How to Discipline with Grace - Part 2
Want to catch up on our “How to Discipline with Grace” series?
You’ve been working to separate your child’s behavior from their heart. You’ve been putting their behavior in a basket and taking the basket to another planet so that you can reveal their heart. This is helping you and your child, but there still are times you will need to lay down the law. But before you suit up for battle let’s take a look at house rules.
House Rules
Do you have rules in your home? Are the rules known by everyone or are they just in your head and revealed once an offense has occurred? If you have rules in your home, double check, are these rules too restrictive or excessive?
We have rules in our house, but we never actually sat down as a family and went over the rules or even wrote them down. This made it hard for our children to know if they were violating the rules. Since reading Grace Based Discipline, we have sat down as a family and discussed our major house rules (Ex. no hurting people, speak kindly, no lying, obey Mommy and Daddy, etc.). We wanted rules that allowed them to have the freedom to be children, but also to know their boundaries. We also wanted to make sure that there weren’t too many rules so it was easy to remember.
Once you have clear house rules in place, it will be easier for you and your child to determine if rules are being broken. Kids will make mistakes and break rules. They need to know that your home is a safe place to make mistakes. They need to know that they will not lose your love over their mistakes. We need to offer them forgiveness for their mistakes, but that doesn’t mean they don’t get consequences.
Your child will have misdemeanors where they throw a tantrum in the middle of the store because they want the rainbow unicorn cereal and not cheerios. Or they will get out of bed for the third time after you asked them to stay in bed. These are small offenses and need proportionate consequences, but these are not major offenses. These are not offenses to go to battle over.
Felonies are offenses you need to prepare to battle because if you don’t give consequences now to correct the misbehaviors, then your child will pay a bigger price later in life. Felonies are serious crimes—-things such as lying, cheating, defiance, and abuse. However, hitting for a 3-year-old could be a misdemeanor because it’s done out of frustration (still needs correction and an apology), but if said 3-year-old looks you in the eye and hits again then it becomes a felony and you need to get ready to battle. Put on your armor, get your shield, and prepare for the long, tiresome war for which you might die.
When you decide to battle, you must see it through! If you wave the white flag and surrender, then your child will lose respect for you. They will lose trust in your boundaries. They will lose feeling secure in your ability to parent. But make sure you pick battles that are worth dying for. If you’re struggling to determine if the offense is worth dying for (misdemeanor vs. felony) then imagine them doing the same action in 10 years. Is the offense laughable or serious?
I had to go to battle with our daughter recently. One of our house rules is to try any new food I make. (If they don’t like it after they try it, then they don’t have to eat it, but they have to try it before saying they don’t like it.) Our daughter was refusing to try squash I had made. I was going to chalk it up to a developmental thing and call it laughable because in 10 years refusing to eat a piece of squash at the age of 14 is pretty funny. However, when I walked out of the kitchen, she snuck and threw the squash away and then lied to me claiming she ate it. This immediately became a felony and I had to go to battle to correct this behavior. Ten years down the road it won’t be ok for her to lie to me. So I suited up and we battled.
**Battling is just a figure of speech, we don’t actually fight or battle, I correct the behavior and provide appropriate consequences.**
Next week, we will talk about how to correct out of love.
