Parenting on Bended Knee

Today, spent a full day attending seminar on parenting. I’m glad that I learnt and reminded of a lot of important things. Certainly, there’re a lot of smart and experience people out there.

It’s good thing that these people share their life experience in a clear, structured, and systematic way. Hence it’s clearly explained as well as understood.

I do realized also, that I probably belong to the second group of people. Somehow after reading or hearing things explained in such well orderly mannered, still can’t grasped the thing…like there’s a veil / mist that blurring my vision. Certainly the issue is with me, not with the writer or speaker. And if you belong to the second group like me, hope what i share here could be useful…

The issue is on discipline (including spanking). The speaker explains very well, from the biblical reasoning, and how to do it.

However, life is more complex than a talk comprised in 30 minutes. I still remember that I struggled over the issue for so long. After hearing and consulting so many people, I still having difficulties of mastering it. Questions such as, how to do it right, when to do it (how old the child before you can begin to spank), what are the offense that will get a spank, how hard one must spank, what to do during, before, and after the spanking………The list continues………

And looking back, I made thousands mistakes too……Can you believe it? After so many encounters, consultation, clarifications, reading books, just on spanking……I  could still get it wrong?

Even until today, I still haven’t solved my own questions:

  1. When do i need to spank? (The answer is clear: for defiance, yet…in practical at what point? It’s very hard to be specific).
  2. How hard must i spank? (The answer is clear: enough pain for the child to learn and repent. Yet, i still don’t know exactly how hard must it be, as the child progress in years too)
  3. What must I do when doing it? (The answer is clear: tell the offense, get acknowledgement, comfort and reassure the child. Execution wise is all different stories, which each offense and circumtances)
  4. Who should do it? (The party who was offended should do it)

So, with all these less than perfect knowledge on my own. At the same time knowing well my own sinfulness (if God had to dealt with me according to my sins, I would have doomed long ago)…what I find it working well is praying to God continuously, especially in regards to disciplining a child.

When the child is moving towards disobedience…i begin my praying. And a lot is repetitive words,”Lord have mercy, Lord help me, Lord i can’t do this…Lord how?…….Please help…”

If today, my child is good, that’s certainly is not because of my wisdom in bringing them up. It’s not in my effective disciplining also, for i spank them several times, and i don’t think they’re done correctly. And i could only believe that it’s because God answer my prayers.

So, does reading books and listen to good teaching useful? Certainly.

Do we then just simply do and everything will be ok? I don’t think so. If like me, you belong to the second group of people who can’t get 100% of what you hear and read, then a hope here is that God answers our prayers. If we come to him, with our heart cries and petition on disciplining and raising up our God’s given children, my faith tells me that things will be ok at the end.

Probably it’s like what Paul says that God’s power made perfect in our weakness. So that no man could boast.

Cry to the Lord. He will save you and your family.

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