I remember how I felt when my first child was born. What an amazing sensation! I felt my heart speeding up as well as I had to take deep breaths. Now, I am a Dad! At that point, I said – wait minute - I haven’t been a parent before! So I immediately started to meditate about my new role as a parent.
Obviously the question that came to my mind, "What is a good parent?"
At that point I realized that I went through elementary school, intermediate school and high school and eventually medical school, but I never took a class about parenting. So I decided to analyze how my parents did it and try to follow their style as a guideline.
Through the years, I realized that one of the most difficult and complex areas of parenting is discipline. But I also noticed that as time passes, society has become more and more complex in this area. The parameters and expectations have evolved placing a restraining garnet on the parents at the time of disciplining their children. At the same time, society expects exemplary citizens.
You might have seen in the media a picture of a belt or a flip flop with a description saying: “This is an old device used by our parents to discipline us and thanks to it – we turned out good citizens.”
This particular post about the belt isn’t promoting violence or abuse but is indicating that we as parents have become too soft at the correction of our children.
But let’s see what the Bible says about discipline:
“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” - Proverbs 22:6
I must admit that it is so difficult for me to confront my children; sometimes our hearts get in the way to firmly correct them. The scriptures advises us about the benefit of overcoming those feelings and do the right thing:
“For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” - Hebrews 12: 11
While I was working in this blog, I found out that the bible emphasizes good parenting/discipline in approximately fifty verses throughout the Old and New Testament.
Furthermore, a parent that disciplines his/her child is demonstrating the real love of a parent as the scriptures pointed out:
"My son, do not despise the LORD's discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in." - Proverbs 3:11-12