Since I have really nothing to post about I was going to skip today. Then I took a break and decided to check in on a blog I read very sparingly. Now I'm annoyed and thought I would just scream here instead of on her comments. Basically she posted on how she doesn't believe in punishing children. She's not just talking about spanking, but any punishment. By the way, she has 2 kids.

Now I do not enjoy having to punish/ correct my children. I do it, but I hate doing it. But saying I will not punish my kids because that just makes me a bully? Whatever! I do believe kids need to be shown grace as well as justice. I do not control my kids to make them fit in this little mold that I think they should look like. My concern is for their hearts and their walk with the Lord. He shows me grace, but he also corrects me when I have lost my path. In this I believe that it is appropriate to punish my kids.

I don't know if the terminology is what she is hung up on but if we make our kids think that the world is going to explain every "no" for 15 min, that everyone has the same values and beliefs, that the world is actually fair, then we are doing a disservice to them. I know people that are well into adulthood and still think that others should share their moral and ethical code, that everything should be fair. When it isn't they struggle horribly and work to make it fair.

My parents taught us that life isn't fair. Not that they purposefully were not fair to me and my sisters, but if one of us needed something that did not mean that everyone got one too. Our turn would come when we needed something. "Life ain't fair, get over it" is still a motto that I live by. I cannot expect it, and I hope that I can raise my kids with the understanding that even with life being unfair, you still need to treat others kindly, with grace and love.

I know that any good parent has to have clear consequences for when their child misbehaves. Those consequences is what I call punishment. Am I crazy to think that this is what the Lord means by "bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord"?