PARENTING-DISCIPLINE-PUNISHMENT
There's a big
difference between punishment and discipline. Punishment gives a negative
consequence, but discipline means "to teach." Punishment is negative;
discipline is positive. Punishment focuses on past misdeeds. Discipline focuses
on future good deeds. Punishment is often motivated by anger. Discipline is
motivated by love. Punishment focuses on justice to balance the scales.
Discipline focuses on teaching, to prepare for next time.
Scott Turansky and
Joanne Miller
Home
Improvement, The Parenting Book You Can Read to Your Kids, National Center for
Biblical Parenting, 76 Hopatcong Drive, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648, www.biblicalparenting.org,
1-800.771.8334, email parent@biblicalparenting.org.
Many parents
have a punitive mindset. They see
discipline as the child paying for his sins. Rather than correction having the
positive goal of restoration, it has the negative goal of payment. It is like the convict paying his debt
to society by doing time in prison.
This is not a biblical concept of discipline.
Tedd
Tripp
Shepherding a Child’s Heart,
Shepherd Press, 1995, p. 133-134. Used by
Permission.
Many people
fail to make a clear distinction between punishment and discipline, and there
is a very significant difference between these two concepts. Punishment is
designed to execute retribution for a wrong done. Discipline, on the other
hand, is to encourage the restoration of the one involved in the wrongdoing. Punishment
is designed primarily to avenge a wrong and assert justice. Discipline is
designed primarily as a corrective for the one who has failed to live according
to the standards of the church and/or society.
Carl Laney
A Guide to Church Discipline, Bethany, 1985,
p. 79.