fussing.  When the behavior occurs, you simply name it and say, “No fussing.  That’s one.”  No emotion.  No trying to explain everything and getting into a debate with your child.  Just count, “One.”  Then if it happens again, you count, “Two.”  No emotion.  No trying to explain everything and getting into a debate.  If the behavior continues, you say, “That’s three.  Timeout.”  No emotion.  No debating.  No “2 and half…two and three quarters…don’t make me count three.”  Just a dispassionate count and timeout in their room.  One minute for every year of their age.  We found this method really was magical.  Micah learns from the consistency of the process.  One is a warning.  Two is further warning.  He knows three means business.  He almost always pulls it together at two.  It gives us clear direction and Micah clear direction.  But it only works if we are consistent.

I want to emphasize that there are a lot of right ways to be consistent.  You don’t have to count like we do.  You can find lots of good methods out there.  The key is finding a method that works for you to be consistent.  Because faithful discipline is consistent.

Closing

Let’s go back to Hebrews:

No discipline is enjoyable while it is happening—it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way.
~Hebrews 12:11 NLT

Training and discipline are rarely fun.  But peace in the heart of the child is the ultimate goal.  What does this look like?  Thinking back to training for the John Muir trail, I realize that it wasn’t much fun to do the training.  But when I got on the trail after having trained well, I had the chance to see things very few people ever see.  We were able to climb up the back side of Half Dome and be there for the sunrise all by ourselves.  I was able to keep up with an Iron Man! Even on the really big day we had where we hiked 16 miles and climbed over 3500 feet, I kept pace with an Iron Man, and it felt good.  And I had the satisfaction of having trained so that I enjoyed the journey rather than just suffering through it.  The training and discipline reaped a harvest of good living on the trail.

I want the same thing for our kids.  I want them to see things in this world that very few people ever see.  I want them to recognize God’s glory, God’s call, and God’s rescue mission to the world!  I want them to keep up with the great cloud of witnesses, the saints who go alongside of us and have gone before us.  I want our children to have the satisfaction of hearing the master say at the end of their life, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter the joy of the Lord.”

God, give us wisdom to train and discipline our children as you train and discipline us.  May our children grow to see it as an expression of our love for them.  May we be united even in the tricky places of parenting.  And help us to be consistent so that our children might one day hear you say to them, “Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter the joy of the Lord.”