Discipline? Punishment? Course Correction?

As we are finishing up going through the book Spiritual Parenting by Michelle Anthony, she has a very interesting chapter on "course correction", the words she has chosen to use with her children instead of discipline or punishment.  "Punishment" has a negative connotation and so does "discipline".  As she studied Hebrews 12:11-13, Michelle proposes three steps that are involved in the way she explains "course correction". 

Step one is that the consequence for sin, breaking a rule or doing something wrong has to be painful to the child.  This is where we need to ask God for something specific that will speak pain to the child.  God has created this child and knows best what the child needs in this pain to bring him/her to a place of repentance and remorse.  God customizes life experiences, specific trials and loving environments for each of us to train us to repent of our sin, which is the root cause of our doing evil/bad/wrong things. 

After our child has gone through the season of pain, step two is to build them up in love, strengthening what we broke down in step one, bringing restitution in love in reassurance and in encouragement as our Heavenly Father does for us when we sin.

Step three, we are to "make a straight and level path so the lame will not be disabled but rather healed."   God wants us to learn what is the right way to do something so that we will be healed from the root issue of sin instead of becoming disabled by the issue.  God's promise then is that the harvest produced will be a harvest of righteousness and peace for those trained by the process of course correction.  We can then celebrate when the healing takes place and the sin has been dealt with openly and honestly. 

As parents, this was a new and refreshing way of looking at disciplining our children to accomplish true spiritual changes in our children's lives instead of just modifying their behavior.  Behavior modification may work in the short term and look like a true change of behavior but it hasn't dealt with the heart issue of the child. 

An interesting website that also has some excellent issues on dealing with heart issues of our children is  www.biblicalparenting.org.  They send out a couple tips a week if you'd like to subscribe at their sight.  They have also published a book called Parenting is Heart Work by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, RN, BSN.