This video was very good and hits the nail on the head for the basics of corrective discipline or spanking our younger children. Slightly more “produced,” shall we say. But very worth your time.
And as they reference Ted Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart, I can’t commend this highly enough. See also here. I only wish I had read this and especially the chapter, “Embracing Biblical Methods: the Rod,” earlier than I did. But I sure am thankful that we did read and implement its principles, however imperfectly. I know my children are the better and much happier for it! Parents, read this book together.
Here’s a selection, to encourage you to pick it up. Responding to the objection that spanking “doesn’t work,” Tripp writes:
This objection requires further examination of a parent’s specific practice. Years of pastoral experience have persuaded me that cases of the rod not working can be summarized as follows:
A) The primary reason spanking can be ineffective is spanking in anger. Children will not willingly submit themselves to the authority of an angry, out-of-control parent. There is an innate sense of justice in a child; they will inwardly resist submitting their hearts to a parent who bullies them. They may cower. They may even respond to punishment out of fear, but they will not willingly place themselves under the authority of a parent who disciplines in unholy anger.
B) Inconsistent use of the rod. The child never knew what would elicit a spanking. Therefore, he was always testing the parent.
C) Failure to persist. Some folks never try anything long enough for it to work. They give the rod a couple of days. Their children are not transformed overnight. They give up in discouragement.
D) Failure to be effective. I have witnessed spanking administered through a double layer of diapers to a child who never stopped moving long enough to know he had been spanked. The spanking was ineffective because the parents never made the rod felt.
Ouch, and ouch again! God spanked me some years back with each of these four swats. But what a gracious, loving heavenly Father, who disciplines His own children perfectly—and uses them to raise up their seed to be “disciples” under Jesus’ easy yoke and light burden!
West Port Experiment 