Chapter Four

PUNISHMENT should never be merely negative -- but always, without fail, accompanied by positive teaching. The right action, the right method, which is expected of the child, should be clearly shown him -- not only the wrong ones.

Some parents, who are actually unqualified to be parents, are prone to punish their children in the heat of anger, with hardness and cruelty. Rather than instilling into the child the healthy "fear" which is right and good-not "terror" -- these parents do cause children to build up feelings of resentment and anger.

They will probably find their children lying to escape punishment, and developing into cheats and child criminals! Seeing these abuses in the punishment of children, many have assumed that all punishment must be wrong.

This is simply untrue. God plainly says, "Children, OBEY your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, PROVOKE NOT YOUR CHILDREN TO WRATH: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord" (Eph. 6:1-4).

Notice, God says do not provoke your children to WRATH.

But a constant attitude of negativism -- of only saying "No!" and never saying "YES!" -- of only showing a child what he should NOT do, and never showing him what he CAN and SHOULD do -- punishing ONLY in a NEGATIVE way, will, in the long run, "provoke your children to wrath."

God always punishes His children in LOVE -- NEVER in anger and wrath. Notice how Jeremiah prayed: "Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O Lord, CORRECT me, but with judgment; NOT IN THINE ANGER, lest thou bring me to nothing" (Jer. 10:23-24).

God's very nature is love. Yet, we read that God says He PUNISHES every son that He truly LOVES! Jeremiah prayed for punishment. But he wanted God to punish him in judgment, in mercy, and in LOVE -- NOT IN ANGER.

Most parents usually punish children only when those children have driven them to it. They are punishing because they are literally trying to "get back at" their children and are angry because their child has done something which has disturbed them.

This is improper punishment, and will never bring the right result.

Let's really understand! There is NEVER, under any circumstances, a time to beat a child. A child should NEVER, under any circumstances, be punished in anger! A child should NEVER be bruised, or injured!

Another danger in punishment is leaving the child to himself immediately after the punishment -- and leaving him with the impression that he is still guilty.

The positive type of punishment always carries with it the automatic understanding that the child is now forgiven for his wrong action, and is now in the good graces of his parents.

Only by parents carefully explaining this to their children, and showing that they are punishing in love, with judgment and wisdom, using great discretion, will they avoid some of these dangers in punishment.

You will be surprised how often a child will thoroughly repent of his wrong action and assure you that he is sorry for his wrong deed, throwing his arms around you and telling you how much he loves you when you punish in an attitude of love, and let him know that the punishment carries forgiveness with it.

Any type of punishment, whether a physical spanking, deprivation of privilege, or other type, must always suit the offense. It must, at all costs, be prompt, and must never be done unless preceded by a warning. It must never be done in anger -- but it must always be felt.

Effective punishment is never "temporary" in terms of the end result. It is aimed, NOT merely at temporarily quieting a child, or causing him to discontinue some annoying act, but at the LONG-RANGE goals of establishing the habit of obedience, proper self-control and self-discipline.

In ordinary cases, states one authority, corporal punishment is unnecessary after the younger years of childhood. At any age, it is, they stress, a temporary measure. We have not been successful in our training until the child obeys from CHOICE, and "from ideals that have been developed and not because of fear of physical punishment" (Pyle, "Training Children", p. 172).

If parents have applied effective punishment in the early years, the formative years, and "bent the twig" before it becomes a gnarled, huge, unyielding tree, THEN punishment is truly a temporary measure.

However, if there is not loving, temporary parental punishment to instill true self-discipline and the proper ideas and morals -- then society may well inflict much harsher, and far more permanent punishment on that same child who has become a hardened criminal.

Remember, habits must be formed. Corporal punishment, done in discretion and love, must take the place of higher motives when the child is too young to really know the difference between right and wrong.

When the child is entirely too young to discern right from wrong, good from evil, his parents have the God given responsibility to make his decisions for him.

This must be done in a workable, practical manner.

You simply cannot afford to let a child "gradually" quit running away, or out into the street, or turning on the gas, playing with fire, and breaking vases and bottles. You've got to get results -- and get them fast.

Let's analyze another example of a child who openly flaunts authority before his parents. As already quoted, some child psychologists assure us:

"The eighteen-monther ... asked to 'Come here, dear,' either stands still or runs in the opposite direction. (He may even like to walk backwards.) Ask him to put something in the wastebasket," they tell us, "and he is more likely to empty out what is already in it. Hold out your hand for the cup which he has just drained, he will drop it onto the floor. Give him a second sock to put on, and he will more likely than not remove the one which is already on his foot. His enjoyment of the opposite," they continue, "may be the reason why it works so well, if he is running away from you to say 'bye-bye,' and walk away from him. Then he may come running.

"Not only does he not come when called -- he seldom obeys any verbal command. 'No' is his chief word!" (Ilg and Ames, op. cit., p. 22.)

Assuming a young couple have been attempting to "rear" their child according to this idea, let's see what could easily happen.

The parents, with a small eighteen-month-old boy, are walking casually along the streets of their town. Their boy, simply because he is supposedly in one of the "phases" of childhood which demands a negative and rebellious answer to everything, is disobedient. He rebels at any command of his parents, saying "no" to their every order, and laughingly runs from them when they attempt to correct him, scorning their feeble efforts at keeping him under control.

They approach an intersection. The light is red. The child, seeing something interesting across the street, begins to run for it. Each parent, frightened almost beyond words, shouts, "No! No! Stop!" at the top of his voice. A screech of tires; the laughing face of their child looking back at them as he follows his babyish habit of "running away from them" when they say, "No"; a sickening "thud!" and their baby boy is a lifeless, grotesquely sprawled form lying under a car.

A purely hypothetical case, you say? No. Far from it. It happens quite frequently. But it only happens to children who are disobedient to their parents' commands, and who have not been taught not to run away from their parents, not to resist, rebel, and do the exact opposite of everything their parents tell them.

Almost the identical situation took place with my son. Except -- I had taught my boy what "No!" meant. We were walking home from church, and Mark had run ahead about 15 or 20 feet. As we came to the crossing before our house, a car came racing down the usually quiet street on which we lived. Mark began to step off the curb, to run across to the house. Seeing the car rapidly approaching, I shouted, "No!"

There was no time to "reason" with Mark. There was no time to "surround" him with objects that he "could build up and manipulate" in order to take his mind off running across the street. Instead, there was only time for the single shouted command -- "No!"

There was the roar of an engine, a swirling of leaves and dust, and the face of my boy, standing stock-still, waiting obediently at the curb, smiling at me as he stopped INSTANTLY upon hearing that command. I breathed a sigh of relief, and expressed my thankfulness to God, and then to my wife, for the wonderful blessing it is to know the right method of child rearing really works!

There can be no absolutely hard and fast rule as to the exact moment at which you should begin corrective measures to instill the habit of obedience and respect for authority within your children. However, since we know correction must be just and graded to the nature and the degree of the offense, it should hinge upon the time when it is first required.

Let us now understand when effective discipline may be required. Any parent quickly learns to discern the difference between a "hunger" cry, a "wet" cry, a "hurt" cry and an "angry" cry. Let us repeat, any parent should certainly be able to discern the differences in the emotional outbursts in their children.

To spank a child simply because it is crying would be a terrible mistake. A parent would feel grievously ashamed and terribly hurt if, after administering a spanking for crying, he found an open safety pin sticking the child had caused the outburst. However, let us not swing to the opposite extreme and "kid ourselves" that every time the child cries there is some reason other than anger or rebellion for it.

Let us assume the following situation develops:

Your child is properly bathed, fed, and put to bed comfortably. It is now well past the time he should normally be sleeping. However, he begins crying or "fussing." You arise from bed, go to his room and check carefully to see why he is crying. You know he has been fed; you have checked his diapers and clothing carefully to see that he is not bound in his clothing, or that there is not any open pin. (Many "locking type" safety pins are available which make this almost an impossibility today.)

The child is not pulling his knees up, indicating he does not have a stomach ache. You notice that he ceases crying immediately when you pick him up, and begins to cry the moment you put him back down. Now you have ascertained his cry is an "attention" cry -- merely wanting to be held. Not a serious crime in itself, and certainly it is good and right for a parent to rock his child to sleep, to allow the child to go to sleep on the bosom of the parent and then quietly place him in his own crib, or to walk with him until he is asleep. However -- you must start sometime to teach him the meaning of the word "no!"

Place the baby back in his crib. Retire from the room. After he begins "fussing" again, walk to the side of his crib, bend over and make sure he hears you. Point your finger at him, and say once, firmly, but not too loudly, "no!" Retire from the room. Usually, he will either stop crying momentarily at the sound of your voice, or will be continuing to cry all the way through your entry into the room and your command. However, don't begin to make the mistake here that so many parents make of "not being sure" their child heard or understood them.

Usually, he will begin to cry again the moment you leave the room. Next, walk firmly to the side of his crib, and, using only one or two fingers, deftly and smartly swat him on the buttocks. You may, without removing the heavy nighttime diapers, spat him sharply very high on the side of the thigh. But first, strike yourself on the back of the hand, the wrist or the cheek to determine the strength of the swat, and make definitely sure you do not strike the child too hard. However, do make sure you strike him hard enough so that he feels it.

The child may drop off into a deep sleep within a few moments of crying. Allow him to cry until you can tell by the sound of his crying that the pain, hurt and surprise has died down and he is not still crying merely as the after-effects of his first "spanking."

This will vary, and needs a great deal of wisdom and judgment. But it also needs firmness, and assurance you are doing this the right way, and purposeful determination to carry the lesson through.

If the child then, after 10 or 15 minutes, begins to cry again -- and you can discern this is another "attention" cry, repeat the performance. Repeat it exactly as it was done before. Walk firmly into the room; bend over the crib; say "No!" to the child sharply. Already, he may very well cease crying immediately. But, true to form, the crying will probably begin again the minute you leave the room. Usually, the second sharp swat will be all that is needed for this lesson. The child will fill his lungs with good pure air, wave his little arms and kick his feet, have a good healthy cry, and usually lapse into a full, deep and tired sleep.

Most of us are looking for temporary goals. The only purpose in spanking children, with many, seems to be in getting the child to immediately cease whatever he is doing that is annoying them. We may want our child to quit running while in the house, quit running out into the street, to quit "bothering" us when we're busy, or any number of things which encroach upon OUR personal peace of mind.

In this fashion, spanking truly does become entirely negative. It is usually done by thoughtless parents in anger.

Since this is one of the most common abuses of proper discipline, some child psychologists have made mincemeat of the practice -- using improper usage as a premise against any proper use.

Most parents who do spank their children, unfortunately, do spank them in anger. They are concentrating only on the immediate goals. They want their child to "quit bothering" them.

Have you ever heard a parent say, "That makes me so mad at you!" to his child? Such parents are admitting they use spanking only negatively, and not as a proper method to teach those lasting values -- those permanent habits of obedience that are so necessary.

Another common miscalculation is that of supposedly "adding insult to injury." Some parents reason a crying child, or one who is "upset," is already suffering from something -- and a spanking would only make him suffer all the more. Therefore they reason a spanking at this juncture would be harmful.

This may be true in some circumstances. A child who is disappointed over a broken toy, who is excessively tired, or who has become emotionally upset over a similar situation should NOT be spanked. Sorrow, disappointment, regret or hunger -- these should NOT be punished. But anger, resentment, rebellion, or hatred -- these definitely should be punished.

The long-range goal of spanking for a show of rebellion is to prove to the infant mind that rebellion nets punishment. Never fear that the child will have any difficulty in connecting the punishment with the crime. He will automatically connect the two together.

However, many parents are dissuaded from accomplishing these lasting goals by reasoning, "Why spank him if he's screaming and crying hard when a spanking is just going to 'upset' him all the more?"

Parents are deluded from their long-range goals by reasoning the following:

"But supposing he does get angry? What shall we do?

"If he is angry because he is sleepy or hungry, we have to try as matter-of-factly as we can to get him fed and into bed. If we can be calm ourselves it will help. What use is there in being disturbed and annoyed when that will only add to our child's anger and our own trouble?" (Parents Institute, op. cit., p. 357.)

Herein lies a basic principle which needs to be thoroughly understood.

Most parents are inclined to make excuses for their children's poor behavior. Actually, they are excusing themselves, as the ones who are really to blame for the irresponsible actions of their children. Parents who CONSTANTLY excuse the squallings of a child by saying he "is tired," or ignore the angry outbursts of a toddler by saying he's "just upset" today, or say he "didn't get a nap" and therefore is acting like an uncontrollable monster -- are merely excusing both themselves and their children.

But the real truth is very clear. This child comes from a POORLY SCHEDULED ENVIRONMENT, from a poorly managed home. He is the product of a careless mother and father who, after having made numerous mistakes in his care and training, merely make excuses for the obvious result of their carelessness. (Parents can avoid some of these problems by getting their children to bed on TIME.)

Should a child be chastised for expressing anger by crying? God's answer is: "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying" (Prov. 19:18).

Simply being "sleepy" or "hungry" is one thing -- but being angry because of it is another. Parents quickly learn to discern between a "sleepy" cry and an "angry" cry.

Of course your child will cry all the harder when he receives a spanking. If your immediate goal is merely to get your child to be quiet -- then you are thwarting your own purpose. But if you have a long-range goal of teaching and training your child while he is young, you will recognize each particular situation as a challenge, not for the immediate present, but for the future. You spank for anger and rebellion now, fully realizing he is going to cry all the harder, in order to instill in him the habit of obedience, and to teach him rebellion against authority is absolutely wrong. This teaching is going to stand him in good stead later.

Let us notice an example of parents eating out with their children in a restaurant.

Johnny, aged 2 1/2, begins to play with his silverware. Dropping his knife on the floor, his father picks it up and takes the silverware away from him. Immediately, Johnnie bursts into an angry outburst of tears. Embarrassed, realizing there are many others suddenly looking at them, the father tells Johnnie "sh-h-h-h-h-h." But Johnnie does not "sh-h-h-h-h-h" -- he cries all the louder. What should the father do? Should he pacify the child by giving the silverware back to him? Should he rap him sharply on the hand while in the restaurant?

His feelings are in a turmoil. He realizes if he tries to spank him in front of all these people he will merely cry all the louder. And so, nearly always the child gets his own way. The father, not wanting to create a "scene," gives the silverware back to the child -- and he has won a major victory. He has found crying gets him his own way. Anger pays off.

But if Johnnie's father had realized he should be concentrating on the long-range goal of teaching his child respect for authority and the rights of others, he would have done the following:

He would have left the silverware right where it was in front of Johnny. (Of course, had Johnnie been receiving all the proper training at home this situation may have never arisen in the first place.) He would have picked up the knife patiently, placed it in its proper place on the table, looked levelly at the child and said once, sharply, firmly but quickly, "No!" The chances are about 999,000 to 1 Johnnie would immediately seize the silverware in his chubby little hand again. Of course. That's what is expected. He must be taught not to disobey. The next step is to firmly take the silverware from his hand calmly and patiently, arising from the chair, picking up Johnnie and carrying him outside -- to a PRIVATE PLACE such as your automobile. This is going to cause far less disturbance, far less embarrassment in the immediate situation -- and is going to help form a good habit in the child. After Johnnie's father gets him to a private place, such as their own car, he EXPLAINS to the boy what he has done. He might say, "Johnnie, you dropped your silverware on the floor and disturbed others. I told you No! -- not to touch the silverware again. You disobeyed. And now, because I love you, and I don't wish to have you grow up to be disobedient, I must teach you I mean exactly what I say when I tell you No!" Whereupon the father should punish Johnnie appropriately. Five or six firm licks on his bottom may be enough. But, in any event, this punishment must be appropriate to the occasion, neither too severe, nor too lax. Punishment, in order to be effective, must be felt.

Then, the father picks up the child after his tears have subsided, wipes his face and carries him calmly back to the table, placing him again in his seat.

An unnecessarily lengthy procedure, you say? It is, if the only thing about which you are concerned is a little peace and quiet during one of the thousands of meals you are going to eat in your lifetime. Far from it, if you are concerned about rearing your child correctly, teaching him the meaning of parental authority and discipline, and using these minor incidents as a means toward the long range goals.

However, try to use wisdom. Avoid making a scene that is uncomfortable for others.

J. Edgar Hoover said something so piquant, so strikingly applicable, that it should be briefly quoted:

"Criminals are made, not born. Long before a youngster is legally labeled 'juvenile delinquent,' his acts repeat a familiar pattern of conduct -- falsehoods, disobedience, truancy, petty stealing. Each dereliction leads to another. Unless he learns the fundamental lessons of self-discipline, trouble is inevitable.

"Every child should have maximum freedom of expression, but when such freedom transgresses common decency or infringes upon the rights of others, it must be curtailed. Our prisons are filled with individuals who enjoy freedom of expression without self-discipline" (J. Edgar Hoover, "How Good a Parent Are You?", p. 3).

A child who has been TAUGHT obedience from the time of mere infancy will have practically no chance of ever turning into a juvenile delinquent. This is not to say mere punishment and respect for authority is the only panacea against juvenile delinquency. There are many other reasons, among them: parental neglect, broken homes and divorce, unhappy homes, bad examples, outside influences, dangerous literature and the pressures of modern-day society.

But correction should be utilized as a POSITIVE part of learning. And it will bring the results you want -- obedient, happy, responsive children.

God says: "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). The clear indication from this scripture is that a properly trained child is very likely to continue in a desirable way of living when he reaches maturity.

Remember, God is love. God punishes us because He loves us, even as we should punish our children in the right manner, at the right time -- because we love them. "He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes [early]" (Prov. 13:24). God says to withhold proper punishment from a child is LACK of love, and is actual HATRED for the child! Your Creator says you are withholding something mighty precious from your child if you do not punish him when such punishment is deserved.

"Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod [stick or switch], he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell" (Prov. 23:13-14).

The Hebrew word used here for "rod" would be better translated into our modern English "switch." Certainly no implement which could be termed a rod, such as a curtain rod or a heavy stick of any nature should ever be used in disciplining a child.

Correction should be utilized as a positive part of learning. It is, as revealed in the Bible, one of the METHODS of teaching. King Solomon wrote: "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him" (Prov. 22:15).

Further, your Bible reveals "The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child LEFT TO HIMSELF bringeth his mother to shame" (Prov. 29:15).

Yes, reproof, correction, proper discipline can be utilized as one of the most important methods of positive TEACHING.