With our government leading the way, we have developed a society that thinks we need to take consequences out of the equation. I have been reading a lot in the Old Testament lately and it is obvious that as the lord dealt with His chosen people, consequences were a major part. You know how it went. God would bless Israel, they would forget and become disobedient, as a result they would suffer the consequences. Then they would repent and return to God and the blessings would begin again. What would have happened if the Lord would have overlooked Israels sin? It would have continued and the people would more than likely not have returned to Him as they did many times.
We have a 7 year old and a couple of 4 year olds in our house and recently my wife and I sat down and wrote out a list of rules of the house and what would happen if our children disobeyed those rules. We then sat them down and explained each one of them. They now know what will happen if they choose to disobey mom and dad. As parents we must do several things with our kids;
- Establish the guidelines – If they know ahead of time what the guidelines are, then it becomes their decision whether to obey or not.
- Lay down appropriate consequences – Just as our judicial system has different consequences for different crimes, so should your punishment be with your kids.
- Be consistent – I once heard Dr. James Dobson say “If you tell your child, if you do that one more time I’m going to throw you out the window, and they do it again, then you had better throw them out the window”. One of the areas I struggle the most in as a parent is following through on threats. We need to all be careful what we say we are going to do and then we had better be consistent to do it.
- Explain and discipline with love – Your child doesn’t need an angry mom or dad to discipline them. They need a controlled parent who lovingly explains the wrong doing and administers discipline under control.
As you parent your children, remember that allowing them to face consequences at home while they are small will help them avoid bad decisions later that could have greater consequences.
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