DISCIPLINE: Fill Your Toolbox

    I had taken a year off from teaching, relocated to Mobile, Alabama, and tried my hand at selling insurance. Throughout that year, the realization grew in my own heart and mind that I needed to be in the classroom teaching. On the Sunday evening before school started, I received a phone call hiring me to teach an inner-city classroom, middle school, 100% Afro-American. I was about to cross three cultural barriers—with a briefcase full of ignorance. I found out on the first day. The next six months were warlike: me against them. They resisted; I punished. I was losing; so were they. Lose/lose situation.  Many times I would drive home in the afternoon, tears running down my face, pouring my heart out to God.

    One particular day, a seventh grader Yvonne was being particularly disrespectful. Seeing red, I walked to her desk, knelt down and stuck my finger in her face, saying, “If you ever do that again, I will . . .” I stopped, not knowing what to say next. I never finished that sentence, got up and walked away. She laughed.

    Then I attended a workshop on discipline that gave me another tool. This question was asked: Why should they obey? What benefit do the students get in your classroom? I changed. I gave them a promise of reward. If any individual obeyed me five days in a row, he would earn one day off. On that day off, he could choose to go to PE or to the library. His choice. The difference in my classroom was miraculous. We began to like each other, most of my students and I. On my next evaluation, my supervisor asked, “What did you do to get your classroom so disciplined?”

    “Disciplined?” Did she say “disciplined?” I began to realize that discipline was more than punishment. Since that time, I have come to see that discipline is more like discipling or training. Punishment is only one tool of the training process. Yes, it is an important tool, but only one tool. A reward can also be a tool.

    A good parent has a toolbox with many tools much like a good carpenter. Can you imagine a carpenter with only a hammer? His partner asks, “How long is that board?” Since he has no tape measure, the hammer-only carpenter lays his hammer down end-over-end eleven times. “Eleven hammers long,” he answers. Imagine that: using a hammer to measure! I would not hire that crazy carpenter to build my house.

    Sometimes as parents, we get in a rut by using only one tool—whether it is the right tool or not. We spank them, or we ground them, or we take things away, or we send them to their room, or we verbally rebuke them. Any of these things can have a rightful place but using only one tool is CRAZY. We have to fill our toolboxes with several different tools to be effective family-builders.

Choosing the right tool for the right situation is an important part of being a wise parent.

DISCIPLINE: Use anger early in small doses. (#7 out of 8 great tips)

We all saw it coming. Patricia and I were visiting with a friend, calmly chatting at the kitchen table, sipping iced tea. The resident four-year-old came in, opened the fridge, and with one hand began to remove a full gallon pitcher of freshly made orange juice. You see it coming, too. Disaster in the making. As the pitcher came off the shelf, it tilted, dropped, and splattered orange juice all over the floor and nearby cabinets.

Our friend lost it. She was on her feet, screaming, belittling, name-calling. Her anger was too much and too late, doing more damage than good. Harmful and sinful, we’ve all done it.

She became angry too late.

Let me explain. Too often, we hold back our anger because we want to be sweet and kind. But inside we are building up pressure. Too much pressure and the top blows off.

Measured anger, released in a timely way, serves as a preventive action. It stops the child from a serious mistake and it maintains dignity for us and them.

A sharp word spoken at the right moment could have avoided the disaster of our uncontrolled temper. “How good is a timely word!” (Prov. 15:23) The teaching in the scripture acknowledges that anger has a time and purpose; it just needs control. “Be angry and sin not.” (Eph. 4:26) Apparently, God thinks it is possible to be angry without sinning. Let’s look at some ways.

Here are some ways for using instead of losing your temper:

— Develop the ‘look’. Look angry. Grit your teeth, compress your lips, knit your eyebrows, focus your eyes on his eyes and lock. Review tip #1 “The Stern Look.” Of course, they have to look at you for this to work.

— Develop degrees of angry tone in your voice. Instead of going from 0-60 in two seconds, go from 0-10. Raise your voice slightly and use one or two words. When they look at you, give them the look. A clear, sharp, controlled “NO” or “STOP” will often solve a problem before it happens. Raise your voice one notch; that’s all. But raise it enough to get their attention. God gave you degrees of volume. That’s where Sony got the idea.

— Use the full name. This is a gentle but firm warning. Don't use the little pet names like “baby” or “honey” but use the full name: “Keith Waldon Currie, you had better stop and think about what you are doing!”

Early preventive action will help you avoid ultimatums like, “You will never eat again for the rest of your life.” That’s the purpose of our list of tips; fill up your discipline toolbox and then use the right tool at the right time. It takes practice, but it is worth it.

Manage yourself, manage your kids. They go together.