Will the REAL Child Abusers Please Stand Up

The Key To Raising Children At the very beginning of this article, I must explain that I am not an expert in child rearing, but I do know that God has given us a perfect instruction manual to follow. Jessie Ruth McWhorter and I were married on March 8, 1964, and God has added four children to our home, two boys and two girls. Raising these four children has forced my wife and I to put into practice those child-raising principles taught in the Bible. So this article is not just theory, it's "applied Bible".

My mother-in-law gave me the key to raising children when my oldest son was very young. The key is this: "A parent must work as hard as they can to help the child understand the right way, all the time depending entirely on God to make the right way effective in the heart and mind of the child. The parent must realize that God gave us our children so we could give them back to Him. As our children grow up and go their own way, parents must let them go the way God is directing them, even if that way is different from the way the parent would go."

Definition of Rod Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible defines rod as: "from an unused root probably meaning to branch off; a stick (for punishing, writing, fighting, ruling, walking, etc.)

Child abuse is a terrible crime which must be punished by every society. As a matter of fact, the society that condones child abuse is very sick, and will surely undergo the judgment of God. But what is the difference between spanking a child and abusing a child? I realize there is a lot of confusion today between these two points, but there must be a scriptural, middle ground between the modern view of refusing to use the rod and the view that the parent must beat the child half to death.

The "Experts" Opinion Of Child Discipline I have read many articles in books and magazines concerning the proper discipline of children. The majority of these widely read articles state that the proper and modern method of discipline uses logic, not a rod, to persuade a child concerning right and wrong. The articles then explain that using a rod (the word "rod" being used to describe spanking) is child abuse. The articles declare that the rod is a tool of anger, which the unlearned parent uses to lash out against a defenseless child. This "training" gives the child a bad outlook on life which they carry over to their children, thus the erroneous practice of spanking is carried on from generation to generation.

Never Spank? I just read an article in a popular monthly magazine which stated that it is never right to use spanking as punishment for a child. The author explained that this kind of punishment caused the child to believe it was all right for a big person to hit a little person if they didn't do what the big person said to do. The author believed it was better to remove privileges or deprive the child of your attention for a given period.

We must answer this argument by stating that the proper use of the rod is not just hitting a child to make them do what they ought to do. A parent is always wrong to spank a child in anger. This leaves a permanent scar on the child which may be carried over to future generations. The parent must administer the rod only as a directive from God, not because it pleases them. When the rod is properly used, the parent, as well as the child, will be crying. The child will be hurting on the outside, but the parent will be hurting on the inside. The old saying, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you" is absolutely true.

I doubt that any parent can properly discipline their children before they pray. Taking time to pray gives the parent time to bring the matter before God, and nobody can pray when they are angry. Prayer causes the parent to consider what God would have them do. Then the parent goes into the room where the child is waiting. When they confront the child, it is not as an angry parent, but as an ambassador of God. They will then sit down and calmly and deliberately explain to the child that they have broken the laws of God, and God always demands punishment. Proper child discipline always involves an explanation of why the spanking is necessary. God has given parents His authority to guide children in learning right from wrong and directing the child to God's service and an eternity with Him.

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