If You Love Your Child, You Will Discipline Them

My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom he loves, and a father the son in whom he delights.  (Proverbs 3:11-12)

One of the hardest truths for a young child to understand is how a spanking can be loving. Spankings hurt. Spanking is inconvenient. And if you are a well-behaved child, a spanking might be infrequent. And, on the other hand, if you are not as obedient, you might encounter a spanking often.

But the bottom line is this – no child has ever desired a spanking. I cannot recall a time in my parenting history, where I informed one of my sons they needed to go my bedroom for a spanking that one of them exclaimed, “Yes!”

No one desires the rod. So, how can something we don’t desire be a loving act?

One thing to notice about these verses is that Solomon is saying that discipline is strategic. it is not arbitrary; it is not without purpose. It should have godly motivation and that motivation is love.

That means that the parent who fails to discipline their child is not showing love to their child. They are agreeing with their foolish child who thinks that discipline is a form of hatred.

The compelling reason that discipline is loving is because without correcting, our children will continue to make foolish and sinful decisions. And if we are okay with that, we really are telling our children, we are okay with them being fools the rest of their lives. We are telling them that sin is permissible.

If my child was going to crawl under my deck, and I knew there was a pit of vipers under there, and allowed him to do it anyway, I would probably be arrested for child endangerment or neglect. No one would think of me as a loving parent for allowing those vipers to regularly attack my child.

How much more is this the case with disciplining our children. If we aren’t willing to discipline them from crawling into the pit of sin, we are guilty of spiritual endangerment and neglect.

Other passages to consider: Deuteronomy 4:36; 8:5; 11:2; Job 5:17; Psalm 94:12; Proverbs 5:12; 12:1; 13:24; Hebrews 12:5-11.