[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Welcome into the Thing Deeper podcast presented by Focus Press. I'm your co host Will Harab, joined by Joe Wilkie and Jack Wilke. And for the second episode in a row, we do have a guest with us today. It is not Jacob Hudgins from last week. It is one of our, in fact, I think our only recurring guest, my dad, Brad Harb has joined us for this episode and very excited to get to it. Speaking of Jacob, if you did not get a chance to listen to last week's episode, it was the long awaited non institutional Churches of Christ episode that we've kind of been teasing and talking about for, quite frankly, two years and we really enjoyed, I guess I shouldn't speak for Joan, Jack. I really enjoyed that episode. The conversation, the dialogue that we had with Jacob. He did a great job and seems
[00:00:52] Speaker C: like a lot of our, a lot
[00:00:54] Speaker B: of people are at least listening to it. The View count is pretty high on YouTube and getting some good thoughts on it. Just again, open the dialogue. It wasn't a debate. It was not Joe Jacker.
And I really did not even share much of our thoughts on it. But we just kind of asked Jacob some questions and kind of got that side and yeah, I thought it was really interesting. So I'd encourage you to listen to that. You can access it on YouTube, obviously your favorite podcast platform.
Great episode last week. The other thing that we want to share because what we're talking about with this particular episode is disciplining children and specifically looking at the question of spanking.
Is spanking acceptable? Is spanking biblical? Is spanking? Should spanking be the preferred method of discipline for Christian parents? And while that might not have been a very hot button topic 60 years ago, 80 years ago, it certainly is now. I would say there's been some social media buzz about spanking and about, about kind of new generations, Gen Z and millennials about whether or not they're spanking more or less. And so thought it'd be good to have the, I guess the one of the four of us who has the most experience with discipline, that being my dad on for this episode.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Resident.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. I think we've got a book sale to tell you about. I'll turn that over to Jack and kind of Jack, if you want to get into the rest of the episode, preview for us.
[00:02:13] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. Welcome aboard, Brad. Thanks for joining us. We are going to put Brad's it was written by Brad and Melinda. His W Arrows in the Hands of a Warrior is a parenting book for Christians. And so that's on sale at Focus Press this week because of this episode. So we appreciate the book, the effort they put into that. But also Brad joining us, and I'm gonna screen share here in a minute, but Brad, I'm just gonna kind of let you have some opening thoughts before I lay out why we're talking about this.
[00:02:42] Speaker C: A lot of parents out there who feel like they can't make their child uncomfortable or do anything that might, quote, unquote, damage them or, you know, break them or whatever, at the end of the day, the bottom line is, does the Bible command parents to discipline their children? The answer is, yes, it does.
And so as a parent, I have to look at disobedience as them violating something, and I have to take corrective action for it. We're going to talk specifically about different ways and different, you know, methods to do that.
But at the end of the day, if I don't do it, I'm just like eli, you know, 1st Samuel, chapter 3, verse 13. God let Eli know, hey, your sons are an abomination. And the reason they're an abomination is because you didn't restrain them, you didn't do your job as a parent. And so all these parents that think they're doing, you know, wonderful things by not correcting their children and spanking their children, what you're actually doing is you are creating an environment just like Eli did.
[00:04:02] Speaker D: That's an interesting point.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I was gonna say, Jack, before you get into. That's obviously kind of the heart of the episode is going to be. I think most Christian parents or most parents in general would probably say, yes, I'm in favor of disciplining my children.
It's the method, you know, that I think is going to serve as kind of the best part of this episode is like, what should the method be? I think all four of us are probably on the same page here, but a lot of people would disagree and say that any kind of corporal punishment, physical pain via spanking is basically should not be a method of discipline. Even if they would say, I believe in discipline. So that's kind of the crux of the episode.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: I would say. Well, I also want to add into this discussion. Yeah, I also want to add into this discussion. We want to look at the progression of parenting. If you're still spanking your 16 year old, you're doing something wrong. We want to get into that as well. And I'm curious to talk to Brad about, you know, and pick his brain on what about 14 what about 16, 18 years old? You're not going to bend them over your knee. You're not taking a paddle to their butt. You know, nothing like that.
There needs to be something though, right? There has to be some level of discipline. And so we're going to get to that on the back end as well of just the developmental stages. We want to do a pretty in depth look at spanking. Whether that's right, wrong. Obviously people in my field think that it's terrible, but again, there's some interesting things. So jacks are you can kick us off and as we get going, you
[00:05:16] Speaker D: say we're going to hit that on the back end.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Well played. I am in favor of spanking, of course.
[00:05:22] Speaker D: Okay, let's see. Did I. Okay, here's our screen share. This is why we're talking about this is New York Post headline Shocking number of Millennial and Gen Z parents spank their kids. Study say necessary to raise a child properly.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: Look at the view count on that tweet too. 10.6 million views.
[00:05:37] Speaker D: 6 million views. And the thing a lot of people, and I did this at first too, read the headline like, hey, great, Gen Z and millennials are bringing this back. They're going to it. Not hardly. And this was such a misleading headline when they say shocking number because when you open it up, a recent study found a large swath of Gen Z and millennial parents still use spanking as a form of punishment when it goes to it, it's Canadian Journal of Public Health, which Canada, that's great. 20% of Gen Z and millennial parents said yes, they had ever spanked their child or children with their hand.
20%. 45% of Gen Xers admitted to spanking their children. So that has dropped off from Gen X to their subsequent generations. 45% to 20%. And yet the headline still says shocking number of money on Gen Z parents. So that came out and then there was a huge reaction. A lot of people giving responses to that. Some of them had multi million views. This one has 4 million views. Somebody said hitting your kids is in the same category as circumcision, iPad, strict adherence to the CDC vaccine schedule. It is for and he throws in a bunch of insults that I'm not going to read on air. He says it lowers iq, incites a study, increases aggression, cites a study, is less effective than a timeout, requires escalation to keep working.
And he's basically saying this is just a dumb person thing that is creating emotional problems with your kid and that you're a loser who's turning your kid into be a loser.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: You can totally. Sorry, just real quick. You can totally have that take. You cannot in that same tweet say that it's less effective than timeout. Like that just completely unravels the entire take there. Sorry to cut you off there.
[00:07:13] Speaker D: That's what their research says, unfortunately. So that's what spurred this episode. I'm gonna let you roll on that there for a minute, Brad.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: So I just laughed because I know when I was growing up the numbers would have been much.
I, I was thinking about recently the fact that we don't spank in schools anymore very much and maybe this trend is actually going to trend things back in the right direction.
It's here's the bottom line. They you have to get your child's attention until they are able to have some kind of self control.
I'm going to use my, my grandchildren as an example.
Brooklyn is two, Austin is one.
You know, you can't sit down and reason and logic with a 2 year old or a 1 year old.
You have to get their attention and be able to do it in a way that they're going to remember.
And in their case a SWAT definitely works. Now Joe mentioned when they get older, 16, 17.
To me, if you're still having to spank a 16, 17 year old, you didn't do your job when they were young.
As far as the numbers, Jack, I think what we're seeing is that gentle parenting didn't work and people are realizing that.
[00:08:47] Speaker D: Yeah, I hope so.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Gentle parenting. Joe, I'd love for you to kind of give some thoughts on maybe your definition or kind of like what you've seen with gentle parenting because I would, I would imagine. I don't want to speak for you or speak for the therapy community. I feel like at least a couple years ago that was kind of the predominant preferred form of discipline.
Kind of the let your child's voice be heard.
There's a lot about fairness, respecting the child. Exactly.
I have a take that I want to share and again, I'm going to hand it to Joe next because I really want to get Joe's thoughts on this coming from your background.
I do just to kind of steal man the position because obviously I am in favor of spanking as well. I think all four of us are to steel man the position of maybe spanking is not as good of an idea.
I do think that there is an interesting element that has been added to the parenting dynamic that makes spanking in today's context very different. Than spanking 60% years ago. And that element that has been added is screens and distracted parents.
Here's what I mean by that. From my perspective, for spanking to be effective and for spanking to work well, you need, and I'm talking mainly toddlers who you can reason with and, you know, six year olds, whatever. You have to be very connected to your children.
You have to be very plugged into their lives.
They have to love you and cherish you. You have to like, again, just be very connect. That's the best word I can come up with.
Connected with your children in order for spanking to be effective.
Now, there's always been things that can distract parents and keep them from connecting with their kids. I get that.
I think nowadays that has increased dramatically. Moms and dads seems like they always have their. Their face in a screen. I was at a Starbucks the other day and it was just the saddest thing in the world to see. These parents came in, their kids were probably, I'm gonna say, 8 and 6, and I don't know that I saw the mom look up from her phone the entire time.
And so my point in bringing all this up is I do actually think spanking is less effective when you have a parent that engages in that behavior, that can't break away from their phone screen, that feeds the kids to the eye or that feeds the iPad to the kids, that they're never, they're not connected. Well, then yes, spanking is not going to do a lot of good. And in fact, it probably will inflict more harm as opposed to 60 years ago. And again, yes, you could be distracted. The TV was around 60 years ago. I get that. But certainly not to the point that we are today. So, Joe, I'll go to you next. I'm curious your thoughts on that. That is the element that I do think has been added to our society into the parenting dynamic that I do think can actually make spanking less effective if parents are going to go about it that way.
[00:11:26] Speaker A: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So, Doug Wilson, I mentioned this before. We had a episode on Jim podcast with this Doug Wilson, who is a Presbyterian, But I think he's got a lot of good points.
He makes the point that I don't know if it's actually native to him, but you basically have a bank account, right? You have to put enough money in the bank account to cash the check, enough emotional currency and money in the bank account to be able to cash the check of spanking. So he says with kids that are adopted, Things like that, they just, they're so depleted. You cannot go and spank adopted kids because you don't have enough emotion in the bank account. To your point, Will, if you're not spending time with your kids, if you're not showing a lot of warmth and love to your kids, if there's a level of neglect, you're checking your phone all the time. You're, you know, you got a bazillion and one play dates, but you're never really spending time on the floor with your young kids. You're never really bringing them up in your lap and just giving them one on one attention, really good eye contact, things like that. You do not have the emotion in the bank account to then go and spank them. And so no wonder why it damages so many people is because to your point, look at our generation. How many of us in our generation are actually plugged in to our kids and plugged in, you know, we stick them in front of iPads at 2, we stick them in front of screens, we do anything to pretty much separate them. And then when it comes to discipline, we want to exact a type of discipline that takes a significant amount out of the bank account. You're depositing that. Well, we got a bunch of bounce checks. And we're seeing that with the kids as they grow up where they hate their parents. There wasn't enough love to begin with. And love is seen through attention. It's seen through affection and attachment and things like that. We don't have that these days and we're really seeing the effects of that.
[00:13:00] Speaker D: Brad, Okay, I want to. Brad, I want to ask you a little bit about this. I want to go a different direction because you mentioned something at the start here that adds an interesting twist to this. I think it's good for parents to have an emotional connection for their kids. But there was spanking in schools at one point. Like people who weren't your parents or even related to you could spank kids. I just pulled it up here. In 1977, the Supreme Court ruled that it was not a cruel and unusual punishment for a teacher to spank a kid. If it went to the Supreme Court today, it'd be like a nine, nothing right in the other direction. But they said, no, it's okay. And that's something that did happen.
And so like, was that too much? Was that because we're now at this point where again, I think parents do need to have a relationship with their kids. I'm not saying that. But on the other hand, it didn't always have to come from this. It could come from authority figures. We had a different view on it then.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:13:50] Speaker D: I'm curious what your thoughts on that are, Brad.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Well, I was actually gonna play devil's advocate with. With what Will and Joe were talking about. I think Yalls generation actually does a better job of showing love and communicating to your kids than my parents did.
My parents did not.
They didn't communicate love. They didn't hug. They didn't do those kinds of things very much.
I see that a lot more in the younger generations, which means you're able to communicate that they've done something wrong through a spanking, through some kind of discipline, but also at the same time that they're loved and that that relationship is secure.
I think for a lot of folks, you know, we kind of. Our dads reach for the belt and you didn't. You weren't 100% sure.
You know, does he really love me or not? And I. I think, like, I see the way Will reacts with his three children.
That relationship is there when he disciplines. They know I've done something wrong, but they also know I'm loved, and that relationship is secure. As far as spanking in school, let's. Let's get real for just a minute.
I've been in public schools in most of the states, was in Oklahoma recently.
There is absolutely no respect for authority at all. That's been thrown completely out the window. The way the kids talk to teachers today was not allowed back when I was in school. I mean, had you dropped an F bomb on a teacher, you would have been probably suspended, maybe expelled. And these kids aren't getting anything. Like, literally no spanking, no going to the. And so to me, there's a pretty big disconnect. In order for a teacher to be able to spank a kid, there's got to be a structure in place where those teachers are going to be backed and the parents are going to actually support the teachers. We're going to get back to recognizing authority, and not everything will revolve around the kid. Right now that's not in place.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting because, Joe, when we did the gym podcast episode on this, we ended the episode by asking, like, what are your thoughts asking each other, like, what are your thoughts on other people spanking your own kids? You know, and we were talking mainly, you know, grandparents and, you know, uncles, aunts, you know, cousin, you know, whatever. Not cousins, I suppose, but, like, you know, my brothers and sisters, for instance. And so I. Jack, I totally get Your point about how we viewed it very differently from an authority standpoint. Um, I would obviously argue that kids 60 years ago were far more well behaved, to Dad's point, when spanking in schools was allowed. I don't think that's something that can be escaped. A lot of those kids did turn out to be pretty poor parents themselves. So I don't know how that works out, but. So, Joe, again, I'll just hand it directly back to you, but I don't know how I feel about the whole, you know, somebody who doesn't have that emotional bank account to your point, that has the authority to. To inflict physical harm on my kid. Yeah, it's an interesting point.
[00:17:15] Speaker D: I wasn't exactly arguing for it either. I was just pointing out, like, how far we've come.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: Well, a couple things. A couple things. First off, I think critical theory is we have to look at that as a way, you know, authority structures reviewed from a very negative standpoint. Therefore, the authoritarian things such as spanking is going to be seen as authoritarian. At one point it was seen as authoritative, but it has shifted in our public consciousness. Kids 60 years ago, we're not thinking about authoritarianism in the same way. You know, if there's anything, then they're getting prepared, you know, that we're coming off the Nazis and getting prepared for the Cold War at that point. Different structure altogether from a societal standpoint. So I don't think we can necessarily look at it that way, you know, like that. Look at it in a vacuum. The society as a whole plays a huge role. The other part is we don't know the downstream effects of all of this banking at the time. Were kids better behaved? Yes, but. But we can also look at boomers and say, boomers went off a cliff. Why? Because I've written on this before.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: That was my point. They were poor parents.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Greg, like I've written on this before that I think attachment was really broke with latchkey kids. That specifically took place in Gen X. There's a lot of latchkey kids. Divorce starts to become more common. And yes, the downstream effects, whether you're spanking in school or not, there are terrible effects because the parents weren't there, they weren't present. And so could you get away with spanking? Yeah, but how in the world did we get all the numbskulls in my generation?
Because somewhere down the line, people, either Gen X or boomers decided spanking is no longer a good idea. We didn't come up with that. We did not originate that idea. This is being passed down from the universities where we are just now coming around to being professors at universities. These are from people long before that are challenging the structure of spanking. So somewhere down the line, it broke before we hit the millennial generation. And at this point, it's just an accepted thing that we would. Of course you wouldn't spank. Well, what happened there, you had a lot of people that I think looked at spanking as abusive. And in a lot of cases, it was the drunk dad coming home, taking off his belt and beating the kid senseless. We could call it spanking in one generation. This generation would call it abuse. And this generation, in my opinion, would be more right. Are we better off for, you know, not from removing spanking altogether? No. But keep in mind, it's the same as prohibition. The reason prohibition came in is because there's got a lot of guys that couldn't hold themselves and a lot of guys that lost the moral high ground, yet a lot of parents that lost the moral high ground, in my opinion.
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[00:20:43] Speaker C: I'm throwing a flag on you.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Go for it.
[00:20:47] Speaker C: Bible's crystal clear that you are to you know, foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child. Rod of correction will drive it far from him.
You can't get around the fact that multiple proverbs speak about using corrective action against a child in order to shape that child's heart.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: I agree.
[00:21:12] Speaker C: And I. Well, I. I Was hearing you say that. Hey, you know, we don't.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Well, I think this is what I was getting at with the emotional connection thing is that you had a generation of kids that were spanked school parents otherwise, that then turned into kind of miserable parents. And at Joe's point also was that at some point down the line, spanking became a, a controversial. Hey, maybe we shouldn't do this thing. And that did not start with the millennials.
[00:21:38] Speaker C: That millennial guys are thinking. Y' all are thinking too, too small. Like you. You're mentioning Gen X and boomers. You gotta, you gotta realize New Testament is 2000 years old. People been spanking kids for thousands of years without them suing their parents and without having to have time out and without having all these new friendly parenting, all that mess. It works if it's done right. Is there abuse? Yes, there is. That's tragedy.
Let's, let's go ahead and admit we're not here talking about abuse and we don't condone abusing and set that aside because people always bring that up. And I'm like, yeah, now that, that's, that's not what we're discussing.
[00:22:22] Speaker A: I agree, but what is done right? Let's come back around to that. What does that mean? Because my done right would be going back to my point of a lot of warmth, but I would look at what happened in the 60s and say, Man, I don't know if it was done right now. That's just me coming from my generation.
On the other hand, I'm not against spanking at all. I'm not, of course I believe in spanking. I spank my kids.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Nor am I.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: On the other hand, what does done right from your opinion look like?
[00:22:48] Speaker C: You are trying to shape the child's heart and ultimately create in them self control.
And so at a young age, creating self control means you're going to get their attention very quickly.
I, I would add things like, don't ever do it in anger.
There's been some studies show that, hey, don't use your hand. Use a belt or a paddle. Because their association with it, being with you and your hand, whether or not I bind all that or not, at the end of the day, you know, something needs to probably hit the child's backside in order to get them to realize what I've done, I, I shouldn't be doing in the future.
And that charge goes to the parents. The parents can't delegate it out to somebody else. If they don't do it.
It's. It's like this guys, our society is all about, you know, George Floyd and all these people who are dying around while cops are around and everybody's all up in a shape and people protest. Well, think about having a parent who their child is going wild and that parents just sitting there watching them and nobody's saying, hey, that's your job. You should be disciplined. You should be taking care of that child like we would a cop. You know, if some dude was, was mugging an old lady and there's a cop standing 10ft away, you don't hear people say, oh well, you know, gentle parenting. No, you say cop, why aren't you doing your job? That's your job. Go, go bust that dude. Well, in this case, it's the parents job when that child is running around wild.
Parents, do your job.
[00:24:43] Speaker D: I think you're getting at something important. There is the cultural degradation that has led to this of people moved away from family. And so it was like the nuclear family was just mom, dad and the kids and not grandpa and grandma and on both sides and aunts and uncles were around. That contributed to it. Then the psychologist, the doctor spocks, all this stuff came in. All the studies on disciplining your kids and scaring people into not doing it happened and people started taking that stuff. I mean, the tv, obviously the TV was the biggest mind warping thing that ever happened. And now we've got the Internet and AI ramping that up times a thousand. But so that happened again. People were moving away from their roots en masse because of the college and just the interstate. I mean like the way the nation changed in that sense. And that gets you out of your community where you don't know everybody the same way. So the teacher spanking your kid isn't the same thing when it's the guy that you see in church on Sunday and coaches your kids T ball team and he's your teacher.
That's different than where it's somebody you don't know that you see at a parent teacher because conference twice a year. And so all of this contributes to everyone stopping and going, wait, have we been doing this right all along? Like, yes, you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater with all these changes and you're just missing. And so one other thing that was part of that, I remember the comedian Bill Burr was talking about, he had this cartoon that was on Netflix, whatever, very raunchy, I never watched it, but he was talking about the show and he said, man, growing up in the 70s, everybody, you were scared of Your dad, when dad comes home, the kids go out in the yard to play. Like, I'm not. I don't want to be around. I don't want to get yelled at. You didn't have a relationship with dad. And Joe, I know you've heard this a lot in your work, and I've heard it in ministry. My dad never told me I loved me. People will say, my dad never gave me a hug my entire life. Or, you know, it was until I was 70 years old that I heard I love you from my dad.
That became the characteristic of fatherhood.
And so to your point, Brad abandoning spanking wasn't the right answer, but people were looking for the answer when everything crumbled. And it's like, okay, there's things we've got to get back in place and spank while we're doing it.
[00:26:46] Speaker C: Right.
Let me. Let me pose this back to. To Will and Joe,
[00:26:53] Speaker B: who agree with you, by the way, just to make sure we're on the same page here.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: We'll be the panel.
[00:27:00] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: There's a dynamic I think we. We've got to realize that has shifted. So when I was growing up, any. Any adult figure, if they saw a kid misbehave, that kid realized that adult figure may light me up.
I hear you two giving quite a bit of reservation about who I would want to spank my child and who I wouldn't want spank my child. And. And I. I understand times are different.
There are people out there who are weird and whatever, but if we're doing things right, Bible is very clear. Older teach, the younger.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: Most people aren't, though. So I'm gonna go ahead and cut you off. That's the problem, is that most people are not within my family. And that's where we came down in the episode, is that. Do I have a problem? My grandpa with you guys, for instance, making my kids? Of course not. Absolutely.
You know, and even extended family members, like, if I'm out of the room and Reese is watching. Reese, my brother, for those who don't know, is watching my kid, and he does something that, you know, he needs to be spanked for, I'm. I'm great with it. Once you get outside of the family circle, I'll be honest, I am very hesitant to allow other people to enact physical discipline on my kids because we're, you know, the. The qualifier that you just gave of if we're doing everything right. Most people are not. And that's the. To the cultural degr. Degradation point of Jack. Like you know, and you'd like to think, you know, your people in your congregation or your clothes, like, whatever it is, like, I'd be fine. You know, I'd be. I wouldn't have too many hesitations about, like, Joe spanking my kid friends if he was watching, if they were over at their house, something like that. But again, for the most part, that's where I'll push back a little bit, is, yes, 80 years ago, you could have maybe somebody who was a part of the community spank your kid.
I, I'm personally, like, I just think due to the. Where society is as a whole right now, that's where I'll push back, is most people are not doing things right. And so that's. That's where my hesitation would come in. Does that make sense?
[00:28:59] Speaker C: It does. But ask yourself, is it because you have placed your kid higher than maybe previous generations have, or is it because you're looking at the older population with skepticism? And, hey,
[00:29:19] Speaker B: the latter.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: Well, and of course, because I'm sorry, but I do not.
But I don't think they. Nobody put strangers above my kids. They're mine. So, no, I'm not about to let somebody come else come in there and spank my kids for me. First off, there's such a spectrum spanking, you could beat them to death. You could, you know, spank them with a, you know, spank them with a rod so bad that they got welts for days. You could give them a little love tap on the rear end that does nothing. You could thump them on the head. I've seen people do all sorts of stuff that I would look at and go, what in the world? Only I know for my kids, what I am comfortable with. There are a handful of people that might actually do it the way that I would look to do it. That doesn't make my kids better than anybody. It doesn't mean my kids don't need to be disciplined. But I'll tell you one thing. Somebody comes in and decides to discipline my kids without my knowledge because all your kids acting up. I'm sorry. I trust my kids more than I trust you. And you could get. You could get mad. And I'm not talking you. I'm talking some rando. I do trust my kids more than other people. And it's the same concept as, I'm not going to let people. We used to just let kids go all the way down the street and climb trees.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: Sleepovers.
[00:30:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: For 12 hours at a time.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: Because in a classroom setting, the teacher should be the One that everybody respects and believes. And you just said you're going to believe your kid over the adult.
[00:30:41] Speaker D: Oh, depends on this. Have you seen the public school teachers? Well, but this is what I would. This is what happens with multiculturalism and that's my point is the cultural degradation throws through a lack of the loss of the biblical foundation for the culture. Even if not everyone had to be Christians. But there was that cultural foundation and then immigration like the values of that some of those people do beat their kids. Some of those people, the abuse rates of their kids in different ways are very high. And it's like, man, I don't want to you send your kid away and you don't know even who their teacher is. Like, I don't want that. And so you're careful with that. And what's interesting is, well, you said 80 years ago when I was a kid, which it's a long time ago. But it wasn't 80 years ago years, right? Yeah, right, right.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: 75.
[00:31:21] Speaker D: But we're talking in the 90s. Our neighborhood was close knit enough. I was never spanked by a neighbor, but they were all my parents eyes and ears and for all the kids neighborhood. And I thought that was. And when we moved away from there, we lost that pretty much forever. And it just changed. And now even within the church, the parenting philosophies are so different because of the multicultural and because the Bible isn't people's foundation, which is hopefully what we're getting back to on this episode is the Bible is the foundation of kids need to be disciplined. But everyone's so self conscious. You've got the gentle parenting parents in church, you've got the people who are really too hard on kids and want to spank them for everything. You've got the. And so to Joe's point about not trusting people, it's very hard to trust people because it's like, do you people know anything? Like do we even share the same values even in church with some of the people. And I'm not like throwing anybody in my, my church under the bus. But like I can see that being an issue between Christians of like man, our parenting philosophies are miles apart.
[00:32:22] Speaker C: But I think you guys are the snapshots you're given. Sounds good. But had you lived back then, if there was a parent that was truly being abusive or being, you know, spanking too hard or too often, that was known and that was dealt with. And it was kind of dealt with in Jamaican Jungle Jungle Rules as where the men would basically kind of take him aside and be like, you're not going to be doing that anymore. And. And that was done. It wasn't a, you know, some dude likes to, to spank kids really, really hard and he just keeps on getting away with it. No, the parents would speak up and be like, okay, you've got a problem and either you fix the problem or we're going to fix it for you.
And so there was, there was, I think there was more self policing going on than, than you guys are aware of back 30, 40 years.
[00:33:21] Speaker D: Well, and I, again, that may have happened back then to some extent, and if it did, I'm glad that it did and it should, but it doesn't happen now. And so I think that goes to Joe's point of like not trusting people
[00:33:32] Speaker C: because nobody touch anybody's kids at all.
[00:33:35] Speaker D: Well, but there's a reason though. It's because you've got people who just don't.
How many people do you think get discipline and parenting right?
I mean, again, for the church, we lose what, 70 to 80% of our kids.
You know, like all of those things that are factors in that of, you know, we've all gone to church with kids where you're looking at like, is anybody going to stop that kid from climbing into the Baptistry and dunking himself? You know, like, just after worship they're running around like banshees, like, what's going on here? And so like, these are the people we expect to be our village.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: It's not.
[00:34:10] Speaker D: There's a reason that's our trust level is so low.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Well, let me say this just coming from my trauma, I'll give a little anecdotal evidence. I was spanked from a parent, a friend's parents, when I was younger for a lie that was told from his daughter. It never happened and I got spanked for it because the dad decided to exact discipline for himself and he came in and went, oh, I'm the big guy, big man on campus. And so he decided to take me as an innocent bystander and spank me for something I never even did. No, I don't trust my kids with somebody else's judgment because the judgment stinks. So, no, that's where I'm coming from. Maybe it's a little, my quote unquote trauma going back. But the point here, as we're getting
[00:34:45] Speaker C: to it, is, yo, how many spankings did you not get though, that you deserved?
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Very few. I was a great kid, but there are a million touch, and I will say millions a Bit much. There are at least a dozen touch points that we're getting at that I think does have to factor in. And this is what families have to recreate. What I want to add this episode is for people to realize we're all on the same page. Spanking is not only is it not wrong, I think spanking is necessary. But you have to get the other factors right because we are recreating a system. To your guys's point, we're trying to recreate a system that does not exist anymore. So how do you create a system that we had at 60s, the trust based system in society?
We don't have that anymore. This is where you have to dial up the warmth for the kid now, where it's authoritative, high expectation and high warmth. You are wanting your kid to understand, hey, dad is dad, mom is mom, God is God and you're the kid. On the other hand, you have to let the kid. This, this, you know, kids shall be silent and seen, but not heard. I don't know that that was always the best. I think there's some really relevant applications and I do this with my kids, like, hey, it ain't your time. But there's also, I think kids can get shoved to the side a lot. And no, life is not all about my kids, not in the least. But I also want them to know, like, yeah, they're a part of the family. They're an important part of civilization itself. So to me, that's where we have to get back to is getting more of the warmth, trying to recreate that high trust society, staying close to people, building our root system, allowing for, right, the right people to come into our frame of, you know, into our frame or our purview to help discipline the kids and to get back to basic biblical spanking and discipline. But you have to recreate again like a dozen different things to try to get that right. Sorry, Will, go for it.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: I was just going to say like so to kind of establish the biblical. Because I would obviously also say I think spanking is there. I also do think that it's very biblical.
Dad referenced the proverb. I don't remember which proverb he referenced, but the one to me that's always kind of the slam dunk. Honestly, I don't see how anybody would or could argue that spanking is not biblical.
Is Proverbs 23. I'm sure it's on that slide somewhere. Yeah, Proverbs 23, 13 and 14. Do not withhold correction from a child. New King James has. For if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell. I think a probably better translation is strike, not beat.
But either way, you know, because I've heard, I've been in conversations with people that will try to, you know, argue that the Bible does not condone or does not support physical or corporal punishment. And they'll try to say that the rod is just kind of, you know, when you see, you know, the rod and rebuke, give wisdom. That that's just a, you know, word for discipline. I don't see how you get around Proverbs 23, 13 and 14 that I just read.
So yes, I would say it's biblical. Here's the other thing from a practical standpoint, because I know we eventually want to get to. And we're already 35 minutes in because of our 15 minute debate here.
I know we eventually want to get to, like, okay, as you progress through the ages, so say toddler or you know, somebody, you know, call it 1 to 6 and then call it 7 to 10 and then pre teenager, then teenager. I think that's going to be interesting, really, to get dad's perspective on. I've always argued that there is no better way to discipline a, from the youngest age from a toddler than corporal punishment. The timeout certainly doesn't work. The natural consequences. Me and Joe had this conversation on our podcast, like, because that's what I think most people who are anti spanking will try to push as a form of dismantling. We'll just teach them the natural consequences. Okay, so if I tell my 3 year old or 2 year old to go clean up the living room and clean up their mess and they don't do it, what's the natural consequence of that? Like what?
Right, like what exactly? Like what is, what am I supposed to do if they, well, if they say that if they don't do it, they disobey if they're defiant and don't do it.
So to me, that, that's, that's where I would be interested to hear someone who is anti spanking come up with a alternative form of discipline.
Same thing with a, you know, one I don't want to, you know, out myself too much, put, you know, an age on how low you spank. But like, you know, a kid who touches something, you tell them not to touch, you know, what we're going to do is, you know, pop their hand or pop their mouth if, you know, whatever it is, what do you do with A two year old, if that's not on the table. And so that's kind of, I don't know who wants to take it next. But like, that's where I think the natural consequences that can work later in life just doesn't work well for a two year old.
[00:39:09] Speaker D: Hey guys. Jack here. I'm excited to tell you about my new book. You are the Christian's Assurance. For too many years I have run into Christians who aren't really sure where they're going to go when they die. They don't feel like they can say that they are righteous. And so I set out to write a book to give you confidence and assurance of your salvation. It's laid out in 13 chapters for churches to study as a Bible class with discussion questions at the end of each chapter. And of course you can just read it on your own either. It's for individuals, it's for classes. However you would like to approach it, you can get it on Amazon, you can get it on Focus Press. We offer discounts for group sales of it in groups of 5 and 10 on Focus Press. So if you're going to study it with your church, be sure to check that out and get that deal. So be sure to check out. You are saved today once again on Amazon and Focus.
[00:39:55] Speaker C: Let me, let me throw this out and I don't want to go down this rabbit hole at all, but I do want you guys to chew on it and think about it maybe for a future episode.
And Melinda and I have had this conversation multiple, multiple times with the way things are in our culture right now and everybody kind of wearing their, their feelings on their sleeves.
How does a Christian approach another Christian who maybe isn't doing a good job disciplining their children?
[00:40:29] Speaker B: That's a great question because we see
[00:40:32] Speaker C: it sometimes in, in my travels and in what we're doing.
And you're thinking, if we could just tell those parents X.
But there's a lot of parents who are not open to receiving X and especially not receiving X from somebody in my quote unquote generation. And so how do we build that bridge to where folks can receive constructive criticism in a healthy way and actually start applying it rather than seeing it as your generation versus my generation.
[00:41:16] Speaker A: The first things you'd have, you'd have to do is get the younger generation off of Instagram, off of TikTok, you know, off of all the social media that's trying to tell them one way or the other, they have to have a heart for correction and a heart of saying I don't know everything, nor does the woman on my Instagram feed know everything. There are going to be older, wiser people at church that do know a thing or two, and we need to invite that and open ourselves up to say that. We've had this conversation with my parents. Like, you guys are a complete different set of eyes that we really respect and trust. What are you seeing in our parenting? We've had multiple conversations with my parents about this. What are you seeing in our parenting that you think we can improve? Because there has to come a level of. And this isn't to pump our tires. You know, that's just something over time we've learned of, like, you gotta be humble, you gotta recognize we don't know everything. But in a TikTok Instagram generation, we like to be right in there with the best of them. And the best of them are the gentle parenting types. They're the, well, you can't do that to your kid because modern science states, and it's like, well, man, this has worked this way for 6,000 years or 5,900 years, up until 5,920 years. Like, we're coming into a different age that we don't respect authority. We do have to teach the respect. That does start with spanking. But I think this goes across the board of how we teach goes back to my critical theory point, how we teach respective authority with our government.
And, you know, look at all the. How many people hate Donald Trump and the things that they say. Look, you may disagree with Trump, there's plenty of things I disagree with him on.
You cannot say those things against the president. The same way as with Joe Biden. There's a certain level of respect of authority with the parents, with school teachers, with cops. You know, you look at police officers, right? Like, we have to get back to doing that. And that, to me, is going to be able to change an older person coming to us and giving some advice. There's a respect of authority. I don't have to agree with everything, but I can respect their position.
[00:43:02] Speaker D: Now, it goes back to what I was saying about the neighborhood of, like, it was good to have all those eyes and ears that were all thinking, hey, I don't want your kid to get hit by a car. I don't want your kid to get in with the wrong kids. I'm rooting for your kid. And they knew that because my parents talked to them and they talked to my parents and they were good neighbors and like that. Well, the same can happen with church members.
And we've gotten parenting advice that we took and was very helpful. We've gotten parenting advice that we evaluated and thought that's not where we want to go in all cases, whether we took it or not. It was like, that was nice. I'm glad somebody cared enough about our kids to offer that. And that has to be the posture is if somebody says something, you don't go, wow, they just. I'm never talking to them again. I saw another post from a lady today talking about all the young women say, oh, I want a village. I just love help from the older women. And as soon as you extend it, well, I don't want it like that, take what you're getting kind of thing. But I wanted on the disciplining young ones, I'm gonna screen share one more time because I saw this going around. Coming back to the idea of the toddlers. Let me make that a little bigger for you guys.
A flowchart of should I strike my child? And I like strike. You know, like.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: So the common end to everything is don't.
[00:44:11] Speaker D: Everything is stopping.
You know, so they're. The thing is, are you they old enough to understand reason? Well, if they're old enough stand reason, then talk to them. If they're not, then they're not old enough to understand why you're. They say striking them.
That's true.
Right. The end is stop hitting your child. And so I think that's pretty flimsy. But I wanted to throw that out there and have you answer that of like, yeah, they're two years old, they're three years old. They're not able to reason through everything with you. That's why spanking at that age. But I'd like you to answer this person's charge. They're not old enough to understand the reason that you are enacting that kind of discipline.
[00:44:48] Speaker B: Dad, dad, you go for it. I've got thoughts.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: I mean, at the end of the day, children are born needing guidance.
And here's the thing. Parents that refuse to discipline their kids are going to later on discover that the world will shape their kids.
And it's probably going to be in a way that is. That's not a good thing.
Let's, let's very. I'm going to quickly kind of outline some things that I would throw out to parents. So at a very young age, when they can't reason, when they can't logic and you're trying to teach them obedience for their safety, by the way, in many cases it is perfectly appropriate to get their attention through, you know, popping a hand, swatting their, their rear end, because they're going to instantly realize, okay, I've done something that I shouldn't be doing, or you've gotten their attention.
After they get a little bit older, then you're going to start having conversations with them about what they did, why it's wrong. And again, all the while, you are loving on them. You are showing them a relationship.
You're not crushing their spirit.
Because, let's be honest, all kids are different. Some kids are very, very passionate about things. And you don't want to kill that passion.
What you want to do is teach them self control so that they can harness that passion.
And so, you know, you are using different techniques in order to teach obedience, self control so that they're going to be more productive. And ultimately all of this, everything we're talking about on this, this podcast, is pointing them to be obedient to a heavenly father.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great thought. Yeah.
You don't have the screen share pulled up anymore on that flowchart when. If they answered the first question. No. What was the second thing like? Basically, are you old enough to reason with what was the second question or the second kind of point that they made? Because that's what I was disagreeing with. In the moment when you had that flowchart pulled up, what does it say?
[00:47:07] Speaker D: So if they're not old enough to understand reason, then they're not old enough to understand the reason you're striking them. If they are old enough to understand reason, talk to them.
[00:47:14] Speaker B: Right. So you can say this is purely anecdotal, that's fine. But I've had three kids, all.
And they're all four and under currently, so all of them have been at the age where Austin is right now, where I can't really, you know, he can't. He certainly can't reason.
Every single one of them. If I tell them to not go near the stairs, you know, if they're trying to climb up the stairs at one year old and I pop them when they do and I am consistent with it, guess what? Guess what they don't do anymore. They don't go and climb up the stairs. And so you can say, oh, well, that's not backed up by data. That's, you know, and that's fine. You can say that I've had three kids and every single one of them touching an outlet again, climbing up the stairs, you know, don't touch our fireplace, whatever it is.
I strongly disagree with that. You know, bar there that you had or not you Jack, but that the flowchart had of. Well then they're not old enough to understand why you striking them. Yes, they are. They're old enough to understand I'm not supposed to be doing this. My parents telling me not. And so again, from my experience, I know this is not everybody's experience. My kids didn't do that once I once I did that. And so, you know, the other thing is about reason with them.
Cannot Joe. And this I'll ask you, Joe, can I reason with my 4 year old about, you know, why he was disciplined? Yes, I certainly can.
Is he going to remember that the next like is he, is he going to have that he can't process fully a big picture. He's probably not going to remember that conversation in 12 hours or maybe he will. My point is like you can reason with, with young kids and yet they're still not going to fully necessarily grasp the consequences of their actions at 4 years old just because you can reason with them. Right. So if you choose not to spank because, oh well, I reason with them and they know why it's wrong. Yeah. But they're also probably not going to grasp the full picture. They're not going to understand natural consequences when the same situation comes up again. It's quite possible that they're not going to think through it versus, you know, different story for a 14 year old but for that 4 year old or 5 year old who you can reason with. I don't think that always applies that, you know, they're able to understand everything.
[00:49:19] Speaker A: Here's the thing. Kids understand associations.
If you squeak a certain toy, kids know what toy that is. If you, you know, show them a certain thing. I mean they got babies looking at pictures that they can put together. Even the, the little boxes where you got to put the right shapes in and whatnot. Kids are first off way more intelligent than we give them credit for and second off, they understand association very well. We are associating what they're doing with pain. No, they cannot necessarily reason, but it's like, hey, the same thing as running out in traffic or going up a stair. That's going to hurt them touching an outlet. They have to be able to associate the action with, oh, that isn't good because you know what hurts? Yeah, a spanking hurts when my kid goes to touch the outlet. You know what hurts worse? Getting fried by an outlet. So I am doing the loving or getting hit by car or falling down the stairs and breaking their neck. You are Doing the loving thing by associating that action with a little bit of pain so as to avoid the really bad pain.
[00:50:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Failure to correct a child places them on a dangerous path, period.
And, you know, I think. I think what's happened is for the last 20 years, people have said, well, you know, the opposite of discipline is love. And so they oh, I love my child, so I'm not going to do. No. The opposite of discipline is neglect.
And you're neglecting your child if you don't get onto them before they stick their finger in an outlet, if you don't discipline your job before they run out in the street, you know, that's. That's the reality.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: Hebrews 12. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as sons. For what son is there whom his Father does not discipline? But if you were without discipline. This is verse 8, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. If you are without discipline, you are illegitimate children and not sons. Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father's spirits and live, for they discipline us for a short time seem best to them? He disciplines us for our good so we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who've been trained by it, afterwards, he yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Exactly what you're talking about. We cannot yield good kids, good citizens, good anything without. And good Christians without there being some level of discipline. Because when God goes to do it. And this is why we have atheism now. This is why we have so many people rebelling against God. When God goes to discipline, they can't handle it because you and your love decided not to and you never set them up. And this is why people are attacking police officers, they're attacking public officials, they're doing all sorts of. They're terrorizing people. Why? Lack of discipline.
[00:51:49] Speaker D: Right.
[00:51:50] Speaker A: Which shows you're actually not loved.
[00:51:53] Speaker B: So, Dad, I was going to ask you and Jack. I'm sorry, you haven't been in. In a second. I was just going to move us into.
How old is too old? Spank. As we're kind of progressing through. Go ahead. Did you have another.
[00:52:03] Speaker D: Well, yeah. And just the transition out of that and like that.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:07] Speaker D: So that. That is something. Because if you're doing. As you mentioned earlier, if you're doing it right, this isn't something that needs to continue. Like the kid is gonna Start picking it up there as the reason meets and kind of catches up to what the spanking has done for them.
And so kind of the general, like, all kids are different, obviously. So it's not like, well, at eight years and three months, it's gonna, you know, but what is that transition? You're going to start spanking them less, but then what does that change into? And then I. If you want to take it from there and then into the teenage years after that kind of those phases.
[00:52:39] Speaker C: Yeah, so. So as a child is. Is moving from general knowledge to understanding.
And we, we do this with Bible teaching. We teach general knowledge, and then we teach, okay, why do we do the things we do? Well, when you start getting to the whys, when you start getting to the hey, here's why we don't do that, or, you know, this is something that is displeasing to God at that point, you're going to start transitioning. You should be able to start transitioning away from spanking because hopefully that child's heart has been touched to the point where it's hurting them to realize what they've done.
And at that point, you start assessing, okay, what does that child really enjoy? What are some things that I can either take away from them.
What are some things that are going to impact them?
Maybe more than a physical, I can tell you guys. And, and y' all probably know this. Y' all probably been there.
There are times where, man, give me that, that five second spanking and let it be over with. Rather than be grounded, being grounded, take away electronics for so long.
Those kind of things need to start happening. 7, 8, 9, 10. By the time your child is old enough to obey the gospel, Help me understand why you would be spanking that child.
[00:54:12] Speaker B: That.
[00:54:12] Speaker D: Yeah. And you start to see, even at 8, I'm starting, you know, I've seen for a while now. Exactly. Those kind of things of, this does not get through to her nearly as much as loss of privilege or whatever else it may be. And when that starts happening, it's like, okay, time to change to another tool in the drawer. I mean, like, that's exactly. It can't all be the hammer.
[00:54:33] Speaker C: Exactly. And so Melinda used to carry around a wooden spoon in her purse when our kids were little. And literally, here's the funny part, all she had to do was just raise it up out of her purse and show it to him. And, man, suddenly they.
They kind of got.
[00:54:50] Speaker B: Not me, my other siblings, I was, I was always. Yeah. Always behaving correctly. Yeah.
[00:54:56] Speaker C: But there Comes a point where a kid is going to look at that wooden spoon and go, eh, you know, no big deal.
Maybe it doesn't hurt as much. Or, or maybe getting away with something is more tempting than that. The threat of that wooden spoon. And so at that point, yeah, go to the drawer, pull out a different tool. Oh, okay. That's the case. Guess what? You're not going to go to little Johnny's house this weekend for his birthday party if you continue to act like this.
Well, he really wants to go to that birthday party. And so guess what? Now we're going to have corrective behavior.
And again, all, all the time, you're, you're trying to work on their heart, you're trying to shape who they're going to become.
This isn't about paddling and spanking so that they perform a certain way while you're out in public.
I think a lot of parents do that.
[00:55:53] Speaker B: They spank because they don't want to be embarrassed. Exactly.
[00:55:57] Speaker C: This is more about heart cultivation of.
Do you understand what your actions are really doing to you and to other people and why that matters?
[00:56:11] Speaker A: Well, let me ask you this.
[00:56:13] Speaker B: Sorry, sorry.
[00:56:15] Speaker A: I was curious to pick your brain on, let's say 16 years old.
I've heard different things on this where one is like, it's less about discipline, it's more about just the relationship. You take them for a drive and you go, okay, what's going on? You know, if they make a big mistake and you're really just having more conversations and really trying to shape the behavior through discussions, reason, things like that. On the other hand, I mean, we, plenty of kids can get in trouble at 16. Is it just loss of privileges? Like, what did you do for you now have, you know, every kid of yours is past 16. What did you do in that tough period where they're not adults, but they're very much thinking more like adults there could really spike their.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: More independence.
[00:56:53] Speaker A: More independence, but obviously not spanking as we're getting there. What did you do in that age period?
[00:56:59] Speaker C: Okay, so I'm letting you guys see behind the, the veil right now or the, behind the curtain.
You need the threat always to be there, that there could be physical discipline involved, even at 14, 15, 16 years old, just because you want that child to continue to honor, respect and obey you.
But at 14, 15, 16, you're also wanting your child to start to learn to fly.
And so, you know, my youngest son, right now, I'm wanting him to grow and to fly. Does he do some things sometimes that I'm just like, I'd like to choke him. Yes.
Am I going to immediately get my belt out and no, what I'm going to do is we're going to have a talk probably at the dinner table or maybe in a car or maybe at a coffee shop and say, hey, you know, you did this.
Do you think that was the smartest thing? And let them work through that in their mind.
And, you know, if, if it's a big enough deal, I, I, I'll give you a for instance. So let's just hope that he doesn't listen to this particular episode. So a certain son of mine might have messed up his. Actually, it's kind of funny because you guys are on the thing back into your sister's car.
So certain son of mine backed into your sister's car and realized very quickly that that was bad and dumb and was going to be a very expensive thing. And I allowed him the privilege of paying for sudden expensive thing.
But at the same time, I wanted to impress upon him that I felt like he was being, he wasn't taking driving seriously enough.
And so Melinda and I clamped down pretty hard on where he could drive.
You know, no phones allowed. We, we, for a couple of weeks, we really clamped down because we wanted him to understand this is a big deal. This isn't just something that I oops, I made an oopsie, and maybe I'll make another oopsie in three or four weeks. We wanted enough of a situation that would stick in his head to go, okay, when I'm backing up, I really better be looking and take this, this seriously.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: And I think that you're, what you're getting at is by the time they hit that age, what you really want them to understand is that for every poor decision, there is a severely negative consequence that can and oftentimes will arise from that.
For the driving example, texting and driving or being on your phone or whatever, that's always a poor decision. It's not always going to result in a poor consequence, but it often can. And so what you're trying to do, and to me, this is where, you know, again, as somebody who is 12 years away from my kid being that age, I would view that as true Success is at 16, 17, 18, your kid pretty much understands the gravity of every decision. Like, you don't have to explain to him or her the consequences. And then that be a light bulb moment for them. Like they already know. They are already processing through, okay, if I make this decision, if I do this, if I Again, go this route or hang out with these people or whatever it may be, they're already processing through the negative consequences of that. And so because of that, I think our job once, you know, for as parents, once leading up to that age, is to make sure that they're able to eventually again learn those consequences themselves. If they're 27 and making a poor decision and we're having to point out, hey, you know, that might not be a great idea to do that with your money type of thing, for instance, like then we failed somewhere along the way. If my 27 year old doesn't know how to, how to spend money, for instance, again, that's, that's maybe a more minor example. My point is what you're getting at there is your 17 year old boy or girl should be able to process for just about every decision. Okay. This could be a pretty negative consequence of that.
[01:01:14] Speaker C: Whether it be you have to be a strong enough parent though to allow them to deal with those consequences.
[01:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:22] Speaker C: Because too many parents step in and I'll use a different example, lots of kids lose a thousand dollar phone or they drop it in water or they would, you know, damage it, whatever.
The easy thing for a parent is just go get another one.
How much did that kid really learn from that experience if they were only out of phone for 6 hours or 12 hours and there was no other consequences to that.
[01:01:57] Speaker B: And all of these are, I would say, pretty minor examples compared to moral issues. Like if your kid does something with their boyfriend or girlfriend or your kid, you know what I mean, or does something with, like that to me, and I know we're getting close to time here, so I'm not trying to start another conversation here. But like that to me is what I'm most nervous about is because you're right there, there is and has to be a balance between helicopter parenting your kids to where you never let them experience, you know, the, the negative consequence of their behavior. At the same time, I don't really want my kid to experience the negative consequence of sleeping with his girlfriend or her sleep, you know, sleeping with the boy with, sleeping with their significant other. And so yeah, I plan to step in on that one and try to, you know, make sure that that never happens. And so what the balance is there. Joe, I'm sure you've got, and Jack, I'm sure you've got some thoughts on that. That to me is where it gets most difficult. And that's again, the gravity of that is far more than, you know, hitting a, backing into a car or dropping your phone in water or something like that, which makes it even more challenging.
[01:02:52] Speaker D: Well, that's also where it is transitioning out of I'm afraid of mom and dad. If I get caught doing this, I fear God. Yeah, well, I fear God, and I want to do the right thing. I mean, that's the ideal that we're striving for as parents, is I want them to make the decision because it's the right thing, not because, wow, mom and dad, catch me. It's gonna be really hard. And I think the other thing I wanted to highlight about what you were saying there and kind of guiding them into those consequences and them outgrowing the physical discipline is this is why the Bible puts the dad as the head of discipline. Ephesians 6:4, of not provoking them to anger, but bring them up in the nurture and admission of the Lord is because they do outgrow fear of mom. Right. I mean, just from a physical sense, from a lot of senses. Right. And at a certain point, dad has to be the one. And I see this sometimes where he's not. And the mom is trying to. Trying our best, but it just. It's not the same. It doesn't work the same. And if there's not a dad around, a father figure, a grandfather, you know, whoever can be the closest approximation of that in that. In the void there. But that's really. The weight on all of our shoulders is like, man, I've got to make sure that at this age, my wife's discipline is backed up and they know to feel it, but as they grow that I. That they're not off the hook just because they're big enough that Mom's spankings don't hurt anymore.
[01:04:12] Speaker C: Yep. The other thing, Jack, that you're right on the cusp of with. With your kids is you're about to start seeing where the way that you might discipline your oldest daughter totally different than your younger children.
[01:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:29] Speaker D: It's a lot. A lot of range right now. Yeah.
[01:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And that's going to stick with you. And as a father figure, that's part of your role as to knowing. Okay, what. What is effective for this child at this age versus the younger siblings.
And I've got to be father enough that if the younger sibling sees some inc. You know, hey, why isn't she getting a spanking?
She's not getting a spanking because she understands XYZ and I'm the dad.
[01:05:03] Speaker D: Yeah. It's not your business.
[01:05:04] Speaker C: Basically, you know, at the end of the Day. You have to be the leader of your home enough to say this is appropriate for Gloria, but not Robbie right now.
[01:05:21] Speaker D: Joe, did you have any final thoughts? We kind of drifted away from you there for a bit, but, yeah, we are kind of running out of our time here.
[01:05:27] Speaker A: But, no, it's been a great discussion. It's been a.
We do agree. Just for everybody listen. We do agree, but no, I mean, I think it's Rudolf Steiner, who is founder of Waldorf, that we kind of subscribe to. Not everything kind of guy's kind of weirdo in some ways, but he had this concept that kids go in years or in stages of seven years. You really start to see this right around seven years old, which is where my son is. Things are changing. It's connecting, it's clicking. Around 14, things really start to change for them. They come into their own around 21, their brain is really starting to change. They're seeing the world from different perspectives. So when you really follow it up, it makes a lot of sense. And I do think that, to your point, moms are gonna be the key figure in a kid's life. 0 to 7 just is not saying dads aren't important, not saying dad shouldn't be there. Dads aren't the leader of the family and that they're not backing the mom. But from. Really, after seven years old, you're spending
[01:06:16] Speaker B: more time with them, too, correct?
[01:06:17] Speaker A: Yeah, Exactly. But after 7 to 14, I really think the dad has to start stepping in to do a little more of the shaping by the time 14 to 21 comes around. I think the dad is a very key figure specifically for young boys, but I think the dad's a very key figure on this. And so, you know, it's a. I'm glad we were able to. Brad, I appreciate your perspective. I'm glad we were able to kind of hash some of those things out, because that is something that I think about a lot is how do you phase out a certain things? What does that look like? How do you. How do you discipline the 14 to 21 age? You know, things like that. A lot of tough questions. And I appreciate your perspective on it.
[01:06:50] Speaker C: So, yeah, I would. I'd strongly recommend you guys hug your kids before. Before and or after. You have to discipline them, obviously. Pray with them at night and just assure them, show them, hey, the reason I'm doing this is because I love you.
Because I have watched through time, small acts of rebellion become much larger acts of rebellion if they're not addressed. And so as. As a parent. One of the things you got to do, start early, start young, and show them, you know, I'm the parent. I love you. I'm trying to get you to heaven. And this is how it's going to be.
[01:07:37] Speaker D: Good stuff. We appreciate you coming on. As we mentioned at the top, Brad and Melinda's parenting book, Arrows in the Hands of Warrior is on sale this week at Focus Press. Take a few bucks off for you guys. So go ahead and pick that up.
Chapter on discipline. That's exactly it. So if you want more on this, be sure to go check that
[email protected] as always, there'll be more on the deep end at Focus Plus. So patriot focuspress.org/plus and join us over there. And that's all we've got for this one. We'll talk to you guys on the next one.
Hey, guys, Jack Wilkie here. If you enjoy our work with podcasts like Think Deeper and Godly Young Men and our books, articles, seminars and want to support the work that we do, the best way to do so is to go to focuspress.org donate that's focuspress. Org donate. Thanks again for listening.
