by Pat Lamb (Author of: Let the Children Come; Children, Come to Me; When the Stars Fall Down; Widening the Church Doors to Teach the Narrow Way; My Thinking Book; Love is….)
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Are We “Passing the Buck” in Disciplining Children?
Children go to school and the school personnel say, “Why don’t the parents discipline their children?” The children go home and the parents say, “Isn’t that school disciplining my children?” The children go to church activities and the workers there wonder, “Aren’t these children getting any discipline at home or school?” Children go out in public places and folks say, “These children are so undisciplined! Why doesn’t someone discipline these children nowadays?”
Whose responsibility is it to discipline children? I submit that it is the responsibility of those in charge wherever the children are. Of course, the ones most responsible are the parents. In addition to the discipline at home, it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure they are getting disciplined when someplace other than with the parents.
Why do people not accept this responsibility?
School personnel are highly restricted in the kinds of discipline they can administer. This causes those in charge to be hesitant to step up to the plate and do what is necessary. I am impressed to see how creative many teachers have become in helping the children behave correctly. Still, often more discipline is needed than the children are getting.
Church workers often hesitate to discipline for fear the children will not return to church. “If the children don’t come back to church, how can we teach them?” The truth of the matter is that unless we teach them and discipline them, what good is it for them to come back to church? They are there to receive discipline and correction as well as knowledge. By not disciplining the children, we are in reality teaching them that they can behave in unacceptable ways and get by with it. They may actually be thinking, “If they let me act like this at church, it must be all right to act this way all the time”.
When children visit another person’s home or a public place, they need to be taught to observe the rules of that location. Those in charge have the right to expect children to observe those rules.
Each of us needs to live up to the responsibility of disciplining children when they are under our care. If we tell a child to do something, we should see to it that it is done. Follow-through is probably the single most important thing we can do to teach a child to act properly. For example, if we tell a child not to run, we should not let that child run. If we don’t care that he/she runs, we shouldn’t give the instruction in the first place. Unfortunately, it is usually the adult who gives in rather than the child. What can we do in a situation like this? We should love the children enough to risk not being liked. We need to follow-through, get the child, take the child back to the place where he started running and walk with the child. It may take a few times, but the child will get the message that obedience is a must.
An undisciplined child is an unhappy child. A disciplined child usually has good self-esteem because he/she has a sense of doing right. Children cannot feel self-worth if they are always being looked upon with disdain due to poor behavior. We really help children when we discipline them. When there is no discipline, children become like little wild animals and are always looking for something to make them feel good. We are created to have a good feeling when we do what is right, and when we know that what we have done is right. In other words, it just feels good to be good.