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.

LONG-RANGE VIEW: A Journey of Love

    Patricia is having surgery. An old bridge in her mouth is deteriorating and needs attention; actually, it needs replacing with a whole new system. So she is having surgery. I get to be the nurse for a few days. So I sit here waiting and thinking about this woman God has given me. I’m thinking about our journey.

    I realize this truth: love grows in the journey. We have gone through so many things together. A fairytale romance. (At least we thought so). The births of six children, each birth amazingly different. We never wanted to know gender ahead of time; we wanted the surprise. Will was born in the car on the way to the hospital. That was a surprise. It was also my fault. With Judith, we barely made it in time. Not my fault. With Jean-Luc, we just had him at home; and Dan, outpatient. The last two were her choices. In the process of it all, some of our most stressful surprises are now our best memories, our fodder for stories and laughter.

    Of course, having six little ones at home all ten and under had its adventures. There were times when a “bug” would sweep through the whole family. For days we would be up nights, cleaning bedding and carpets and clothes, and praying for God to deliver us from the “pit.” When Judith spent ten days in the hospital with spinal meningitis, we prayed and cried together, pleading for God to be merciful.

    Since Patricia stayed home with the children, our financial struggles were ever before us. We needed clothing for the kids, shoes, and more. God provided, but seldom in the same way; it seems He was always challenging us to trust Him in a new way.

    When we could manage it, we took trips to California to see Patricia’s parents and family. We would check airline prices looking for a real deal. We packed the car and drove a few times. We rode AmTrak across country, coach the whole way. At that time Judith was the baby, and I hemmed her in between my legs and bags and seats. “Are you sure she can’t get out?” Patricia asked. “Not a chance,” I assured her. A few hours later, we were awakened by a total stranger carrying Judith from seat to seat, asking everyone on the train, “Is this your baby? Is this your baby?” That was not one of my shining moments, but I think that Patricia has finally forgiven me.  We bought a pop-up and traveled across the west seeing all the sights we could in as little time as possible. It just doesn’t look that far on a map.

    As the kids got older, Patricia came to work with me in the school. Trying to balance this husband/wife-employer/employee thing was often just that—trying. Yet we have walked and talked our way through it.

    Learning the difference in how we think and how we react to situations has been a challenge. Forced to communicate through these things—because we had made vows before God to stay together until death—seasoned us. We each have had moments when we thought death might be better.

    In the whole journey, we have grown together, we have cried together, we have prayed together, we have laughed together, and we have stuck together. We have learned to love one another, and we have come to see that it is the incredible stresses that we faced together that strengthened our love. Lilies appear through mud, flowers through dirt, rainbows in storms, and love in the journey.

    It is our prayer that your marriage would grow as you journey together. My closing thoughts today are a poem I wrote along this theme. I hope that you enjoy it.

How is it that this Beauty
                            That we call Love
                            Is giv’n to dust-made man
                            From Breath-Above
And calls him out of self and earthly urge
    To live for someone else?
                                This heavenly surge
                                                           Is key
                                                           To life and joy!
I do not fully fathom
        Love in its prime;
                       But this I know:
                                             Love blossoms over time.
As circumstances lash and would destroy,
As man and wife must all their strength employ
                    To guard Love’s root . . . .
                                                          Love blooms.