Parents who love their children will diligently seek to discipline their children.
- What is discipline?
- Why do we discipline our children?
“Loving parents seek to correct the faults of their children because … their children’s lives, favor, protection, healing, dignity and prosperity are at stake. Unloving parents turn their backs on them and hand them over to death, social ruin, public exposure, calamity, and shameful poverty.” —Bruce Waltke
“Our character largely takes the form of that mould into which our early years were cast. … If the crooked shoots of self-will and disobedience are not cut off, their rapid growth and rapidly growing strength will greatly increase the future difficulty of bending them.” —Charles Bridges
“The book of Proverbs consistently repeats a warning to parents. Something will be broken in your home; either your child’s will or your heart. The stripes from the rod of correction will either land on your child’s rear end, or on your own. If it is the latter, then both you and your child will feel the pain.” —Bob Beasley
- Parents who spare the rod hate their children.
“One can imagine how a person who understood the importance of discipline for oneself might yet hesitate to apply it to a son. After all, it is difficult to inflict discomfort of any kind on a child that one loves. However, this admonition points out that more harm is done to a child by withholding discipline than by applying it. The sage would understand reluctance to apply discipline, whether physical or verbal, to be child neglect and child abuse.” —Tremper Longman
“The rod of correction brings wisdom to the child. It provides an immediate tactile demonstration of the foolishness of rebellion.” —Tedd Tripp