When I read the second Appendix of Samuel Martin’s book “Thy Rod and Thy Staff, they comfort me” I got some insights I would like to share with you. I took two main points out of it. His point in the end of the chapter is:

“Not only does punishment not work to bring about righteous behaviour, but also blessings and miracles do not bring about righteous behaviour either.”

Think about your life and about the life of your children. Can you relate?

I could! Here I will explain why and how Samuel Martin arrived to that conclusion, discussing biblical examples of how people “learned” out of punishment or blessings from God:

Out of the many examples he quoted, I will take two:

The author points out: What we see here is a pattern. The pattern is this: God tells man not to do something. Man proceeds to break God’s law and commit sin, God forgives and man is restored into unity with God. As we just saw with the King Solomon it is not only the case that man does not respond to punishment to build righteousness and character, he does not respond to blessings either.

How was I relating to that? I thought about what values we want to implement in our children: no lying and stealing, but also honoring and respecting others, sharing, being able to say “I am sorry” etc. I can force one of these values upon my kids by demanding it from them, and punishing them if they don’t follow it. I don’t know your kids, but mine would learn what I want from them, and depending on their personalities they would try to oblige or rebel against it and receive the punishment . Another method would be to give them a “special blessing” (Going more often for a holiday, to the zoo, more Swiss chocolate or some presents)  every time they do it right… they would do it for a while, simply to receive this special blessing and not because it was implemented in their hearts.
So what should I do if a child breaks my values, or does something it shouldn’t do?

• Samuel Martin takes John the Baptist as an example to follow (Luke 7.28):

He simply lived what he taught.  People trusted him. He had no other agenda than the Lord’s. His teachings were extremely effective. People could observe him and his lifestyle. He had an authority people respected. They trusted him. They wanted to change their ways because they saw him doing the exact same thing he was telling them to do.

This is the same example we can give to our children. If I don’t want them to lie, I don’t lie and I highlight how I don’t lie. If I want them t trust in God, I trust in God and make sure they realize it.

I found that way of “discipline” the most powerful way to implement my values into their lives.