{"id":9117,"date":"2013-12-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-13T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites-stage.familylife.com\/flministries\/?p=9117"},"modified":"2013-12-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T00:00:00","slug":"qa-deciding-when-to-spank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/articles\/topics\/parenting\/parenting-challenges\/discipline\/qa-deciding-when-to-spank\/","title":{"rendered":"Q&A: Deciding When to Spank"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

How do I decide when to spank my child?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dennis<\/strong>: Plenty of people wonder what to spank for and what not to spank for. When our kids were growing up, we didn\u2019t spank for childishness. I\u2019ll never forget the time that our daughter Ashley, who was about 2 at the time, took Barbara\u2019s lipstick and ground it into our brand-new white bedspread. The bedspread served as an inkpad into which she proceeded to put her hands and feet and then walk all over the room. There were footprints and handprints everywhere\u2014even into the bathroom on the mirror and walls. We didn\u2019t spank for that.<\/p>\n

In the process of parenting, we don’t have to feel the pressure to get it down to an exact science. Children are human beings, and each child is unique in her own way. Parenting is not an exacting form that we can pour our children into and expect them to conform to specific standards. We need to walk with the Lord and listen carefully to what He has to say in the middle of the process without being brittle and inflexible.<\/p>\n

The Bible is a practical working guide for parents who want to hear what the Lord says about discipline. Barbara and I built our own philosophy of spanking from Proverbs 6:16-18, which says, \u201cThere are six things which the Lord hates, yes seven, which are an abomination to Him.\u201d From those verses, here\u2019s a list of what I call the \u201cdirty half-dozen,\u201d the characteristics God finds most displeasing:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Haughty eyes<\/em>. Sassiness or disrespectful speaking; this also includes disrespectful looks such as eye-rolling.<\/li>\n
  2. Hands that shed innocent blood<\/em>. This is when a child hurts someone else because he\u2019s angry and doesn\u2019t like what\u2019s happening. It includes biting, hitting, kicking, or anything else that damages another person.<\/li>\n
  3. A heart that devises wicked plans<\/em>. In this situation, a child thinks up a devious plan or is deceitfully planning ahead as to how she\u2019s going to con someone. It can include getting back at a sibling who has tattled on her.<\/li>\n
  4. Feet that run rapidly to evil<\/em>. This describes a child who has a propensity to always do something wrong. The Bible wants us to be sure to discipline that child quickly.<\/li>\n
  5. A false witness<\/em>. This is another form of lying.<\/li>\n
  6. Deceit, and one who spreads strife among brothers<\/em>. This occurs in families, particularly among siblings.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Barbara<\/strong>: You don’t want a pattern of lying to develop, but if you don’t establish this early with your child, then you’ll be playing catch-up from then on. We let our kids know from the time they were little that telling a lie would automatically get a spanking in our house.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s not a bad idea to sit down with your children when they\u2019re very young, even starting at 6 months old, and go through these verses with them and start talking about these problems. We attempted to say to our kids each time we spanked them, \u201cIf you learn the hard lessons now, you may not have to learn some painful lessons as an adult.\u201d There are plenty of foolish adults out there, and I often wonder if the reason is that they weren\u2019t trained or didn\u2019t heed the training of their parents when they were children.<\/p>\n

    \n

    Copyright 2002 by FamilyLife.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How do I know when it’s needed and when it isn’t?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":8742,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2852],"tags":[],"equip-category":[],"cwp_profile":[3051],"class_list":["post-9117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discipline","cwp_profile-dennis-and-barbara-rainey"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2018\/04\/Parenting1040x326-Default-graphic.jpg","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2018\/04\/Parenting1040x326-Default-graphic.jpg",1024,320,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Dave Meritt","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/dave-merittcru-org\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"How do I know when it's needed and when it isn't?","meta_box":{"_cloudsearch_visibility":"","profile_obj_manual_select":false,"profile_obj":false,"separator":false,"enable_link":false,"login_restricted":"","content_type":"","disclaimer_banner":"","currency":false,"pricing_subtext":false,"element_type":false,"date_field":false,"date_format":false,"theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":"","series":false,"ignore_sticky":false,"conditional_blocks_category":false,"cta_selection":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"equip-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/equip-category?post=9117"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=9117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}