My parents spanked me as a child. As a result I now suffer from a psychological condition known as “Respect for Others”. I saw this meme and had to share because it made me chuckle… a lot. 🙂 Happy Friday!
“Don’t fail to discipline your children. They won’t die if you spank them. Physical discipline may well save them from death.” Proverbs 23:13-14 (NLT)
A couple of weeks ago I experienced a hard day as a momma. In fact my journal entry for that day reads, “Today is a little rough as a mom to see through natural consequences for my child.”
My daughter had been pretty irresponsible lately (not getting chores done, taking much longer than it should to get things done, forgetting things, and so on). On this particular day, she had forgotten her backpack with her homework at home because she wasn’t paying attention and focusing on the right things. She also forgot to drink her milk that morning even after being reminded.
At school, as she was getting out of the car, she noticed that she had forgotten her backpack. She didn’t ask me to go get it and bring it back to her because she knew she’d already used up her one “grace” already this school year. I give each of my kids one “grace” per school year where I’ll retrieve a forgotten item just one time.
Part of me REALLY wanted to go back home and get it for her though. She had such a discouraged look on her face that broke my heart. However, something inside me reminded me that she needs to have her natural consequences as a learning opportunity. I was struggling so much internally though I even called Eric to ask him if I should go back and get it for her. As soon as I heard myself asking him though, “don’t do it!” was running through my head. Eric had the same response, especially considering her recent irresponsible behavior.
It still just made me so sad because I don’t want my kids to have to suffer discouragement, pain or heartache. I think God must feel this way at times too.
Thinking about it all reminded me of a previous post I wrote where I talked about being sad when I wanted to do nice or fun things for the kids but their bad behavior prevented me from doing so. At that time I also had the realization that God must experience similar emotions and how he is a good but just parent. He allows us to experience many of our natural consequences. Though as a parent, he probably doesn’t like it, and it makes him really sad to see us experience pain and hardship too.
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