Reasons NOT to Discipline

We walked out of her classroom and one of her friends chased her down the hall, arms wide, wanting a hug.  And for no apparent reason, she refused.  My child who hugs everyone she knows just shot her down--and she wasn't the least bit nice about it.  Holding our youngest on my hip, I tried to convince her to give the little girl a hug.  And then, to make matters worse, the little girl's mommy (whom I met all of five days ago) walked up and witnessed the whole scene.

I could feel the redness creeping up my neck.  I gathered my little meanie and hit the road. 

As we got to the car, I knelt down to her eye level and asked why in the world she wouldn't give her friend a hug.  Not surprisingly, she had no explanation.  So I lit into her, telling her how she hurt her friend's feelings and reminding her of how she felt when another child did something similar to her.  Tears formed in her eyes, and I suddenly realized what I was doing.  I was shaming her because she had embarrassed me. 

Yes, she had been inconsiderate and ugly to her friend.  And yes, that should have been addressed.  But my motivation was not my daughter's heart or teaching her empathy.  It was making her see how awkward a situation she had created.  And ensuring that she'd never do it again!

This epiphany weighed heavy on me.  Surely, I know my daughter.  The one who cares too much what others think of her, her self-consciousness thinly veiled by an assertive personality.  Who feels shame deeply and has an impossibly long memory.  And how well I know that burden.

It's such a delicate balance, this showing of sin, correcting, forgiving, and loving.  It is entirely possible that I could have said exactly the same thing to her, handled the situation very similarly, and been effective.  But my reasons for discipline matter.  And in this instance, my reasons were all about me.  I was not disciplining my daughter out of love for her, as God disciplines all of His dearly loved children. 

I find a similar ugly temptation to rebuke my children when they cause me inconvenience.  When we are late and my middle child takes agonizingly long to do, well, anything.  When our food arrives at a restaurant and one of the girls announces that she needs to go to the potty, despite answering in the negative when asked five minutes earlier. 

Children need to learn to operate as part of a family so that they learn how to be considerate of other people--or, as my mother would say, to learn that the world does not revolve around them.  But they don't need to learn it from impatient, inconvenienced, embarrassed parents who are chiefly concerned about their own food getting cold.  That's modeling just the opposite.

There are lots of reasons to discipline my children--their edification and God's glory to name a couple.  But I now have two reasons NOT to discipline my children:  my embarrassment and my inconvenience.