Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Hey, I've got Deborah here with me, and we're gonna discuss William Goose, chapter eight of his book on raising kids, and you're gonna hear about the three Ds. Hope you enjoy the discussion. ["The Three Ds"] You know, in our lifetime there have been different, you know, child-raising movements. You know, you have this, you know, hands off parenting, gentle parenting, all kinds of movements that kind of roll through the church.

So we're here talking about William Goos, chapter eight in his book on raising kids. And that chapter focuses in on correction and what Goose means by using that term correction he means the physical correction the use of the rod And he says that there are two kinds of correction, there's two kinds of help that parents need to give their children. There's verbal discipline and then there's physical discipline. Well, we're gonna talk about the physical discipline, part of it, and particularly the use of the rod. So he starts off by saying something that I think is really helpful.

He says admonition, or the verbal, without correction is likely to prove futile. It'll be worthless if you're all talk. But then he says, and correction without admonition will be too harsh. So this is wisdom for parents, you know, parents who are all talk and no physical discipline, that's gonna prove to be useless in the end. But if it's all physical without the instruction that needs to come with it, then that will be too harsh and it makes your children bitter against you when you do that.

Yeah. He says parents must sharply press instruction into their children and physical discipline drives it home more deeply. Parents may think that it's enough just to tell their children what not to do, but they forget that they have been given another means to drive it home. That's the point that Guj is trying to make. And so Guj, a couple of times in the chapter, three or four times in the chapter, references Eli and his sons from 1 Samuel.

And Eli gave the instructions to his sons, but Guj is making the argument that he didn't start soon enough, and he didn't go far enough with his sons. He said, no, my sons, but that's about as far as it went, and they continued on in their wickedness. Yeah, he rebuked them, but he didn't stop them. He didn't go far enough with the children, and parents often do that. He links this to Proverbs two, one and two.

"'My son, if you receive my words "'and treasure my commandments within you, "'so that you incline your ear to wisdom "'and apply your heart to understanding.'" And there he's talking about taking the instruction, you know, deep within your heart. He's saying that the understanding of children is immature, it's not firm, and their memory is weak and they need reminders and physical discipline is one of those reminders. And if you don't, if you are only instructing with your words, if you're only telling them things with your words and without the admonition, it eventually, it becomes your words mean nothing. So all those words without the backup for a child or even in a, and I don't think it matters how old you are. It wouldn't matter.

I would learn that you didn't mean what you said, so I can ignore your words. Yeah. On the topic of repetition and reminders, He actually points to Solomon in Proverbs and says, look at how often Solomon says the same things over and over again. It's because children don't need to hear things just once. They need to hear it many times for the reasons that you've outlined.

But everybody with children knows that's true. You're not one and done with your instructions to your children, unless you want them to produce nothing. They need to be reminded and they need to be taught these things over and over again. And we did too. You know, he talks about parents having disciplined fatigue.

They don't continue with it when they should because of fatigue. And he quotes Galatians 6 and 9, do not grow weary of well-doing. So Jason, you said something about, you know, we know that it's going to take more than one time. I think we can say that, but I've run across, including myself, how many times I would say, how many times have I told you? As if once was...

You wouldn't believe how often we will say that. We know that it... Yes, we know it is going to take, you know, repetition for our children. And then we are exasperated with our kids when it does. And so, I just want to tell parents, be okay with it.

Just put it into your schedule. It's part of the job. It's just part of the job. It's not, there's a problem with the kids. It's not even maybe a problem with their attitude.

It just is. God tells us, God's speaking to us in the Solomon. Solomon's speaking to us, right? He's speaking to adults to teach their parents, teach their children. It's to us that repetition happens.

Deborah, Jason and I are pastors. We know this. I know. We repeat stuff all the time. It is true.

That is true. But as parents, sometimes we don't. We don't think that way. We think, I've told you a dozen times. I've told you once.

As if I've told you. And so we lapse into that and think, you know, yeah, one and done. Yeah, we went over that when you were four. Yeah. I don't know how many times I've thought, you know, the last time I said about church, the last time I said that was like eight years ago.

And I expect these people to have that in the top of their minds. I remember that sermon, they don't, you know. Okay, so the second thing he says here is parents may be tempted to pamper their children. And he gives, you know, two terrifying examples, Adonijah and Absalom. He says, though their father would not displease them, they did not mind displeasing their father even to grieve his heart and distress his soul." Yeah.

He talked in this section, he talks about parents who dote too much on their children and can't bring themselves to say one hard word to them. There are parents that are like that, and they consider that love, I think we're gonna get to it later in the chapter, but he is very forward to say, that's no kind of love. That's no kind of love that the Bible recognizes. That's one of the child training things that's gone through the culture, has been, don't say no to your kids. Don't ever say no.

It's all the rage. You know, our last conference we had, had a guy give a message on the gentle parenting movement. Maybe they say no gently. We did a podcast on it too. He says this, you pampering parents whose excessive lenience is a great cruelty, may we not justly count him a cruel parent that should allow diseases, boils, sores, and wounds to remain.

They increase and fester in this child and give him no physician nor apply medicines to him." He says, this is like seeing your Son running into a flame of fire or deep water and not holding Him back." He talks a lot about Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12 is such a helpful chapter on this, because it talks about how God disciplines His sons. He chastens his sons, and this is actually code for physical discipline. And then he says, Gouge says this, if God, the father of spirits in wisdom and love, thus deals with his children, fathers of the flesh should not think that they will show wisdom or love by doing the contrary. Their wisdom will be folly and their love, hatred." And then on the next page, he says, you pampering parents whose excessive lenience is very great cruelty.

So, they view themselves as merciful, but Goosh says, actually, you're cruel. You're cruel. In doing the contrary of what God and His wisdom does, thinking that you're wiser than God, you're being very cruel to your children, and that is so true. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about this third item.

Scripture demands correcting children. Let's just talk about some of this. I mean, particularly in Proverbs, you know, is the doctrine of the rod. And I just think we ought to say this is something that God requires of parents. Yes, but also Hebrews 12, which I just referenced, and the reason that's important is some people want to throw out the Old Testament.

Hey, well, it doesn't matter which testament you pick, you find this in Scripture in both Old Testament and New. Parents should be doing this because this is how God disciplines His children. Yeah, chasing your son while there's hope, and do not set your heart on His destruction." Proverbs 19, 18. Proverbs 29, 17. Correct your son and he will give you rest.

Yes, he will delight your soul. Proverbs 23, 13, and 14. Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod and deliver his soul from hell." You know, a sleight of hand that has been done by the modern experts is to treat all physical discipline as one. Meaning there's no distinction between a Christian parent biblically, physically disciplining their children, and the child beater.

It's all one in the same, and it makes children violence because it's modeling violence. Parents who have seen it done well, seen it done biblically, seen it done not in anger, No, that's utter nonsense that those things aren't equivalent at all. They're actually, you know, polar opposites, and that childbeating is very wrong and would never be sanctioned by the Bible. But what the Bible does sanction is very wise and actually produces the type of help that our children need. Well, yeah, I mean, Proverbs 22.15, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child.

The rod of correction will drive it far from him. Here's how Gooch spends this. Correction is as medicine to cleanse much corruption, which lurks in children, and as an ointment to heal many wounds and sores made by their folly. So it is an act of love because of the effect. Well teaching your children to accept correction is a blessing to them.

That whole thing about being cruel, it's a cruel thing to raise a child never have to accept correction so that when they need to get a job or they need to be forgiven, they can't do it. That's super cruel. Society is not going to accept that. You have to teach your child to accept correction as a good thing, it's not bad. Yeah, if you won't speak a hard word to your children, the civil magistrate will later.

Exactly. Their boss will later. You're fired. Yeah. Yeah.

Here's a straight jacket. Yeah. He says, if you don't do this, your kids are going to drive you crazy. I'm paraphrasing the 17th century writer. And society, society crazy.

Yeah, he says, you're just going to be repeating admonitions all the time if you don't secure it. And he says, of course, the rod allows, it helps you to secure it. He says that it also frees parents from the guilt of their sins as if they were accessories to it. He's saying if you're, if you don't use the rod appropriately with your children, you will be an accessory to their sin. Blameable.

He also says something really useful in that you should be prepared to tailor your verbal instructions and your physical discipline to the circumstances and to the child. If you have two children, they're likely radically different in disposition, and you know, one of them, a hard word, is worse than physical discipline to them, and in the other, a hard word will do nothing and you're gonna have to go like quickly to physical discipline. Children are very different and circumstances aren't all the same and wise parents sort of need to have everything in the toolbox and to know that there are levels to all of this. Not a one size fits all. Yeah, right.

Yeah. Now he gives directions for correcting children. I'm gonna read seven of them and then maybe we can just drop back and talk about whichever ones you think we should. First, make sure there is a fault committed that has just cause. You know, sometimes children get spanked and they didn't really do anything wrong.

They might have got framed. Okay? Well, my dad would always say, you know what, you missed it at one time, so just, it's just catch up. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it.

You didn't get spanked when you should have. And then second, make sure the child is convinced that he has sinned. I think that's really important. Third, pray for yourself and your children before correction. Fourth, correction must be given in love.

Fifth, correction must be given in a gentle mood when emotions are under control. I can't tell you how important that is. Six, correction by word and instruction must go before correction by the rod. In other words, you don't just haul off and spank your kids. There should be some interaction.

A process. Yeah. I did want our kids to agree with me that this is a discipline-able offense. I didn't want them to go in and just, you know, it's unfair, it's unfair, it's unfair. I wanted to take what time I could.

And it generally was not a sermon, but, you know, women preachers here. But I did want them to agree with me, this was wrong. And the reason why is, that's one of the hardest things for anybody to do is to admit they were wrong. And that rats, I was mean to my sister. I want to hear it.

And I want you to be thankful that we're in this moment. There's something standing in the way of you just running with being mean. He talks a lot about excessive severity in our correction. One of the things I really appreciated about Reb Bradley's book, which I know both of us have handed out a thousand times, was his wisdom on during the periods of time where your children needed more discipline. The dome house we called it boot camp.

But there were particular times where you needed to make sure you were consistent and make sure you were really disciplining every offense because things had gotten lax during those periods of time that you also ramped up affection. So Rob Bradley says, extend bedtime, read more stories, make sure you're hugging on them. And so they don't get the picture during those times that you really don't like them anymore, because that's not true. You're just doing your job. Yeah, restore the relationship.

You know, he says, Don't discipline for small faults. Don't discipline them when it's so clear that they have tender and open hearts. Don't spank them for everything they've done wrong. Don't spank them too often. Don't spank them too violently.

I think those are fantastic handles for parents to keep parents within the guardrails of wisdom. Almost at the end of the chapter, he names the two ditches, meaning there's a ditch on both sides of the road. The ditch on one side is excessive indulgence. That's bad for your children. No one is well served by that.

You end up with children that you don't even like if you're too indulgent. Nobody does. Right. You don't own them too much and you can't say a hard word to them. That's a ditch.

But on the other side, you have this excessive severity that embitters them against you and it actually ends up being counterproductive. You're spending all that energy being severe, and it ends up doing the opposite of what you're hoping for. You know, there's this thing called cage stage spankers. You know, they never heard this before. They've never heard what the Proverbs say about using the rod.

They've, they grew up in a permissive society that rejected that. And so you have, you have, you know, genuine Christians discovering something new and they go overboard. And I think Gujja's advice is really, really helpful for the cage stage spanker, who wants to spank for everything, spank hard, and doesn't really understand the relational necessities. Danielle Pletka There is an older couple that we all sat under. In our church.

That helped us, in our church, to help us with our little kids. We had little kids. To have parameters around when to spank when so much was going wrong. Do you remember? Yeah.

Yeah. The three Ds. The three Ds. Disobedience, dishonor, and dishonesty. Yeah.

Spank for those. Yeah, spank for those. Don't spank for everything. It's a great rule of thumb. It was great.

It served us super well. Give them to us again. Dishonor, dishonesty, and disobedience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The three dis's.

Yeah, good deal. Okay, there you go. Child-raising 101 from William Gooshe. One last parting bit of wisdom. Okay.

Go. Okay. So at the end, second to the last sentence in the whole chapter, he says this, Parents should seem not to see or hear many things which they see and hear." That is so wise, you know, you can, when you've seen and heard it, it puts you under obligation to address it, but that can actually have you addressing everything all the time, and you're only in discipline mode all the time, which also can be counterproductive. So Gooch says sometimes you should walk by and just act like you didn't see it or didn't hear it so you're not under obligation to address it, and it allows you to actually pick your battles. That's really the sum of some of what he's saying is when you're in a battle, make sure you win it with your children, but pick them carefully.

Don't make everything a battle. Yeah. Okay, William Gooshe from the 1600s, go get the book. Hey, thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. I hope you can be with us next time.