Critical Corporal Punishment

“Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” (Pr 23:13-14 AV)

Corporal punishment is not only endorsed but also encouraged in God’s word.  There is something about physical pain that tells a child he should not do what he just did again.  In recent years, corporal punishment has been seen as cruel and barbaric.  The academics and more enlightened of our world seem to think God’s way is no more an effective method.  They seem to think time outs, mere logic, dialogue, rewards, or bribery are better suited to raise a child.  The problem with this belief is it is purely naïve.  This idea that corporal punishment is so yesterday actually causes more harm than good.  The belief that if you love your child, you would never chasten him with physical punishment completely ignores how the real world works.  When that child grows up, he is shocked at the circumstances of his actions.  He wonders why the Police Officer didn’t take the time to lecture him on the safety of obeying traffic laws and let him go on his merry way.  He is astounded all that bad food he had eaten for his entire adult life now clogs his arteries.  This child grows up thinking there are no physical consequences for his actions and becomes a snowflake when reality hits him in the face.  Corporal punishment is merely a micro-example of the real world.  If we live contrary to the principles of the word of God, things happen.  These things are unavoidable.  These things are set.  These things will not bend.

There was an episode of a sitcom my wife and I watched years ago.  The main characters practiced sound discipline for their children.  Their children were well behaved.  There came a day when a friend came over to play.  This friend was a rotten little boy.  He would entice his hosts into all sorts of behavior that was unacceptable in the home of the host.  This rotten little boy would act one way in private, but then be a perfectly well-behaved boy in front of the adults.  It took a bit of investigating until blame could finally be leveled.  As the host tried to talk to this young man’s parents, they claimed their son was a gifted child.  They claimed that basic correction was impossible with him.  Verbally or physically correcting him was not going to work – or so they claimed.  Their scheme involved role-playing and disassociation techniques.  That is until this ‘gifted’ little boy lost his patience with his own father and kicked him in the shins.

This is what we are raising.  This is why we have the generation of the snowflake.  They cannot adjust to adversity because Mom and Dad never forced them to go through a bit of it when they were younger.  They wonder why hardships happen and completely miss the point that sometimes hardships are a result of choices.  They get involved in substance abuse and are shocked when a friend dies of an overdose.  It is seen as a romatic way to go and there is a complete disconnect with reality.  They cannot see bad things happen because bad choices are made.  All because Mommy and Daddy wanted to be liked more than they wanted to be loved.  God is clear.  Physical chastisement is the mode of correction we are to use.  Words alone may work some of the time.  But not all of the time.  When my son wouldn’t listen to me, a bit of corporal punishment was in order.  This trained him to immediately respond when given a command.  If not, it could mean greater harm than the corporal punishment which might ensue.  So, trust God when He tells you that corporal punishment is an indispensable tool in the child-rearing challenge.  Obey His word and your children will be the better for it.