RUN LIKE A CHAMPION

Family Life – 9
Sammy Tippit: We’ve been talking about family relationships. In particular, we’ve been discussing the parent-child relationship. We want to continue today, and we’re going to talk about what is probably one of the most difficult things to talk about: discipline. Yet the Bible says, “For whom the Lord loves he chastens [disciplines]…”

He disciplines us out of his love. It makes us better people, and we grow because of his discipline and the things we go through in life. We’re going to learn from him, and I’ve been talking about how my goal is to learn from God as our Father how to be the kind of parent he wants me to be. If I’m going to learn from him, I have to exercise discipline.
This can be a point of tension, not just between the parent and the child, but between husband and wife as well. We talked about disagreements, and some of our biggest disagreements were over how to discipline Dave and Renee. As I mentioned earlier, you’re more lenient and I’m stricter, so let’s talk a little bit about how we dealt with that. How did we come to an agreement about that?
Tex Tippit: Through trial, tribulation, and prayer. I think that just coming to say… From my perspective, part of it has to do with the personality of the child, even the strong-willed personality versus the not-quite-so-strong-willed personality. We would probably do it a little bit differently with Dave, even with the spanking.
I think sometimes it was a little overboard, but I’m not sure. He turned out pretty good, so… I think that with Renee, because she was gentler, spanking would cause her to just really have a hard time responding to it. So I think that just knowing the personality and the spirit of the person helped. But you and I didn’t agree.
Sammy: But I think that sometimes where we would have a problem would be, from my perspective… We are the in the midst of this, but… I remember I would come in, and you would say, “When you’re daddy gets in, you’re going to get it.”
Tex: Oh, that’s true.
Sammy: I was kind of coming in. I was saying, “I don’t want to always be the bad guy, you know?” But you wanted me to do that. So we had to work through that, and we had to talk through that and pray through that to where we came to some kind of conclusion. I think it goes back to the discussion we had on communication. That was probably one of the hardest things we had to do.  We had to learn to communicate with each other, and one of the biggest helps in discipline was that we were both on the same team. When children are small, they know how to manipulate parents, and they’ll do it. So we had to learn that. That was one thing. What about you guys? What are some of the things that have been helpful and some of the things that have been difficult regarding disciplining the kids? How do you deal with them?
Kelly Tippit: I too think discipline is the hardest thing for me about being a parent. I wish we could just cut that part out, but I know we can’t, so I struggle with this. I struggled especially when they were little itty bitty children just learning things. I felt like I had to correct and discipline them all day long, and it was emotionally exhausting.
I just want to have fun with them and love them, but you have to train them. Discipline kind of changes as they grow up. When they were younger, we did more time-outs, took away their toys, or even gave them spankings. Then as they’ve gotten older, it has been more of taking away privileges. A lot of it just comes down to how you need to communicate with them afterward.
Just sit down and go over what they did wrong and what would have been a better choice. Then teach them to ask for forgiveness, because I think that’s something they’re going to need their whole lives with any kind of relationship. When you hurt somebody, even if you didn’t mean to, you need to ask for forgiveness. Just teach them the value of forgiveness and asking for forgiveness.
Tex: I think that’s right. That’s one other thing we did that was important. We would have the time-out, but then we would also pray with them. I can see that has reached down to the next generation, and that’s important. The prayer time afterward and saying, “You did wrong, but now you’re forgiven. Let’s move forward and ask for forgiveness from the Lord,” is important.
Sammy: I think that in relationship to that, one of the things that I think are most difficult but most important for parents is not doing it in anger, especially if it’s spanking. Kids will frustrate you. They’ll drive you to the end of your rope, and you have to settle down. Our thing is to kind of say, “Okay, if we’re going to be angry about this, we can’t spank. We just have to pull back and do something else at this point.”
I think it’s really important that, like you said, you’re able to pray with them, talk with them, and have them say, “Forgive me. I was wrong.” I think that is important because they’re learning about life, like you said. That’s a difficult thing, but what has been helpful to you?
Dave Tippit: There are two things. First, I would say (I know we all agree) that when it comes to this whole conversation of discipline, there’s a pendulum of discipline and grace. Discipline has to be seasoned with grace. There are parameters, but unless grace is the foundation, all you’re going to do is create kids who try to do the thing to impress the parents and then sneak behind their backs and do what they really want to do. So there has to be that mixture.
So just keeping that perspective in mind is important. But then with the children themselves, going back a little bit to what you were saying about Renee and me… Knowing their weaknesses and obstacles, how they come to those, and what they struggle with… There are different things we have to do. Our oldest is more of a procrastinator. She’ll hide from her problems and all of that, so we have to call that out. We have to call her to responsibility in those things a lot of times.
Our middle one struggles more with just feeling overwhelmed and inadequate and struggling with that. So sometimes the best thing we can do is keep helping encourage her, “Don’t see yourself in comparison to someone else, but see yourself in light of how God sees you.” Then our third one has the Tippit blood in him, so he has the whole anger thing that I’ve struggled with and that I know has been an issue.
You have to teach him how to calm himself or how to allow God to calm him and be peaceful in the middle of that. Sometimes that’s being in another room. Sometimes it’s Kelly just wrapping her arms around him and holding him tight when he’s screaming loudly until he calms down. Sometimes it’s just having them take a few minutes to go write their anger down or whatever.
There are all different techniques. There are things you can use, but I would say to be sensitive to where your child struggles in those areas and then just ask God for wisdom on how to address those areas so you can be proactive in it too, not just when it comes to the actual discipline part. You can help prevent that by being cognizant of that.
Kelly: Something I read back when I was kind of going through a hard time with my kids when they were younger… I’m not even sure where I read this, where I got it from, exactly, but the person mentioned that our God, our Father, is a perfect and loving Father, yet we as his children will still go off and do things we know are wrong. Even Adam and Eve had this perfect relationship with God in the garden, but they still had this sinful nature, and they still made bad choices.
I think it kind of gives me some encouragement to realize I’m not going to be able to control these kids. They’re going to throw a fit when I’m at the grocery store or whatever. It takes some of the pressure off. I don’t have to be this perfect parent. There’s grace in that area, and we can pray for them and trust God to fill in the gaps where we are not quite there yet.
Sammy: I think one of the things we have to do is look at the long-term thing. In other words, there are different stages. When they’re young, they’re going to throw a fit. When they’re older, they’re not going to embarrass themselves that way. So they go through different stages, and we have to recognize those stages.
In so doing, we can see the long-term goal is helping them to grow, helping them to develop, to become the people… Discipline is different at different stages. I think the bottom line is really looking to God as our Father and learning from him how he deals with us. I’m glad that he way he dealt with me when I first came to Christ is not the way he deals with me today and vice versa. So look to him and let him be your model.