Corporal punishment

[Airaux]

One (of many) aspect of biblical teaching that bothers me is corporal punishment of children. I'm not saying my view is right, but the beating of a child is instinctively abhorrent to me.
The Bible tends to be clear as to the specifics of relating crime/ sin to the relevant punishment, but as far as I know - and I'm by no means an expect on the OT - the passages in Proverbs etc. don't state what specific beating should be given for a specific sin of a child.
I'd be interested to hear any others' elaboration on this issue.

 

[bèlla]

I have always viewed the rod (from the biblical perspective) as the last resort. Not the first. Discipline has many forms and phases. The rod figuratively relates to chastisement. Its literal application is often applied to fools and unruly persons.

I think the point is that good parents discipline their children. They aren’t lackadaisical. An unwillingness to do so makes them foolish and leads to greater hardship. Society disciplines those who don’t obey the rules.

 

[Airaux]

I have always viewed the rod (from the biblical perspective) as the last resort. Not the first. Discipline has many forms and phases. The rod figuratively relates to chastisement. Its literal application is often applied to fools and unruly persons.

I think the point is that good parents discipline their children. They aren’t lackadaisical. An unwillingness to do so makes them foolish and leads to greater hardship. Society disciplines those who don’t obey the rules.

Thanks for your input.
You say "the rod figuratively relates to chastisement". That suggests to me that you see the rod as not being literal, but a symbol for restriction and boundaries.
I'm not an expert on the OT, but it seems to me that is not what Proverbs, etc. states. The NT states that a father disciplines his children with a scourge and equates it with God's discipline.
As for society disciplining its abusers, I'm fairly sure physical punishment in the UK and the USA is banned, although I'm pretty sure it still sometimes goes on.

 

[bèlla]

I said figuratively because most parents address infractions and mistakes verbally before moving to other methods.

You have to look at the larger picture. What issue is the text addressing? Obviously there were some who were hands off and wouldn’t chastise their children. We have parents like that today and the kids are holy terrors for anyone who has to deal with them.

And since there’s nothing new under the heavens it’s probable there were some running amok back then. God’s pattern of discipline is evident throughout the bible. You have to interpret the passage in light of the whole.

He is forbearing. He gives us many chances to be obedient before correction comes. I don’t think He expects those made in His image to differ. Believers are told the same.

Everything often comes back to love. So does this topic. If you love your child you’ll train him well and teach him to respect boundaries and how to live within them.

They’re under the Law. Disobedience had serious consequences.

 

[Endeavourer]

My personal philosophy was to spank only for purposeful, outright defiance or for dangerous behaviors (i.e running into the street). When I spanked, the spanking stung so it was a deterrent from wanting another, but did not damage (leave bruises).

Also, I never spanked a child after they turned 8 so they didn't grow bitter and resentful about being spanked. Some of my children had 10 or less spankings, some had perhaps 30.

For everything else, I'd take away privileges or use time outs. A naughty chair works wonders, but the traditional 1 minute per year of age was not effective with my children. They needed approx 20 minutes to re calibrate their emotions and dread the chair enough it was a deterrent.

This method worked for all of my children even though each was unique; they all turned out to be productive adults who are in a loving relationship with me.

My parents spanked me with a belt until I was in my teens and afterwards I hated them bitterly for it. My last big belt whupping was when I was 17 and I would have ran away from home if I hadn't already been leaving to stay with an aunt as a live in helper for that summer. When reflecting on when the spanking started spurring bitterness in me, I realized it was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old, so I stopped spanking my own children at 8. If a spanking is stirring bitterness it is not effective as discipline. You want discipline to incent changes in behavior, not to destroy a child or a relationship.

(Edited to add: my relationship with my parents is restored now, but it took about 10 years after the last whupping for me to feel affection toward them.)

 

[Hammster]

One (of many) aspect of biblical teaching that bothers me is corporal punishment of children. I'm not saying my view is right, but the beating of a child is instinctively abhorrent to me.
The Bible tends to be clear as to the specifics of relating crime/ sin to the relevant punishment, but as far as I know - and I'm by no means an expect on the OT - the passages in Proverbs etc. don't state what specific beating should be given for a specific sin of a child.
I'd be interested to hear any others' elaboration on this issue.

Corporal punishment is not beating a child. That’s child abuse.

Spanking =/= beating.

 

[com7fy8]

First > physical action can not make a person genuinely loving in his or her character. It won't make a child humble and kind and trusting and depending on Jesus. Physical can not control spiritual, is what I mean. It can act like peer influence to get a child to conform to a culture.

My parents used spanking and the hairbrush on me. I just acted more carefully around them, and tried harder not to get caught. And away from my parents, I found out very easily who would stand up to me and who wouldn't, so I could do things I wanted to do.

I did the church things I was told to do, and got my ice cream reward . . . another corporal form of discipline, by the way And then I would get away for the rest of the week, except for chores and schoolroom stuff. If one teacher stood up to me, I waited for and meditated on how I was going to have my fun with another teacher.

So . . . I was not being taught how to love, how to relate, how to feel for other people.

I understand that the corporal stuff in the Bible is meant to be in a culture where people love and obey God and love as family as the whole community bringing up their children. So, when there is a raised voice or a behind tapping . . . this can help to resist the child going the wrong way, but there is the example to keep winning the child.

The Bible says "God resists the proud" (in James 4:6, and also in 1 Peter 5:5). God can use physical parental discipline to help to resist a wrong person. But this can not cure a person's character.

In my case, I did not have godly love's example. My parents could be vocal to talk down about certain people. From their conceit I could develop as a bully, thinking it was fine to look down on certain students. And other students were also looking down on them, so I did not have people standing up for them. And if it was ok to look down on them, I supposed, it also was fine to pick on them and physically bully them. And I found that very entertaining, to be able to get kids squealing and crying.

We bullies went after the ones who were despised. So, possibly, we were part of Satan's bigger system of keeping other kids in fear of being despised . . . so they would go along with the selfish system, including of peer influence. And so the ones who conformed wound up smoking and drinking and other things of the so-called socially acceptable crowd. They hurt and destroyed their own selves maybe more than bullying could. And we see how even religious people's marriages can fail, because they have conformed but have not found out how to share in a close loving relationship. Instead they have allowed physical pressures, or fear of it, to make them conform.

I did change. I became a conformed religious screwball who did all the things I understood I was being told to do. But I did not know how to love. I was driven by fear of hell; so I stopped doing the bullying and tormenting teachers and killing animals and birds. Therefore, fear of hell, also, did not result in me learning how to love.

We need example. But there is a lot of anti-example stuff. An example of God's love is gentle and humble and kind. But humans can tend to want excitement and accomplishment and beauty discrimination. So, people can find a kind and quiet person to be boring. Comparison, competition, and conquest are favored over being pleasing to God in His love's "incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (in 1 Peter 3:4)

Showpiece people, even in churches, are preferred. You don't even get to know them so you can feed on their example which, of course, may not be there for you.

But God is quiet . . . never silent. We can be with Him and share with Him in His gentle and quiet love. And if we are an example of this . . . which is in the sight of God > God will use this, spread this to make others His way. However we really are in the secret place of our hearts, this is what can be spreading to make others, including our children, the same way.

Therefore, someone using physical punishment can be teaching the child to use force in order to use people. And if the parent fears religious peers, their fear of not conforming can spread to the child so the child then goes along with peers. But the child can end up with drugs, while the parent has gone along with charming but also emotionally harming religious thugs.

Your ways can come out in different ways, in your children.

 

[Airaux]

LaBella: One thing I'd like to say is that not all children become terrors if they are not spanked.
Endeavourer: I don't get why kids spanked before a certain age don't grow bitter about being spanked, but after do.
BTW - I note how you spell "Endeavourer". Are you British?
Hammster: Re. "turkeys" - Is that a WKRP reference?

 

[Hammster]

Hammster: Re. "turkeys" - Is that a WKRP reference?

Yep.

 

[grandvizier1006]

I know that some commentaries think of the rod in Proverbs as a shepherd’s staff. Obviously a shepherd would not beat his sheep in order to correct them. Instead he’d just use the curved part to steer them away from danger. I think the verse may simply mean that but people take a form of poetry in one verse to justify a cultural practice, which is bad exegesis. That being said, I’m not completely against spanking (I live in the US where it is legal, in most places in Europe it is not). But I would only use it as a last resort if I had a child that knowingly caused harm to someone else, particularly someone else’s child. I don’t understand the people who think their frequent spankings as a child were deserved and justified.

 

[Endeavourer]

Endeavourer: I don't get why kids spanked before a certain age don't grow bitter about being spanked, but after do.
BTW - I note how you spell "Endeavourer". Are you British?

I think that after a certain age a spanking is a humiliating and personal dignity stripping experience. I was an older child so my parents had no awareness of (or care about) age appropriate discipline. Even as an 8th grader I was subjected to charts with stars for attitude, etc., that hung where all of our visitors could see them. We had a lot of visitors. It was really humiliating. I would write in my diary how much I wanted to run away from home, perhaps to Mexico, where they couldn't find me again.

Yet, at the same age I would be working on the farm, pulling nearly as much weight as any hired man. I was expected to contribute like an adult but I felt like I was treated like a child. I even lived by myself in a remote homestead (no running potable water, no indoor bathroom) over the summers irrigating part of our family farm.

In my recollection, I became aware of how dignity robbing the spankings were at about the age of 8. I never wanted my children to experience that, yet I felt spankings were necessary up until that point for purposefully defiant or dangerous behaviors. I knew I was in for some really miserable times during their adolescence or teenage years if they felt they could sass and defy me so for everyone's sake, including theirs, I didn't want that in my home.

I'm not British but chose the spelling for a unique user name.

 

[bèlla]

LaBella: One thing I'd like to say is that not all children become terrors if they are not spanked.
Endeavourer: I don't get why kids spanked before a certain age don't grow bitter about being spanked, but after do.
BTW - I note how you spell "Endeavourer". Are you British?
Hammster: Re. "turkeys" - Is that a WKRP reference?

I was not addressing spanking in that remark. I’m referencing an absence of discipline. As in none.

 

[Hammster]

I know that some commentaries think of the rod in Proverbs as a shepherd’s staff. Obviously a shepherd would not beat his sheep in order to correct them. Instead he’d just use the curved part to steer them away from danger. I think the verse may simply mean that but people take a form of poetry in one verse to justify a cultural practice, which is bad exegesis. That being said, I’m not completely against spanking (I live in the US where it is legal, in most places in Europe it is not). But I would only use it as a last resort if I had a child that knowingly caused harm to someone else, particularly someone else’s child. I don’t understand the people who think their frequent spankings as a child were deserved and justified.

You described a staff, not a rod.

 

[Tzav]

When our children were ages 5 and two, my first husband stated that he didn't think we should spank them and asked me to think about it. I had never heard of such a thing as rearing children without spanking, but I liked the idea, so we thought about it. However, before we could come together with a conclusion, he was killed in an accident. On that day, I decided there would be no hitting of any kind in our family, because that was appealing to me, and it seemed to be the direction he was taking.

They were strongly disciplined, but I quickly learned that hitting children was completely unnecessary. They attend Christian schools for many years, and one time, a teacher demanded that I spank my son. I refused. She informed me that they would expel him if I did not. I refused. He stayed in that school until we moved out of state some time later and was fine. I continued disciplining the children but did not hit them.

Those "children" are now ages 48 and 45. I have no regrets about my decision to not spank or hit, they were and are great people, and they are successful in life, loving the L_RD. They both became believers at very young ages. They are now parents.

I thought I was a fabulous parent, but I was not. My major, continuous strong prerogative was avoiding abusing them. I totally neglected things that, had their father been alive, he would have taught them. They got none of that from me and not from anyone else, although they were members of the same church organization until after they were married adults. And as I mentioned, they went to Christian schools. Only One Man reached out to my son -- a married man with no children. Amazing.

Fathers are necessary. They have parenting/teaching to do and examples to specifically live. Their father was a terrific man, and if he could have been there, he would have done it. He would have been nothing less than an outstanding, great father.

Don't neglect the children you know who are not being fathered.

Please.

 

[Airaux]

Thanks, everybody, for your input.