Parenting The Exhausting Way

Rachel Martin is a mommy blogger with seven children.  I haven't followed her blog, just one post that was on facebook.  This is what she wrote ~

“I am writing this in my hallway at the top of the stairs because my two little boys won’t stay in their room and go to bed unless I sit up here at the doorway and utter words like go to bed and stay in bed now – I mean it and no more water and you will lose media time if you get out of your bed again until they both decide to give in, slip under their covers and go to sleep.

That’s the truth.

I’ve tried charts. Bedtime routines. Stickers. Time outs. All of it. And I’ve resorted to working at the top of the stairs for an hour each night and muttering those phrases. I’ve actually gotten quite used to emailing, tweeting, facebooking, and writing with my back against the door to my room and my eyes constantly looking in their room to see if they’re asleep."

Now, I am not going to criticize her parenting style.  If she wants to spend an hour at the top of the stairs making sure her children stay in bed each night, that is her decision.  I am only going to tell you why we never had to do anything like that.  Our children obeyed us.  We didn't have to resort to charts, bedtime routines, stickers, or time outs.  We spanked them if they didn't obey us!  It only took a few times being consistent, but it worked like a charm.

When we put our children in bed or told them to go to bed, they went to bed.  She is getting them to stay in bed eventually but are her children really obeying her?  No.  They know that they can continue to get out of bed without consequences.

Parenting is much more difficult if you don't make your children obey you when they are very young.  I know many of you are opposed to spanking but it works great if done consistently and hard enough so it hurts.  The children decide the punishment is not worth the disobedience, therefore, they learn obedience quickly.

Some will tell you when the Bible speaks about the rod, it means just to lead a child.  So tell me how the following verse means that?

Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol. 
Proverbs 23:13,14

God wants our obedience just as He wants children to obey their parents and it is up to you to make them obey you.