your children and your spouse: “I will never spank until I have gotten
alone with God to quiet my heart so that I can discipline in godly and
gracious ways.”
(^) If you are too mad to discipline properly, instruct your child to
take a seat or go to his room. Then you must seek the face of God.
You must repent of your anger. You must remain before God until
you are able to deal with your child in integrity.
(^) If, in the weakness and frailty of your flesh, you sin against your
children, you must seek their forgiveness. Seeking forgiveness is not
saying, “I am sorry that I got mad at you and yelled, but when you do
that ... ” Seeking forgiveness is saying, “I am sorry. I sinned against
you. I was mad. I threw a temper fit. There is no justification for
behavior like that. Please forgive me.” When you give reasons for
your sin, you are not asking forgiveness, you are simply justifying
your sin.
What If We’re Not at Home?
(^) Sometimes, children don’t disobey at convenient times or in
convenient places. In a culture that cannot distinguish between
biblical discipline and child abuse, it is unwise to spank children in
public. If possible, you should seek a private place to undertake
biblical discipline.
(^) When your children are very small, you may choose to overlook
things that you would not overlook at home. On balance, this is not a
great problem, since most of your training time is spent at home.
(^) Some parents say: “If I do not discipline when we are out of the
house, my children will know they can get away with bad behavior
when we are not at home.” If they are that clever they will remember
when you get home. As children near school-age, they can remember
events long enough to make correcting them at a later time possible.
(^) It is important to keep the discipline of your children a private
matter. If you are in another home, you can ask for a place where you