Okay, so this is Eleanor Mayer. We were talking about how to truly love your children, part two. And we have just discussed Hebrews 12, verses one and six, which talks about how God disciplines us as a reflection of his love for us. And we also talked about Ephesians 6.1, which says that the right thing for children to do is to obey their parents. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Now we are going to move into a little bit more of the practical aspects of doing this. I feel like, excuse me, in the modern world, that disciplining children is becoming More and more rare. There are some parents who punish their children. Excuse me. But knowing how to truly discipline and train your children. Excuse me. Take care, Ma. Take care. Okay. I'm going to go grab some water real quick. Just a second. Okay, excuse me. We have a lot of dry dust in the air right now and it dries out my throat. So I will take a drink. Okay. So let's look at some of these principles under Roman numeral four. And we will not look at all of the verses that are listed here. You can go back and look at these on your own. But I do want to touch on this because we need to understand what it is that we're doing and what our goals are. Okay, so the first principle under here is that parents, under the father's leadership, instruct and children submit and obey. Proverbs 1 verse 8. Let's see. Blessing. Can you read for us? Are you able to read? If you're able to unmute. If you are not, it is fine. But if you can, we would appreciate it. Okay? Parents, under the father's leadership, instruct children, submit, and obey. Proverbs, let me read that for us. Proverbs 1, verse 8. Hear my son, your father's instruction. and do not forsake your mother's teaching. So in terms of leadership in the home, scripture teaches that the father is the head of the home. However, in this verse, even though he is the one in charge, it is still talking about the importance of the mother's teaching. And last week we looked at Timothy's life and how important both his mother and his grandmother were in teaching him the scriptures that contributed to his understanding of God as he was growing up. So, parents are told that our responsibility is to teach and our children's responsibility is to learn how to submit and obey. It is God's expectation that obedient children are a blessing to their parents. Let's look at Proverbs 10 verse 1. If someone would like to read scripture, I don't want to put you all on the spot, and I know that some of you are not able to, but if you will If you will just let me know in the chat room, I will check it and we'll call on you. Okay? But otherwise it is fine for you to just sit and listen. Okay? So we're talking about, it is God's expectation that obedient children are a blessing to their parents. And let's look at Proverbs 10 verse one. The proverb of Solomon, a wise son makes a father glad. but a foolish son is a grief to his mother. So when our children are wise in the things of the Lord and are obedient and are living in obedience to God through obeying their parents, it makes us glad. And when they are not, it brings us grief. God's expectation is that children will obey their parents and will be a blessing to them. And these verses back that up. Okay? There is also a warning of the failure to raise obedient children. And let's, for that, let's look at Proverbs 17 verses 25. A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore them. When our children don't obey, it restricts what we are able to do. I have had wives tell me that they were not able to host a Bible study or any kind of a ladies meeting at their house because their children would not let them. And that is a shame. That's not what God wants. It is possible to teach your children to obey you to the extent that They can play quietly in a corner of the room while you are having a meeting. And not only do they get the blessing of being around godly women who are praying and talking about things of the Lord in terms of influence and of being included in their mother's life, but They're also a real testimony to the other ladies. The reason why I know that is possible is because we did it. It does require a lot of work, especially at the first, for your children to understand what's expected of them and to understand the standard. But it is possible to teach them that. You can decide what the standard of behavior is that you desire for your children and then teach them. to obey according to that standard. Now let me mention here that it is very important when you are talking about disciplining and training children that both parents are in agreement. So it's important to talk through it with your husbands and decide. We both come from different backgrounds. Your background and your husband's background and have different experiences. in terms of how our parents treated us and what their expectations were. So it's important to come together and talk about what you want to do with your own family and how you want to do it. So it's not something that you are going to pursue on your own without discussing it with your husband first. But at the same time, it's important that when a child disobeys, the parent who is on duty is the one who disciplines them. So if your husband is at work and you are home with the children when they disobey, then you need to have the confidence to know what the two of you have agreed is going to be your response to disobedience and how you are going to handle it. And we'll talk more specifically about that in just a minute. Okay, grace is not overlooking disobedience, and discipline is not a lack of love. We've already talked about that. If you look at Romans 1, let's look at Romans 1, verses 28 through 30. Okay, let me check real quick. I have some comments in the chat room. Oh good, Sharon. Would you read Romans 1, verses 28 through 30? And then Chigo, I'll call on you again. And Lana. Okay, I'll call on you three. That's great. Okay, Romans 1, verse 28. Yes, thank you. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and Now to me, this passage is amazing. It's sad. because it's described people who were living in direct rebellion to God. They refused to acknowledge Him. And so it says God gave them over. In other words, He allowed them to continue in their rebellion. He did not discipline for it because that was their choice. And then it describes all the things that resulted from that. wickedness, greed, evil, murder, envy, slanderers, haters of God, all of these horrible things. And the last thing that's mentioned at the end of verse 30 is disobedient to parents. That is God's attitude towards children who disobey their parents. He considers it in the same class as all of these other character traits and actions. So he takes disobedience very seriously. And that is why it is so important for us to get a handle on our children's behavior and specifically on teaching them what it means to obey. If we do not teach our children God's standards for obedience, they will conform They'll learn from their peer group. They'll learn from what they are forced to do in the classroom. They will learn from the judicial system, if it gets to that point. But in none of those areas are they learning from people who have their very best interests at heart, like they are when they learn from their parents. None of those other means of learning are governed by a desire to see God's plan worked out in that child's life. So God has really very clearly told us that he considers disobedience an important thing for parents to deal with. And so that's kind of the direction that we're coming from when we talk about this. It's relatively easy to say that we are just excusing some behavior because they are little or they are tired or they don't understand or some other reason. But if we don't begin to discipline our children when they are young, they don't grow up understanding what self-control and discipline are. And at a time in their lives, they will be on their own and making their own choices. And that is going to be missing from their character because they were not taught as children. So it's important for us, as an aspect of our love for our children, to teach them and train them how to obey. So let's talk about some of the practical areas for how to do that. First of all, the Bible talks about the rod as a tool of grace, and it specifically teaches it as a method of discipline. The Hebrew word for rod is shebet, and in the Old Testament, the rod was used for three things, basically, in terms of how the Bible describes it. It was used for crushing herbs and sometimes grain. It was used for directing sheep. And it was used for disciplining children. So this doesn't mean that there are not other methods of discipline, but this is the only one that Scripture specifically teaches. and that has specific promises attached to it. So we've talked about reasons why discipline is important. Now let's talk a little bit about how to discipline our children. Remember, we are not punishing them. It is the difference between torture and cancer treatment. Someone who is beaten, because of their, for some reason, they are enduring torture. There is no purpose to it except for revenge, getting even, taking care of something, some crime or something that they have committed, which is not acceptable. Cancer treatment can be just as painful, but it is intended to heal and it will, The whole intent of it is to bring good into that person's life, even though it is painful. So the two things can actually incorporate pain and sorrow, but they have two totally different goals in them. And that's the same with our children. We are not beating them. We are disciplining them and a lot of the difference has to do with our attitude and it has to do with our method, how we do it. Now the rod ceases, we cease spanking our children when they become adults. So when our child enters puberty, which is usually about 11, 12 years old, then we stop using spanking or physical punishment and can use other methods. In our family, we used taking away privileges and extra work, but that's a whole different topic. So we won't go into that in detail today. Okay. So let's go back to talking about Well, before we go on, my feeling, and this is just an opinion based on observation, is that most parents do not discipline because it is too much work. Disciplining children requires specific, focused attention because you are first coming up with a plan, What areas are you going to discipline for and how are you going to do it? And then it involves paying attention and responding when your child does disobey so that you can deal with those areas and help them to get the victory over it and help them learn to obey in those specific areas. So many parents don't discipline just because it is too much work. They either have their own interests or they just don't want to spend the time and energy that's required to discipline their children. Some parents are concerned about abuse, but as I was just talking, was just saying, when you are disciplining in a controlled manner, your child understands what they are learning. They understand that they are loved. They have the opportunity to prove that they are learning and improving. And it actually results in bringing you closer to the child rather than pulling you apart. So let's talk some more about that. There are five basic areas that we initially disciplined our children in. And we started disciplining when they became mobile. Once they were crawling, The very first thing we taught them was no. And that was largely a safety issue, initially, because since they were mobile, they could get to things that they couldn't get to when they were not able to move around. So it was, you would pick what you were going to teach them first. For us, it was the outlets in the wall for plugging in electric. things, electric cords. I knew of a child who at a young age stuck a metal fork into the electric outlet and fused their fingers together with the electricity that traveled through the fork. They were able to have surgery and they were able to regain the use of their fingers, but it was It was obviously very painful and traumatic for them. So we taught our kids no. We taught them that there were some things that they could not touch and could not do. Then the second thing was obey. Once a child was old enough to understand concepts, excuse me, and one way, But, excuse me, to help you recognize this is when you know that they know their name. Because that, excuse me, I'm having trouble today. Because no, don't touch is very concrete. It's no is the plant, no is the electric outlet, no is the door. No is the hot oven. All of those things are concrete. When you want to teach them the concept of obedience, that is a little more abstract. But if once a child understands their name, then they can understand the meaning of words, and you can teach them the concept of obedience. As a matter of fact, we taught our children this phrase once they were speaking. I will obey mommy or daddy quickly the first time because we wanted them to have that kind of attitude towards obedience. That it wasn't that you got as close to disobeying as you could before you pulled back, but that you obeyed quickly as soon as you realized that what you were doing was disobedience. The third area in the Big Five is open or give. And that had to do with putting things in their mouth or crunching things in their hand. And we taught our children where we could say, come, and they would come to us, which is the fourth area here. And then we could say open, and they would open their mouth rather than swallowing what was in it. And then I could get out of their mouth the button or the lid or the insect or whatever it was they had put in there that would not be good for them to swallow. And give was the same thing with something in their hand, a pair of scissors, a needle, something that would, or just something that I didn't want them to have, something that belonged to someone else. Then, as I mentioned, come. is being able to say come and having your child come to you rather than run away. And this specific area made a huge difference in our children's lives. There was more than one time when I was out in a parking lot and a child started moving away from me and I could say, no, come. they would turn around and come back to me rather than running out into the street. And I see that happening all the time. You hold on to your child's hand as much as you can, but you have to let go to manage the car door or the bag or the baby or whatever the situation is. So your child being able to come to you when you call them is truly critical because sometimes there are dangers that they don't see, but you do. Then the fifth area is hush. We taught our children, we allowed them to cry when they were hurting, when they were scared, but we did not allow them to continue crying or to whine as a means of getting attention or as punishment for us. or as a manipulation. So we taught them that when we said hush, they would close their mouths and stop crying. So those are five key areas that you can teach your child, starting whenever they first become mobile. Six to nine months, whenever they first start being able to move around in the room on their own, you can begin to teach them the concept of no. And that's the very beginning of the concept of obedience. Move forward from there. And then I'm going to explain the discipline process. But let me mention one of the things that John and I did regularly all while our children were growing up is weekly we would get together specifically to talk about what issues we were seeing in our children's lives that needed to be disciplined. Sometimes it would be a response. Maybe they were not responding the way they should to correction. Maybe I would say, come, and the child would run the other direction. Uh, maybe it was, uh, being able to get in their bed and stay there after we, after we had prayed and gone through our whole nighttime routine with them. Excuse me. Uh, whatever the issue was for each child, we have four children. We would talk about what we were seeing and we decided the one issue we were going to deal with that week one at a time. And, um, trying to be very consistent with dealing with it until they understood what kind of behavior we wanted them to have and were compliant with that. Sometimes John would see things that I wasn't seeing and vice versa. So it was very helpful for us to come together and it was very helpful for me in terms of my confidence, because we could agree on the issue we were going to deal with, and then come up with a plan for how we were gonna deal with it. Okay? So let's talk very specifically. You can see that we've been moving from principle, what the Bible teaches, to how do we apply that to our lives. And let me say too, at this point, we have moved into the area of methods. I believe that these methods are consistent with what Scripture teaches, but they are methods. You don't have to do these things exactly the way we did. But I don't want to talk about the principles and say that we need to love our children by training and disciplining them, and then not give you some kind of practical help. So if you decide you don't want to do these specific things, you certainly do not need to, but this gives you a start. You can talk about what you're going to do and come up with a plan that suits your own, just what you want to do with your children. So let's, let me move this thing up a little bit. Okay. I know I asked you ladies who would like to read and now we're moving in kind of out of the scripture reading part so I apologize. I'll make sure and take advantage of your availability next week. But let's talk about the training process. This is specifically talking about spanking. We spanked our children on their rear end. the fleshy part of the back of their leg, what you sit on. We could spank them there and it might cause a bruise but it did not cause any damage. We did not spank on the hand or certainly not anywhere on the head or anywhere where it could cause physical damage to their bones. The part that we sit on is receptive to the discipline of the pain of spanking, but it is not going to be damaged. Okay? And there were aspects to this training process. One spank was for training. That's when we were teaching the concept. Let me give you an example of cleaning up their room. Okay? If I have said, The way we would start the process, come in the room and say, I would like you to clean up your room now. We will eat dinner in a few minutes. The child's response, the desired response is to say, okay, get up from their playing and begin to clean up their room. Now, before I can do this though, before I can expect obedience, I would need to show them what it meant to clean a room. So we would spend a pretty good amount of time and I would say, first of all, I want you to make your bed. Now, a five-year-old making a bed is not going to look like I made the bed. It's not going to be perfect, but you can teach them how to pull up the sheets and pull up the covers and however, whatever your standard is for making the bed so that it looks neater than if the covers are just all thrown around at the end of the bed. So you teach them how to make the bread, then you teach them how to pick up what's on the floor, and you could break it down into areas of the room, then you teach them where you want them to put their clothes, then you teach them where do you want them to put their shoes, then you teach them what kind of How, if they have a chest of drawers or a dresser, you know, how do you want them to clean off the top of that? In other words, you just take a good look at their room and analyze what needs to be cleaned in this room. Straightened is really what we're talking about, picking up. Okay? Now, once you know, they understand how to do it because you have shown them, you have done it with them, and then you have watched them do it. then you should be able to go in and say, I'd like you to pick up your room. And if they start doing it, but then get distracted, they see one of the other children playing and they go over to talk to them, then that is one spank, that is a training spank, because they are still learning the process. So you give them one spank. Now, however, if you say, I want you to clean up your room and you check back on them in a little while and they are sitting on the floor playing with their toys, then they are disobeying you because they know what it means to clean up their room. They know what the process is, they know how to do it, and they have chosen to disobey. So that was two spanks. Then the next level of disobedience is rebellion. Rebellion is when I'd say clean up your room, and they looked at me and stomped their foot and said, no, or threw themselves on the ground. I don't want to clean up my room. That's rebellion. And that's three spanks. God takes rebellion very seriously. And I wanted to too. I did not want my children to grow up feeling like rebellion was a viable option. then repetition is if you have spanked them and then they repeat the offense you just add one so you would give them one more spank for repeating the offense and then again this is the phrase I mentioned earlier we taught them to say I will obey mommy quickly the first time and they could repeat that to us and they understood what it meant okay now The process itself, we talked about spanking, but the process itself involved four different areas. Instruct, discipline, instruct, and restore. So let's say I have asked my child to clean up their room, and I check back on them, and they are sitting on the floor playing with their toys. So in other words, they are disobeying. They have chosen to disobey what I asked them to do. Then I would say, let's say their name is Susie. Susie, I asked you to clean up your room and you disobeyed me. So they understand what the infraction is. then I would say, go lie on your bed and put your hands on your cheeks. We had them lie on their bed and put their hands on their cheeks, because we didn't want them to put their hands back where we were going to spank them, because it could injure their hands. And it was also teaching them self-control. So they would put their hands on their cheeks, and then we would administer the discipline. I would give her two spankings for disobeying. Then I would explain again. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm out of my correct order. They put their hands on their cheeks and then explained again. Mommy is going to give you two spanks for disobeying because I told you to clean up your toys and you disobeyed. So they understand there's no doubt in their mind what kind of infraction they have done. It also, to be honest, gave me a few minutes to calm down so that I was not disciplining in anger. I grew up in a house where we were disciplined in anger. We were not disciplined until we had pushed enough buttons to anger our parents, and then we were disciplined. But it was It was not nearly as effective as understanding, because I can remember times when I really didn't understand exactly what it was I had gotten, I had done wrong. And probably what I had done wrong was several actions behind what I, the point where I was actually being disciplined because I was being disciplined at the point where they got angry, if that makes sense, okay? So now their hands are on their cheeks. I've explained again what they did to disobey. And then I administer discipline in a controlled manner without anger. So that's two spanks. We used a wooden spoon. Two spanks with a wooden spoon. Then they would be crying. I would hold them in my lap, sit on the bed, and pull them over to me and hug me. And I would have them explain, now why did you get that spanking? I disobeyed. I didn't clean up my room. So I knew that they knew what they had done. Then I would love them, reinforce the relationship. Oh, I am so proud of you. You were learning how to obey. I know you were going to do a great job. Mommy always, always loves you. And then it would send them back to finish what they were doing. So disobedience is the issue, and we have to keep that foremost. Never the relationship, nor my own behavior. They needed to be sure that they understood what I was going to do. And our children learned very quickly that training was one spank, disobedience two spanks, rebellion three spanks. And one of our children was a real negotiator, and they would sometimes try to, oh no, mommy, that wasn't disobedience, that was training. They would try to negotiate their way out of the level of disobedience they were in. But the point is they knew what I was going to do. They didn't have to wonder, is she going to spank me once or twice or three times or five times? what is going to happen. They knew. And they also knew that the relationship was not the issue because I was hugging them, I wasn't angry at them, I wasn't holding them at arm's length. I was reinforcing that I loved them and that was why I was teaching them these things. Okay? Now I realize I have given you a lot of information in a small amount of time and condensed some things down to a much shorter version, because this is a whole seminar that John gives that has about nine, or maybe a few more than that, nine one-hour sessions to it. But these are the basic aspects of disciplining in terms of how we did it, and in terms of giving you a practical idea of how you can discipline, but discipline as training, not punishment, not out of anger, but out of a desire for their best interests. Because our objective, remember from Hebrews 12, well, our objective from Ephesians 6 is children, obey your parents and the Lord for this is right. We want our children to learn to obey because that, in God's eyes, that's the right thing to do. And it is what is going to make them righteous in his sight. Then what we talked about in Hebrews 12, all discipline for the monk. Well, first in 10, Hebrews 12, verse 10, for they disciplined us for a short time as seen best to them. So we are doing, our best to discipline them as parents. But He disciplines us for our good so that we may share His holiness. God is going to be disciplining them for the whole rest of their lives. He's going to be teaching them things about Himself. We know from 2 Timothy 3.16 that the Word of God points out error to us so that we can correct it and get back in our relationship. So God disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. And that's our objective with our children. And this is verse 11, Hebrews 12. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. So it is going to be painful. A spanking with a wooden spoon does hurt because my objective is that they would rather do what they are supposed to do and learn obedience than get a spanking. but it is going to be training them. It says, seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it afterwards, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So the goal of this discipline is they will be trained so that their lives yield peace, fruit, and righteousness, the peaceful fruit of righteousness. So that's our goal. And that's, in this whole area of disciplining and love. That's our objective. Someday, our children will be living on their own, making their own decisions, responding individually to God's will and His leading and His direction in their lives. And I want them to begin to learn how to obey God, even as children, and to learn qualities of fruits of the spirit like the whole area of self-control. They can start learning that as children so that they are equipped to live the kind of fruitful lives that God wants them to have and yet have a loving relationship with me. So this kind of discipline when we are doing it in love actually results in a closer relationship because we are working closer together and they are assured of our desire for their best. So I hope that this has been helpful, maybe stimulated your thinking a little bit. If you decide that this is an area that you need to work on with your children, be sure and discuss it thoroughly with your husband and come up with a plan. Choose one area at a time. and decide how you are going to deal with it. Your standards for your family are up to you to decide on. But God does want our children to learn to obey. It pleases him and it will bring good into their lives. So I hope that this has been helpful. Next week, we get back to Titus 2, And we will be talking about what it means to be sensible. So I look forward to seeing you next week. So let us pray. And then if some people have questions or comments, I'll turn off the recorder and you can ask those. Father, I really pray that you would just show us what you want us to do. in terms of our families. Father, we love our children. We want to love them according to how you direct us to love them. Help us to be able to think through and evaluate what our standards of obedience are. and what is the best way for our children to live in obedience to you. Father, pray that you would help us to communicate well with our husbands, that we would be able to come to a point of agreement on what our standards should be and how we will get there. And I pray, Father, that as we just continue to love our children and build a relationship with them, that you would help us to bring this into the mix. as a means of showing our love to them and directing their lives in a way that honors you. So Father, I lift up this time and ask that it would, just ask that it would bring honor to you. Father, we love you and appreciate your work in our lives. In your name I pray, amen.