Obey....the FIRST time!

Since September, my husband and I have been attending a parenting class at our church using the video series based on the book "Shepherding a Child's Heart" by Ted Tripp. The video series has Ted Tripp discussing the concepts he covers in his book. It only meets the first Sunday of the month, but it has been well worth our time! I have tried putting some of the stuff into practice, but it wasn't until this past Sunday that I really had my eyes opened to the importance of consistency when teaching your children to obey.

My daughter is 9 years old and is VERY strong-willed. She can be very mouthy and wants everything to be HER way. We have tried various forms of discipline, but nothing seemed to work for very long. I've come to discover much of that is MY fault because I was not being CONSISTENT with the discipline. I also learned that I should have been teaching her to obey me the FIRST time I said something. It was pointed out in the video on Sunday that kids learn real quick when to obey. I smiled when I heard "When mom gets to 3, then I'll obey." because I've used that counting method and have gotten results that way. However, I recently started telling my kids that if I said "3", it was too late. "When dad starts yelling, then I'll obey." may be another way kids decide when to obey. My kids seemed to think the best way to know when to obey would be "When mom starts screaming, the veins in her neck start to bulge, her face is beat red, and her eyes look like they are going to pop out of her head....then I'll obey."

Ted Tripp then made a comment that I may not get verbatim, but it was something like this: Why not teach your children to obey the FIRST time you say something? That's really what you want so why are we not teaching it? Those questions almost made me fall off my chair! Maybe I should have because I could have said OUCH! and the rest of the class wouldn't have realized I was saying ouch because of those questions and not because of the fall. (OK, maybe the ouch would have pertained to BOTH things then! LOL!). I realized immediately after hearing those questions that we had not been teaching our children to obey us the first time. I would give a zillion warnings to stop doing whatever it was our daughter (and now our son) was doing or I would just let it go because I was busy doing something else. Don't get me wrong, we still did plenty of disciplining. There were some days all I felt like I did was yell at my kids and/or discipline them! What I realized though was I needed to be CONSISTENT if I wanted them to learn how to obey me!! (DUH! How could I have been so stupid?!)

Ephesians 6:1-3 are the verses that the next analogy came from. Those verses are "(1) Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. (2) Honor your father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise - (3) that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth. Ted Tripp said that we want our children to live "inside the circle". The boundary of the circle is HONOR and OBEY your parents. When children are within the circle, they experience "long life" and things "go well" with them. It is a path of BLESSING when children stay inside that "circle"! When children disobey or dishonor their parents, they move outside of the circle. This is a dangerous place to be! Would you want your child to be in danger? Of course not! In order to get our child back into the circle, we need to discipline them. It is because we LOVE our child that we discipline them. We want them to have long life and have things go well with them. We also want them to experience all the blessings that living "in the circle" brings...because when they are obeying and honoring their parents, they are obeying and honoring God!

I came home from that class determined to start showing my kids just how much I loved them. I explained to them that things were going to change and they were going to learn to listen the FIRST time I said something. I told them I wasn't being a very good parent because I had allowed them to disobey and dishonor me and hadn't punished them for it the first time. I would warn them too many times to stop what they were doing and then by the time I would discipline them, I was mad or angry and then I was sinning because I am not suppose to discipline out of anger! I explained to them about living "inside the circle", what happens when they disobey or dishonor their parents, and what needs to happen so that they can get back inside the circle. I also told them what Ephesians 6:1 says. My daughter already knew the verse, but my son didn't.
It only took 2 days for our son to remember what Ephesians 6:1 says. Micah doesn't know the verse verbatim like Sarah does; but when I ask him what that verse says, he answers "Obey your parents." That's good enough for me!

The first time Sarah disobeyed me after I had decided to implement this, I asked her what Ephesians 6:1 says and she angrily grumbled "obey your parents". I remained calm though and had her say it again (the WHOLE verse since I knew she knew it). I then explained how she was outside of the circle and that was dangerous. She needed to be inside the circle and because I love her so much I had to discipline her to get her back into the circle. She seemed to understand...and ACCEPT...that she needed to be disciplined, and she didn't give me any struggle or argument. I was SHOCKED! Now when I say to do something and my child (or children) don't do what I said, all I have to say is "What does Ephesians 6:1 say?". They both know when I ask that, they have to tell me what it says...and then immediately do what I asked them to do. Sometimes when they hear me ask that question, they will simply stop what they were doing and do what I asked right away.

So obedience means doing something the first time you are asked. I also learned on Sunday that obedience is to be done WITHOUT complaining, making excuses, or delaying. My daughter is infamous for using all 3 of those things when we ask her to do something! I'll hear "Do I have to?", "I don't want to!" or "I want ....!" when we ask her to do something she doesn't want to do. She also seems to always have some excuse as to why she did or didn't do something and why she shouldn't be punished for disobeying. "He did it first!" seems to be her favorite excuse. My reply to that use to always be "He is 4 years old. You are 9 years old and YOU know better!!" I also know I've heard "Just a minute!" or "I'll do it in a minute!" when I ask Sarah to do something. That is called delaying and is not part of obedience because your child is basically saying "I'll obey you.....in MY time."

I'm amazed how much calmer I have been in the past few days since I began disciplining the first time one of my children disobeys, rather than giving far too many warnings and becoming angry because they aren't listening. My daughter still tends to get mouthy, but I've been able to control my temper and tell her I'm not going to argue with her. She is dishonoring me when she talks to me like that and I'll remind her that she is not in the circle when she does that. I'll ask her what Eph. 6:1 says and she'll tell me. Then I'll ask her what needs to happen and why, and she'll tell me that as well. She still needs to work on her temper, but I'm confident that she'll learn that a lot better as long as I continue to keep MY temper under control.

Obviously my children have not suddenly become perfect angels who never do anything wrong. They still try to exert their own will, do stuff they shouldn't, fight with each other, etc. They do however realize that when mommy says "stop it", they had better listen the first time or suffer the consequences! I do not always give that warning. There are some things that my children know are not tolerated at all so they know they will be disciplined immediately if they choose to do one of those things.

I am fully aware there are different forms of discipline and not everyone agrees with all of them. I'm not writing this to try and force parents to all use the same form of discipline that we use. I'm writing this to encourage parents to teach their children to obey the FIRST time you say something, and then BE CONSISTENT with issuing discipline if your child does not obey you. As parents, we LOVE our children and it is out of love that we need to teach them things that they will need their entire lives. Disciplining my children is not something I enjoy doing, but I love my children with all my heart and I want them to grow up to be trustworthy adults.

If a child doesn't learn to obey his/her parents, how will that child learn to obey other people in authority? How will that child learn to obey GOD?! It is our job as parents to teach our children to honor and obey us so that they can then grow up to honor and obey those in authority and most importantly GOD!