In 2016 a study released by child development and family science experts from The University of Texas at Austin revealed that spanking is closely associated with anti-social, aggressive behavior, depression and anxiety, and an increased risk of thirteen detrimental outcomes. News articles linked on social media are rife with emotionally-driven debate.
How should Christian parents respond to studies that say spanking is harmful?
FIRST, LET’S TALK ABOUT HOW THEY SHOULD NOT RESPOND.
1. Christian parents should not dismiss the evidence on account of their own emotional comfort. Facing articles and reports that feel condemning of your own childhood or your own parenting is emotionally difficult. We must keep in mind that ignoring scientific evidence because it makes us uncomfortable is merely willful ignorance. It is neither intellectually honest nor God-honoring.
2. Christian parents must not perpetuate easily dispelled myths about not spanking. This is, at its core, bearing false witness, which God’s people are commanded not to do. Some myths that are easily refuted:
Myth: Young adults today are so disrespectful because they weren’t spanked/Prisons are filled with adults who weren’t spanked as children.
Fact: In 1999 A study revealed that 94% of parents had utilized spanking by the time their child was preschool age. In 2011 a study corroborated these findings stating that 50% of children had been spanked by the time they were twenty months old. Further, college students who were spanked as children are more likely to engage in illegal behavior.
Myth: Countries that have banned spanking have higher crime rates.
Crimes rates, gun ownership rates, and prison populations have all fallen in countries that have banned spanking, and at a sharper rate than in places without such laws.
Myth: The studies are all flawed and do not differentiate between spanking and abuse. Fact: While there are limitations to any meta-analysis, most recent studies do make a clear distinction between “appropriate” spanking (occurring as rarely as twice a month), and abusive physical punishment that leaves bruises.
3. Christian parents must not claim that because they turned out fine all children who were/are spanked will turn out fine. 17 million children in the United States have been diagnosed with a mental disorder (ADHD, depression, anxiety, and/or behavior problems). The association between spanking and mental/behavior issues is more solid than the association between secondhand smoke and lung cancer. We cannot project our own outcomes on those of the upcoming generation.
SO HOW SHOULD CHRISTIAN PARENTS RESPOND TO THESE STUDIES?
1. We must remember that God is the Creator of science. He not only created the brain, but He also created us with the ability to learn and evaluate evidence. Advancement in science (especially neurobiology) is a gift from our Creator to help us understand His creation.
2. We must admit that spanking is a cultural tradition, not a Biblical mandate. Nowhere in Scripture are parents commanded to spank their children. (We suggest that even the handful of verses in Proverbs are not speaking of using a rod on children but on young adults.) Modern-day spanking is merely a tradition of men that has been taught by leading Christian parenting gurus for less than 100 years.
3. We must recognize that spanking and discipline are not synonymous. While the evidence is clear that spanking has negative long-term outcomes, we cannot throw out all discipline. Children need teaching, guiding, rebuking, correcting, and discipline. They need the opportunity to experience consequences, and to make things right when it is within their power to do so. The root of discipline is disciple. We must be diligent to disciple our children and not fall into permissive (often equally detrimental) parenting.
4. We must look for alternative ways to discipline (disciple) our children that align with Scripture. This can be tricky, and even frustrating when spanking is all we know. Thankfully there are many Scripturally-sound resources out there! We recommend:
Resources:
- Spanking and Child Outcomes: Old Controversies and New Meta-Analyses
- Does Outlawing Spanking Lower the Crime Rate Years Later?
- College students more likely to be lawbreakers if spanked as children
- Spanking children: Why does it happen and how does it affect development?
- Corporal Punishment by American Parents: National Data on Prevalence, Chronicity, Severity, and Duration, in Relation to Child and Family Characteristics
- Data and Statistics on Children’s Mental Health
Perhaps you’re familiar with the more common title attributed to this story: The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Ah. Now you’re with me, right? Most modern Bibles highlight this story as if it is primarily about the son. But really, this story highlights the heart of the father.
In the Old Testament God used the Law to reveal the heart and nature of man. In the New Testament Jesus used stories to reveal the heart and nature of God. This story is about a good, good father.
You can read the parable in its entirety in Luke 15:11-32. There are a few points I want to bring to your attention:
- The younger son’s request for his inheritance was likely a profound dishonor and humiliation for his father. He was, in essence, saying “you’re as good as dead to me.”
- Squandering an entire inheritance was highly discouraged, and possibly illegal in first century Judaism.
- At his lowest point, the rebellious son slept among swine.
What we see here are at least two incidents where the son broke the commands of Torah. Besides living among unclean animals, we see a level of dishonor, disrespect, and humiliation that very well could have given the father every right to bring his son to trial as a rebellious son as we see in Deuteronomy 21. Such extreme rebellion against his father could have warranted the death penalty in that ancient Jewish culture.
But instead of taking him to trial, instead of beating him with a rod in hopes of curbing his rebellious spirit, instead of lecturing and trying to control his son, this father gives him the gift of free will. Not only does he allow him to choose his own foolish way in life, but he ignores his own law-given right to protect his own reputation. When he could have taken him to trial for rebellion and dishonor, he gave up his financial security, his place of honor and standing in the community, and his own paternal instinct to protect his son.
The good father didn’t intervene. He didn’t punish. He allowed his son to learn hard life lessons from the natural consequences of his very foolish choices. And Luke 15:20 tells us that when that lesson had been learned the father was overcome with compassion for his son.
The son returned to his father because he knew him to be a good man. And upon his return his father throws a ridiculous celebration – one the son didn’t deserve, and one the older brother couldn’t understand.
GRACE-BASED PARENTING IN THE PARABLE OF THE GOOD FATHER
- The good father allowed his son to break the laws of the Torah
- The good father did not lecture, confront, or punish his son
- The good father was filled with compassion for his son
- The good father welcomed and restored him to a place of honor after the son experienced the natural consequences of his foolish choices
This doesn’t mean that we should never step in and protect our children, nor does it mean that there’s no place for instruction, correction, and discipline! Certainly grace-based parenting requires instruction, correction, and discipline. But we can learn a valuable lesson from the parable of the good father: natural consequences have a God-designed way of teaching life lessons that even the Law cannot teach.
“Natural consequences have a God-designed way of teaching life lessons that even the Law cannot teach.”
The father had every right within the context of Mosaic Law to require respect and honor from his son. He had every right to distance himself from his unclean son when he returned.
But he was filled with compassion.
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Proverbs 22:6
Here is a verse that seems to hold a great promise to young parents everywhere. Do the right things raising your children and they’ll for sure keep doing those right things throughout their life. Of course, that verse also seems like a curse to those with adult children who have wandered from the faith. Obviously their parenting was lacking, or else their children would still be in the faith. Maybe, just maybe, this verse will kick in before their kids are old.
But what if that’s not what this verse says at all? What if we have badly misunderstood this verse?
A quick look at the Hebrew will confirm our suspicions. A literal translation of this verse reads,
“Train an adolescent in his own way, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Hold on a second! What happened to the “should”? Simple. It’s not in the Hebrew. Nor is it in the Greek translation of the verse. Nor in the Latin translation either. The first English translation of Proverbs by John Wycliffe and Nicholas of Hereford renders it, “A young man waxing after his way, and when he hath waxed eld, he shall not go away from it.” It is not until the 1500s that the “should” is brought into the verse. It is then codified in the King James translation, which then causes it to persist in English Bible translations down to the present day.
So if Proverbs 22:6 isn’t a divine promise about the fruit of parental training, what does it mean? Two things are key to unlocking the meaning of this verse. First, the use of na’ar, which means child, adolescent, or young man. The na’ar of Proverbs is undoubtedly an adolescent or young man, not a small child. But the na’ar is not just any young man. He is not the son gaining wisdom from his father through the teachings of Proverbs. Instead the na’ar is decidedly foolish. To quote Bruce Waltke:
“The other six references to naar univocally characterize his way as foolish. He is grouped together with the gullible in 1:4, is said to lack sense in 7:7, to have folly bound up in his heart in 22:16, to dissemble in his evil deeds in 20:11, and so to be in need of correction in 20:13. Left to himself, he will disgrace his mother (29:16).”Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 15-31, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 203
The second key to this verse is “his own way.” The book of Proverbs presents two basic ways a person can take, the way of wisdom or the way or foolishness. Pursuing one’s own way, rather than pursuing the way of wisdom is foolishness. This is clear in Pr 14:12; 14:14; 19:3; 21:2; 28:6. This is also entirely consistent with the understanding of na’ar as a foolish young man. So this is not a verse about training up a young man to “follow his heart” or to try and channel him towards his natural inclinations. Rather it is a warning that the natural inclinations of an adolescent can be quite foolish.
So what does this proverb teach? Essentially, if we allow our adolescents to be trained in their own natural inclinations, those habits will persist with them for the rest of their life. This is the time in life when character is being set and patterns are being settled that will not be easily overcome later in life (yet don’t despair, for the power of Christ within us can overcome all these things). This verse is a call for parents to be engaged with their teenagers, helping them to see the difference between wisdom and foolishness, drawing loving and appropriate boundaries, encouraging them to pursue wisdom, and letting them feel the full weight of the consequences of their foolishness.
“Is Gentle Parenting even Biblical?” “If you aren’t spanking your children you are not obeying the Bible.” “Are you reading the same Bible I’m reading?” “I think you’re trusting modern psychology more than the Word of God.” “You’re just picking and choosing which verses to obey.”
Have you heard these questions before? Maybe you’ve asked theses questions yourself. I asked some of these questions when I first learned about Gentle Parenting.
There are details and nuances In the Greek language there are often missed in English. One of these is what is known as the imperative mood. Imperatives are used frequently in order to express a command, or prohibition. If we want to know how to live in obedience to the Word of God, we must take the time to learn what verses are commands.
In the New Testament Paul, Peter, and James collectively give more than 25 commands to be gentle, compassionate, kind, and respectful. These imperatives are not suggestions and they come with no signifiers. When Paul writes “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” there is no clause that excludes children. When Peter says “Show proper respect to everyone.” he doesn’t add a disclaimer that excludes children.
In fact, Paul consistently turns the cultural view of children upside down when he instructs fathers to be mindful of their children’s emotional needs!
While there are more than 25 commands to be kind, gentle, compassionate, understanding, forgiving, and empathetic, there are exactly zero commands to be harsh, to hit (spank), to yell at, to coerce, manipulate, or shame children.
Gentle parenting IS Christian Parenting.
