If you don’t know what you are aiming for, you cannot be successful. We have all met people floundering through life with no purpose or plan. Sadly, that can also be said of many parents. They have no purpose or plan for raising their children. As a result, they settle for survival, which leads to reactionary parenting (reacting to situations rather than intentionally guiding their children).

In this study, I have encouraged you to be an intentional parent. Understand the goal: Wise children. Proverbs 1:7 informs us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Thus, we can revise the goal: children who fear the Lord. Over the past few weeks, we have sought to help answer the question, “How do we get there?” Deuteronomy 6 teaches that this happens as we immerse our children in God’s Word. We follow Ephesians 4 and intentionally seek to disciple our children to put off the old man, renew their minds, and put on the new man made in righteousness and holiness. We seek a changed heart in our children (Mark 7:21, Luke 6:45).

I now want to return to a topic that I mentioned but did not address in detail as we looked through Ephesians 4. The primary way that we help our children put off the old man is through faithful discipline. A parent who refrains from disciplining their children is a parent who fails. When I speak of discipline, I mean the practice of training children to obey rules set by authority, using punishment to correct disobedience, so that the child learns to control their behavior.

There is a horrific trend among parents today labeled as “Gentle parenting.” This is a guise for weak and lazy parents to refrain from the hard work necessary to guide their children in righteousness and holiness. At its heart is the belief that your child is basically good. However, scripture strongly disagrees. Jeremiah 17:9 informs us that our hearts are deceitful and horrendously wicked. When we read Romans 3, we discover that we are described as wicked, unrighteous, spiritually blind, and completely depraved. As Christian parents, we must begin with the understanding that we are raising depraved sinners under God’s wrath. Further, the Psalmist informs us that we are born with a corrupt sin nature (Psalm 51:5, 58:3). The writer of Proverbs reminds us that foolishness is the default setting of every child (Proverbs 22:15).

Proverbs 22:15 also informs us that discipline (specifically, spanking) drives this foolishness out of the child. Again, there is a trend today to see discipline (specifically, spanking) as hurtful abuse. Certainly, taken too far and done in anger, it is abuse and is sin. However, done with the right heart and in the right way, it is a sign of love. Proverbs 13:24 reminds us that the parents who refrain from discipline actually hate their children. An illustration here may help us see this clearly. If you live on a busy street with heavy traffic, you must train your toddlers not to play in or run into the street. If you simply laugh it off and attempt to only “be their friend,” you are engaging in dangerous and abusive behavior. Love demands that you do all that is necessary to keep them out of harm’s way. This is the purpose of discipline. In fact, Proverbs 19:18 tells us that when you refrain from disciplining your child, you are condemning them to death.

Dear parent (particularly parents of young children), when you refrain from the rod and seek only to have a conversation with your child, you do them no favors. When you excuse their wicked behavior, you cease to be a parent. When you plead, beg, or bribe instead of demanding obedience to God-given authority, you actively encourage sin in your child’s life. Your engagement in “gentle parenting” is destroying your child. Over twenty years of ministry, I have lost count of the times when I spoke with parents struggling with their teenagers, confused about how they arrived at this point. Yet, no one else was confused. We all saw it coming and tried to warn them. They tried to be their child’s friend and failed as parents. Discipline your child while there is hope! This is a battle you cannot afford to lose!

Proverbs also informs us that discipline plays a vital role in saving our children (Proverbs 23:14-15). Along with God’s Commands (renewing our minds) and the teaching of God’s Word (putting on the new man), discipline is the way to lead our children to life. Your child will not learn that life is not about them without faithful discipline. And they cannot come to the gospel if they believe that life is about them and not about God’s glory.