Discipline

Discipline...this is a word that gets people passionate.  People certainly have their own views of it and they (for the most part) aren't afraid to express themselves on the subject.


Discipline has "evolved" around my house, over the years.  When we had our oldest daughter, she rarely was disciplined for any reason.  She is a born pleaser.  She was meticulous in her thoughts and her actions and all we really had to do was look at her, or snap and she would melt in the floor crying.


Enter our second daughter and she was a bit of a whirlwind.  We should have named her Trouble because that is what she got into.  On a daily basis.  She was not afraid to push the limits and do it with a grin on her face.  She didn't respond to "the look" or to "the snap".  She responded best to swats and even then, it was a short lived.  She is a firecracker.


Then, our world began evolving...we had Boo.  Boo struggled with some autistic tendencies when he was younger.  He would SCREAM.  You look at him, he would scream.  He wanted something, he would scream.  He was a daredevil and could figure ANYTHING out that had a lock on it.  He had sensory issues, texture issues, social issues.  Swatting him was permission for him to go and smack others.  It didn't work with him.  Raising our voice would open the door for intense screaming.  Time outs worked, occasionally. He was a hard nut to crack.


I believe that Boo prepared us for what was to come with our other children.  Not that we think spanking is bad, because we don't.  We didn't hit out of anger, we hugged and loved and explained afterwards and we felt like that was the best way to go for our family.


Our next children were 6 and 2 when they came to live with us.  They were children from foster care and so we couldn't spank them.  We had to be really really creative.  Our 2 yr old didn't do anything to warrant any discipline, whatsoever.  He had limited speech and was simply learning how to play and be a normal kid.  Our 6 yr old, well...she had a lying problem.  Then there were the rages, then there was the self mutilation, then there was the aggression, then there was the diagnosis of Reactive Attachment disorder, PTSD, ADHD, ODD, ABCDEFG.  How do you even begin to discipline that?


We took things away, she didn't care.  We'd put her in time out, she'd sit and sing.  We'd put her in the corner.  She'd eat the wallpaper.  We tried therapy, that was a joke.  Nothing works with her.  It still doesn't work.  We still struggle with what to do. My goal, to make her life as simple as possible.  She has limited clothes to keep her from being overwhelmed with choices and freaking out.  She has broken so many dressers stuffing dirty clothes in them. Now, we don't have that problem.  She has enough to get through the week and we don't vary.  I fix her plate, for supper.  That eliminates her need to gorge.  We have very limited outside activity for her. This reduces her sensory overload and helps with her behaviours.  


Now, we have our son, from Ethiopia.  With the language barrier, it is again, hard to decide on an appropriate discipline.  He is rough.  He plays rough and he gets angry and expresses his anger in rough manners.  We are working through that.  When we get onto him, he shuts down.  He won't look at you.  He becomes stiff and distant.  Eventually, he comes out of his shell and we try to explain to him what he did wrong and how we do it correctly.  I don't know how much gets through to him.


Times are a changing around here. Kids are older, groundings take place and we are still working through the process of our RADish and our newest.


Sometimes, we as adults, are disciplined by our Father.  A lot it are natural consequences to our sin and it is so so hard.  I look back and I know when I was disciplined and how I was disciplined, but I certainly learned my lesson.  Sad thing is, is that I will probably make that mistake again.  I will quickly forget the pain that I went through, yet I will remember once I make that mistake again.  I'm so thankful the Lord never gives up on me.  He loves me enough to discipline me, yet He never leaves me or forsakes me.  What a blessing to be loved in that manner.  I pray that I love my kids in that manner, as well.


Blessings.