Season: 10 Episode: 150
Listen to episode 146 in Spanish:
Summary:
There’s a saying by parents that goes, “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.” It’s only until you become a parent yourself and are in the middle of disciplining your child that that statement rings true. In this episode, we talk about effective discipline of children and teens, and we get into how to deal with adult children living in your home. For those parents who don’t like to discipline their kids becaues it hurts YOU too much – we talk about why that’s selfish. Discipline is part of the long game in effectively training your child.
Recommended Resources:
Cross Examined Article: Is Teaching Your Kids About God Child Abuse?
Website: shandafulbright.com
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Email: hello@shandafulbright.com
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Today we are talking about effective discipline and how to make sure your child doesn’t grow up to be an entitled brat that nobody likes. Most of us know what it’s like to have friends with kids who run amuck in your home, or talk back to their parents and other adults, and are really difficult to deal with. How does a parent’s discipline or a lack of it contribute to that? We’re going to talk about all of that today and I’m also going to include the discipline of teens or house rules for adult children because not many people talk about parenting after the elementary years.
Online Courses
Before we get into the fun stuff, let me remind you that the new school year will be here before you know it and we are running TYB: An Introduction to logic this fall for BOTH middle schoolers, high schoolers, and adults. I am teaching the middle schoolers and Dr. Frank Turek will join the kids on the last night of the class. But for the high schoolers and adults, Frank and I are tag-teaming those zoom sessions. You are going to love this class. We both worked on the 3 assignments for the high schoolers and adults, and we are reading a book together while we take the class – you are going to love it, and be saturated with good thinking skills. Go to onlinechristiancourses.com to register.
Also, if you are in the Jacksonville, Florida area in August and want to go to an apologetics conference on false Christianity, check out the Evangelical Missions to Non-Christian Religions conference on August 23-24. I will be speaking at this conference and it is going to be a great time and it’s near the beach, so that’s a plus. This two-day conference will offer Christian workshops on non-Christian religions, pseudo-Christian cults, evangelism, how to reach members of counterfeit spirituality, and how to recognize and cope with theological apostasy in the Christian church. Go to EMNR.org and click the events section for details and to register. I hope to see you there.
Today, we are going to talk about:
- Is it nature or is it nurture?
- What does effective discipline look like?
- How do you deal with teens and adult children who still live at home when it comes to discipline and correction?
Nature vs Nurture
I feel like I’m taking it back to my college general education days with this one because I still remember being like, “I don’t know. Is it nature or is it nurture?” Now, I’m like – what were you so confused about young-in? What I didn’t know then is that the whole nature vs nurture debate is also rooted in your worldview. Let me first explain what nature and nurture are according to child psychologists. Nature refers to how genetics might influence a person’s personality, and nurture refers to how a child is brought up and how their environment impacts their development. I don’t know that this has to be a nature vs nurture debate. I think it’s both/and. There are going to be personality types and innate talents and things we are born with. And then there is our parenting and upbringing that guides our development.
But we also have to consider the sin nature we are all born with.
As Christian parents, we have to understand that we are dealing with human beings who are created in the image of God but also children of Adam born with a sin nature. We’ve talked about his before on the podcast. This is nothing new. Now, there are some Christians who deny this. They think people are inherently good. If that’s true, what do we need we need Christ for? So the nature vs nurture debate is, in my opinion, kind of dumb in the college setting. And we have to take these classes in undergraduate school, and the teacher is always going to have people write papers on this nonsense and never come to the conclusion that it’s both because of the sin nature and because it’s a parents job to disciple their children. So really, theology informs this debate for the Christian and when we understand that it is both nature and nurture, it helps us understand our kids better and it helps us implement effective discipline and correction as we parent.
Proverbs is a book dedicated to the instruction of the young.
It talks about correction and guidance with wise words all throughout life so that a child can hold onto those lessons as he or she grows. And although it’s addressed to the young, there is constant reminders to the young that parents ought to be listened to. That means the implication here is that a parent is disciplining, correcting, and instructing their children with wisdom and according to God’s word.
Let’s look at the nature of the debate, and then we’ll focus on the nurture part.
As I said, we are all born with a sin nature, including your children. Progressive Christians think it’s mean to tell a child he is a sinner and talk about the salvation message. I think they’re wrong, but I also don’t go around calling my kids sinners. That’s obviously not effective and I don’t think that’s necessary. But the Bible tells us we are all born with a sin nature and for that reason, obedience is not going to come naturally for us or our kids. Childhood years are the years of training. We need to think of it that way. We are raising adults. Our kids will not be children forever, they won’t live with us forever, and we won’t teach them like we do now forever. So we have a window of opportunity to create an environment that helps shape them.
Do you have to teach your kid to share or say thank you?
Of course you do. The first word a child seems to learn is NO or MINE. We are bent toward evil. So understand that your child has a sin nature, and that will help you as you create an environment to help them become men or women of God.
Nurture: the environment you create for your kids to grow and thrive in, we’ve already talked about technology and creating an atmosphere that nurtures the family shaping each other in episode 236. What we have to understand is that our environment is going to either nurture the sin nature or it’s going to nurture them toward Christ. How you implement discipline and correction in your home will be the factor that determines which one it is. Either way, know that you have a hand in nurturing the spiritual, physical, and emotional growth of your child.
What does effective discipline look like?
Alright, so I’m about to say something controversial. Discipline has to hurt. What I mean by that is discipline is “the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.” If it doesn’t hurt – and I’m not just talking about physical pain here, then it’s not effective.
Here are some verses about discipline from when God corrects us. And let’s be clear here, God disciplines those He loves. If God corrects you and it doesn’t feel good because you know you need to change, that is a blessing because it shows you have a relationship with a loving Father.
Hebrews 12:11 says, “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
Prov 23:12 says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.” These verses speak of the pain in discipline, the unpleasantness of it. And it’s true.
Your child will not die if you discipline them.
I can attest to this. I’m here today after a childhood where my parents spanked my butt at times, grounded me on occasion, and even took away my opportunity to drive my senior year.
And let me tell you – out of the spankings and the almost year of riding the bus to school with my freshman brother and sophomore sister, I can honestly say I’d choose the butt whooping over losing my driving privileges. It was torture to ride the bus. But guess what? Little miss Shanda raised her grades and got serious about school and I earned my driving privileges back. My point is – if disciplining your child for rebellion or incorrect behavior does not cause discomfort, it’s not going to work.
The Bible uses language like, “Beatings for the backs of fools” or “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” and people think it promotes child abuse. But I know lots of people who don’t necessarily spank their kids and still disciplines them effectively because they want to teach a lesson.
So remember that the discipline has to be uncomfortable – just like me not driving until I raised my grades was uncomfortable enough for me to change my behavior and get good grades.
It’s age appropriate.
What works for your teenager won’t work for your toddler and vise versa. You want to treat your kids according to their maturity level. Don’t expect too much out of them and don’t expect too little. With that said, grounding a toddler is not age appropriate. Time outs for toddlers is definitely more in their range of what they can do. I’ve also read where you want to keep them in time out for one minute per year of age, so 3 minutes for a 3 year old. I do not suggest you count down when disciplining your kids. If you count down from 5 your kid knows he’s got about 4 seconds before you’re going to get up and do something about it. All you’re doing is extending his bad behavior. When I see parents do the counting thing in a store, I know they’re losing this battle.
In the South, moms will look at their kids and say, “Yes, ma’am?” And that’s their way of counting down. And she waits for the kid to answer back, “Yes, ma’am.” I don’t know. My mama didn’t play around. She gave a look and I knew that meant I better think long and hard about my next move because if she got up from her seat, my life was over. A look. That’s all it was.
A few months ago I received some messages from followers about friends who have teenagers and they told me the parents of these teens let their kids stay over at their boyfriend/girlfriend’s houses and they don’t check in with them anymore. I don’t get that at all.
You don’t stop parenting when your kids are teenagers.
You actually should be just as involved in your teenagers life. From what I’ve found from having a 20 year old, an 18 year old, and a 14 year old is that parenting is just as involved it’s just different issues in the teen years. You fret over your kids more because they drive, and you check in more because they’re more independent. You check Life360 to see where they are. If you develop a line of communication with your teens when they’re children, you will have lots to talk about when they’re teenagers.
Teenagers don’t stop wanting or needing your approval. If they tell you they don’t want you or are secretive about what’s going on in their lives, that’s probably not a good sign. I think to leave teenagers to themselves is a terrible parenting strategy.
Proverbs 29:15, “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” A teenager still classifies as a child. When we think of age appropriate discipline, we have to think of how to discipline and steer our children during the teen years. Giving up is leaving them to themselves when they’re on the threshold of adulthood.
Discipline doesn’t demand more than is necessary.
This relates to expectations and age appropriate expectations that lead to age appropriate discipline. I’m going to tell you a fear I had when I first became a mom. I was afraid that I would love one kid more than the other or show favoritism to one child over the other so I prayed about that and fretted for a while. But then, I learned that as you set house rules or standards that apply to everyone in the home, you eliminate the scales being tipped toward one kid over the other.
For example, our youngest is the baby of the family and he doesn’t drive yet. The house rule for the boys is – you save your money and when you turn 16 and it’s time to buy a car, we will match what you’ve saved. That’s it. You save $2,000, you get a $4,000 car. You save 4,000, you get an $8,000 car. But it’s up to you. We will match your efforts. We did that for our oldest and our middle. The middle saved more and got a more expensive car. The oldest didn’t complain. He knew the rules. If he wanted us to spend more, he should have saved more. That’s a house rule. The youngest knows the rules. He is not going to get a better car because he’s the youngest.
Setting Realistic Expectations
When you set realistic expectations, like bedtime is 8:30 for everyone but once you turn 13, you get to stay up until 9:00 – then all of the kids under 13 might complain about it, but the oldest hit that number first. He gets that privilege as the oldest and the other ones get it once they turn 13 because it’s a house rule. My point is that discipline doesn’t demand more than is necessary but that also depends on the standards of the parents and how they apply to everyone in the home. If you demand more than is necessary, you’re too harsh and you will weary your children.
If, on the other hand, you demand too little, you are not helping your child mature.
You are not setting appropriate expectations that pushes them beyond their comfort zone. If a child is still talking baby talk at 6 years old and you are pushing a sippy cup, then you aren’t nurturing maturity.
When you consider:
Discomfort in Discipline
Age Appropriate Discipline
Expectations in Discipline
You are creating an environment that nurtures growth in your child.
And this whole, “It hurts me more than it hurts you” when disciplining your kids is so true. I get it and I hated disciplining my kids sometimes. And then there were times that knowing it was for their good helped strengthen me to stay the course. My job is to raise men, not children. Disciplining your kids in a self-absorbed culture is not for the faint of heart. In fact, God said that those who spare disciplining their children hate them. Those are strong words. That means that you withhold the discipline because it hurts you. When you withhold discipline and correction from your child when they need it, you’re being selfish and the Bible says you hate your child. Sparing yourself a moment of discomfort for their future good is going to be a lifetime of heartache as that child becomes an adult. Effective discipline does not include sparing your feelings instead of doing what’s best for your child.
How do you deal with teen and adult children who live at home?
Okay, so we kind of touched on the teen discipline issue. I would lump them into the discipline of children and what’s age appropriate for them. But when it comes to adults, it’s no longer discipline but consequences. What we tell our two older boys is this: this is our home, these are our rules. They’ve lived with us their entire lives. They know the rule and they don’t pushback but we have house rules and they know it. So remember this: your adult children live with you for a reason and that reason is probably because they can’t make it on their own. The real world is one step outside your door and we all know it’s expensive. If they could make it on their own because they don’t like your house rules, they are free to go.
That’s hard as a parent.
But if you don’t set those expectations, you’re going to dislike your kids. Jordan Peterson says, “Don’t raise kids you don’t like.” You avoid that by giving them expectations and letting them suffer the consequences when they don’t meet them. That’s also how you earn their respect.
My adult kids are still young – 20 and 18. They have been of the mind that since they pay a little bit of rent and work, they don’t have to do house chores. But we fixed that real quick. If your adult kids live at home, I hope they contribute to the house. My husband works and pays the bills and he still has to make sure the lawn gets mowed. We create a team like atmosphere with our boys. We’re a family and everyone has to do their part to make sure we function and operate well. I think when you do that, the adult children feel like they’re part of the home and not just living in your home. I never want my boys to feel like they’re in my house, and I want them to know this is their home too but that means you have to help take care of it.
It goes hand in hand with the expectations.
And finally, I’d say there has to be a level of respect that goes both ways with adult kids and their parents. A few months ago, my oldest took my charger and left it in a vehicle somewhere. I was so angry and I kept telling him to get it. He didn’t. About a week went by and he let me use his phone charger instead and then he got upset when I was using it to charge my device. He got snippy and I yelled at him like he was a ten year old. I could tell he got embarrassed and he looked at his brothers like he was ashamed.
I felt terrible because he’s not 10. So I went up to him and apologized but also told him that he shouldn’t act like he’s 10. He took my charger and I’ve asked him to get it for me for over a week. That’s something I expect my 14 year old to do, not my 20 year old. But I told him I won’t ever yell at him like that again. It was a good lesson for both of us. My point is – consequences are good because they help balance respect. What I should have done was tell him that he had 24 hours to either buy me a charger or get my old one or he was going to pay me for it. Sometimes tacking on a charge like that is a consequence they don’t want to pay because that would hurt their pocket book.
Close:
In closing, I understand that disciplining our kids is hard. We hurt when they hurt. We feel what they feel. But a moment of pain saves them from a lifetime of trouble. Kids often thank us for the hard lessons we teach them rather than when we make life easy for them.
And if you have teens and adult kids in the home, don’t leave them to themselves. They still need you – even if they don’t verbalize it. Parenting is not for the faint of heart. But your impact and instruction will help them become the men and women God wants them to be.
If you have any questions for me, please email me at hello@shandafulbright.com. If you enjoy the show, please leave 5 star ratings and review. I read all of them and they help get the podcast into the earbuds of others. I cannot wait for your to hear the interviews we have coming up and for the Bible series this summer. My hope is that this encouraged you and I’ll catch you on the next one!
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