Category: Discipline

3 Ways Our Children May Respond to Discipline that Overlooks the Gospel

We need to handle God’s Word with care as we discipline our children. In our last post, we considered the need to give our children the hope of the gospel when we correct them. If we only take them to the Bible to show them how God says to live, we’ve missed our prime opportunity to tell them how they can live that way. They’re not going to obey God by […]

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Our Children Need More than a Mirror

Have you ever looked in the mirror an hour or two after dinner only to discover that a portion of your meal is still stuck in your teeth? You probably took care of the problem as quickly as possible (while reviewing in your mind how many people you had smiled at since you ate). You rinsed your mouth. You brushed your teeth. The mirror helped you see what was wrong […]

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My Priorities for the Preschool Years

My Priorities for the Preschool Years

As a dad of four children ages 1 to 5, sometimes I’m tempted to think these early years are unimportant. But I know that’s not true; the way we treat a child from age one to five will have a huge influence on how the rest of his childhood and his life will turn out. These early years of life are likely the most critical and formative ones. Here are […]

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Six Different Kinds of Disobedience (and the Root Problem)

My wife and I are launching on a new Bible study. We’ve often tried to read through the Bible from beginning to end in a year (sometimes we make it, sometimes we don’t), but this time we’re reading through the Bible looking for insights relevant to parenting. I’m already excited about what we are finding. You notice new things when you’re reading with a different perspective! Israel’s early history as […]

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Training Children for Their Good

When I wrote about Discipline vs Punishment a few weeks ago, I was surprised by the animated discussion that followed. In the comments and in a post update I added, we talked more specifically about what discipline and punishment look like in the home and what constitutes biblical discipline. About the same time, I discovered an article entitled Training Children for Their Good, by Andy Naselli. I found this very […]

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Discipline vs Punishment – What’s the Difference?

Dad talking to son

I remember, not too long ago, looking a child right in the eye as he begins to slowly, deliberately tilt the full cup of water in his hand. “Stop – don’t you pour that on the floor!” I say, as I watch him do exactly that. As the water hits the floor, my first thought is “You’re really going to get it now!” I want to swoop in with the […]

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Little Weeds

I’ve been catching up on weeding in the garden the last couple evenings. The garden’s a nice place to be, even if I am bent over picking little weeds out from between even littler seedlings. The hum of the traffic on the highway provides a backdrop for the birds singing, the neighbor’s tractor mowing, and our dog begging to get out of his kennel so he can trample over all […]

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On Training the Will of the Child

Post by Daniel Forster I love the feel and smell of old books. I’m in the middle of reading one right now. It has a plain brown cloth cover, with small gold letters on the spine: THE CHILDREN FOR CHRIST ———— ANDREW MURRAY Inside the cover, there’s a note from 1952, when my great great grandfather gave the book to his youngest daughter. There’s another note from 2006 when my […]

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Bedtime.

Bedtime. It can be a challenge. About the time you think you have them all settled for the night, a just-potty-trained toddler has to go! The little guy in the crib starts calling for a “bah”, a spider calls across the wall, or a little girl is suddenly desperate for a drink — and then desperate for the bathroom thirty minutes later. Is there a way to simplify the bedtime ordeal? I […]

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“He’s Not Sharing!”

I bought it for $1.99 at Goodwill. I thought it would be a fun present for one of the grandkids. They could pretend to take pictures with it. My husband is the one who pointed out that it was a real camera. He fiddled with some things, put in some batteries, and we had a real working, bright pink, Fisher-Price digital camera. Now it was too hot of an item to give […]

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