Rule 3 for Discipline—Teach Self-Control

In the last post, we met Billy, who openly defied his mom’s instruction to put the cookie back in the jar. What does it take to place a warm, sweet-smelling, chocolaty cookie in a jar rather than a mouth? Self-control. Lots of it. A little boy will not, cannot, put the cookie back unless he’s been taught how to deny himself and do what he’s told.

To teach obedience—teach self-control. In so doing you make obedience the habit of your home—your child’s natural response to your loving instruction.

How do we do it? Never allow your child to disobey a direct order or a standing rule.

You can stop laughing now.

As the mom of eight strong-willed children, I get how hard this is. Yet, to normalize obedience, we need this standard.

Every interaction we have with our children normalizes something. We normalize healthy communication or yelling. We normalize encouragement or discouragement. As we give commands—we will either allow our child to disobey or require them to obey. If we consistently choose to require our child to do what we asked when we asked, we teach our child to control themselves to follow instructions. In this, we normalize obedience.

Billy’s mom told him he couldn’t have the cookie he snagged before lunch and to put it back in the jar. Instead, Billy shoved it into his mouth. No self-control. How do we get a different outcome?

Begin young. As soon as your child can understand your words, require her to follow direct commands. If you call your toddler to come for a diaper change, require her to come to you. You can tease, play, repeat the instruction, or whatever system works with your child—but she must come to you. If she runs the other direction or ignores you, go get her by the hand and walk her back to where you began and change her diaper saying, "You must come to me when I call." UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you take the diaper and go to her—that normalizes disobedience. Normalize obedience—require your direct instructions be followed. Every time.

Use breaks. Once children get beyond the toddler stage, Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller of National Center for Biblical Parenting offer a strategy that takes requiring obedience a step further. If child doesn’t immediately comply with a direct order, or complies but with a lousy attitude, give them a break.

In the cookie scenario, Mom would say, “Billy, you just ate a cookie after I told you not to. I want you to go to the next room and take a break. When you are ready to listen to me, you can come back.”

This isn’t normal time-out. In time-out parent sends child to a corner or their room for a set time and then calls him back. The child passively waits for parent to say when they are free. Because parent remains in control of the length of the time-out, child has little incentive to contemplate his conduct or how to fix it.

With a break, Billy is in the break until he is ready to cooperate with parent. This gives incentive to the child to get himself under control and ready to obey. It allows him the time for a breather if angry, time to contemplate his attitude if sorry, and time to mentally catch up to all his disobedience may cost. Once he’s ready to deal with the situation, he returns.

Then you repeat the situation giving child the opportunity to obey. Odd as it may seem, you say something along the lines of, “Billy, I want you to take a cookie out of the cookie jar. I’m going to give you another chance to obey.” When he takes the cookie out, tell him to put the cookie back until after lunch. When he returns the cookie, he experiences forcing himself to comply with your direct order which normalizes obedience. Then, release him—say something like, “Thank you, Billy. Go play, and I’ll call you when lunch is ready.”

If Billy seems genuinely repentant, this is unusual conduct, or you’re just beginning to use the break—the break can be the sole consequence. He still gets his after-lunch cookie. If defiance is more entrenched, you may add a punishment on top of the break such as, “I’m sorry Billy—if you had listened and put the cookie back the first time, you could have had two after lunch. But, your disobedience means you won’t have another.”

Whether you tell your children to pick up their toys, begin their homework, or bring you the telephone—require your child to do what you said within the time-frame you set. When you consistently require obedience—you teach self-control, the foundation of all the rest of the parenting work you will do. The foundation of engaging life as a mature, healthy adult.

To create a healthy home—teach your children self-control.

“Billy, put the cookie back—it’s not lunchtime yet.” Billy leans over the package on the counter and shoves the cookie into his mouth as he pretends to return it. “Billy!” scolds mom, “You shouldn’t do that. I’ll deal with you after I’m finished talking to Mary—now go play.”

Despite her best intentions, Billy’s mom has normalized disobedience.

Children think based on what’s in their hearts. Thoughts become actions. Actions become habits. Habits shape character. Character determines destiny.

When a son consciously disobeys a direct order to put the cookie away, he reveals a heart focused on getting his own way rather than listening to his parents. From this heart attitude, he thinks, “I wonder if I can get away with eating the cookie?” so he pops it into his mouth. Now comes the test.

If mom or dad stops what they are doing to engage Billy regarding his behavior, he learns to think, “I’d better do what mom and dad say to do.”

When mom or dad fails to correct his action, he learns he can do what he wants without consequence. Step one of a bad habit is put into place—disobey if you don’t like the direction.

The more parents give in—the more ingrained the habit becomes. It grows into a character of demanding one’s own way and ignoring any direction which interferes with getting what he wants. Such characters have a hard time keeping jobs, building marriages, sacrificing for children, or bowing their hearts to the Lordship of Christ. With a heart completely focused on self—there’s not room for anyone else.

Parents can’t change their child’s hearts—but we can shape them. If we lovingly but firmly require our child to follow our rules, those actions become a habit of obedience to loving authority, the natural response to our direction. That habit shapes a character of one who will do what he’s supposed to do—even when he doesn’t like it. Such characters not only become model employees, build healthy marriages, and sacrifice for the good of their children—they are enabled to enter a relationship with Christ. The habit of obedience trains their heart to focus on others.

If there’s a rule you aren’t willing to put the energy into enforcing, don’t make it a rule. For the rules you keep—require require your child to follow them. Healthy families focus on building character—and character is shaped by each action of your child.

Coming next—So how do I require obedience as a natural response to my direction?

Ragged breaths. . .burning legs. . .parched throat. As I glided up the driveway after a long ride, I headed toward the front door to grab a large glass of water. Then, I turned.

Instead of the front door, my first stop was the barn--where we park our bikes. Though the water called, I could envision the scolding I would give my son if I had come out of the front door and found my his bike lying by the porch. In our house the “I’m just going to leave this here and put it away later” approach usually leads to lost objects and hours of frustrated search. So, we created the firm rule: when an object’s in your hand, put it where it goes—mom and her bike included.

Rule one of discipline—parents shouldn’t make a rule they don’t follow. Why?

• Hypocrisy kills discipline. When parents make a rule seem irrelevant by ignoring it, children will be hard pressed to push themselves to comply.
  

• Further, when parents must comply, we tend to have fewer rules. We also tend to show more grace with occasional lapses as we personally experience the difficulty of restraining our desires in order to obey.
  

• Finally, our compliance offers a concrete example to our children of what obedience to the rule looks like—invaluable.

Though my parched throat begged for relief, the three minutes it took to put my bike away first reinforced the rule, “when something’s in your hand, put it where it goes.” More importantly, I’ll be able to find my bike for our next outing.