Discipline With Kindness, Even When You're Angry

     Walking past the window in my three-year-old son’s room, something caught my eye. Along the trim under the windowsill were three deep holes dug into the drywall with a small screwdriver sitting on the wood floor underneath. Calling him upstairs, I sat Judah on my lap, showed him the holes in the wall, and asked him how they got there. “I don’t know, maybe a woodpecker flew in here and made them.” An obvious lie. My blood was boiling.

     After he continued his woodpecker lie for several minutes, I finally showed him the drywall dust on the tip of the screwdriver. I said I know a person made the holes in the wall with this screwdriver and asked if it was him. With tears in his eyes he wrapped his arms around my neck and cried, “It was me, it was me. I’m so sorry daddy.” That sentence, full of genuine remorse, broke through the petty anger I felt. With my wife by my side, we discussed the importance of honesty, forgiveness, trust, and living like Jesus.

     I’m grateful God gave us that moment, because, if I’m being honest, sometimes it’s hard for me to let go of that anger. I know some of you can relate to that feeling - that feeling that comes from being lied to, disobeyed, or disrespected by your children. I don’t know about you, but my temperature starts to rise whenever my kids sin against me or their mom. Although it’s not wrong to feel anger, I can easily justify letting my anger get the best of me when correcting my kids.

     In her blog post “How Should I Handle Anger While Disciplining”, author and speaker Jen Wilkin discusses the role that anger plays in the process of correcting our children. I especially needed to hear two points from her post:

• Kids have a hard time processing the anger they see in their parents. I don’t want my kids to think they have power over my emotions, but I also don’t want them to obey me simply out of fear and insecurity.
• It’s so important to analyze and debrief any anger I feel when my kids are disobedient or disrespectful. Why did that make me angry? Did I express my anger in a sinful way? Had I communicated my expectations well to my child? Answering questions like these will only help me become slower to anger and quicker to repent for my own sins.

     This idea reminds me something that author and counselor Tedd Tripp wrote in his book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart. He said,

“God calls you to be authorities who are truly kind.”

Kindness is not a character quality I usually associate with discipline. As I kindly lead my children - correcting them in love and not fueled by my anger - they will be more likely to love, forgive, and be slow to anger just like Jesus.

     Have you wrestled with the role anger plays in your family’s discipline? How can you improve to correct through kindness and not anger? How do you debrief or analyze your own emotions during times of discipline?

When Your Kids Embarrass You

     We’ve all been there. That time when you find out your kid totally acted up when you weren't there. Here’s how it happened in my family recently:

     I was at work. My wife needed to run errands, so her mom came over to watch the kids. Our four-year-old was left playing, but mom gave him clear instructions to “clean up, and head to nap when your Nana tells you to.”

     The playing was no problem. The issue came when Nana politely let him know it was time for nap. Instead of listening and obeying, he just kept playing. He totally ignored her request, and to make it even more embarrassing, he said very matter-of-factly:

"I do whatever I Want."

     It’s funny now, but it was embarrassing and frustrating at the time. You probably remember a similar time with your kids. A screaming fit in the grocery store aisle. A stubborn sit-in protest at the playground. Maybe a shrill "I hate you!" as they stomp out of the room.

How do we respond when our kids act out and embarrass us in front of others? Here's some advice for facing that embarrassing showdown.

Don’t

• Don't let your personal anger or embarrassment influence your response. It’s tough to do, but your response should be the same whether someone else witnessed your child’s disobedience or not. Consistency is the key to long-term success in correcting a behavior.
• Don't let your child off the hook. Sometimes we cope with our kids' public behavior by totally ignoring it and never addressing it. Even if you can’t find a good consequence in the moment, you should let your child know she did something wrong and you do not approve.
• Don't use public shaming as a form of discipline. I’ve seen dozens of times where parents “raise the stakes” by raising their voice, pointing out their child’s foolishness, loudly voicing their displeasure, or sternly threatening to leave. I see it all the time, but I've never seen it work.

Do

• Apologize to any affected parties. Like it or not, the buck stops with you - not your child. If you’re the parent and your child acted out, you need to own it. To be clear, you’re not apologizing for your child. Hopefully they can do that on their own by the end of the discipline process. From my own story, at some point we should have better trained our four-year-old to listen to anyone we leave in charge. We didn’t, so we needed to apologize to my mother-in-law for that (and our son eventually apologized to Nana too).
• Give your child an appropriate consequence. If you do nothing except tell your child "that was wrong," they probably won't learn. Let them know what that there will be a consequence. The younger they are, the more immediate it should be (if possible). Giving them a timeout later that day isn’t as effective as making them clean up their toys and sit quietly for 5 minutes right now.

Remember, we’re all in this together. You’re allowed to laugh later too, especially at cute four-year-olds. When you’re inevitably embarrassed by your kids, don't stoop to their level. Be the parent, keep your cool, and help mold your child's character to become more like Jesus.

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Photo Source: Michael Bently. Used under the Creative Commons License 2.0.