Wickedness and discipline are two different things but we mix them up due to a lack of understanding.
They both carry the same force but they usually have a different objective at the end of it. As parents, we must choose wisely between the two when correcting our children.
Kids find it difficult to differentiate between the two things and it ends up having a negative effect on them, it can go as terrible as them becoming more stubborn and wayward. Kids process information in a funny way and that thing you think you are doing to discipline them would end up being wickedness. I have interacted with many children and I understand how they feel when been punished for committing an offense.
Parent, it is not everything a child does that should attract punishment. Sometimes all you need to do is to talk some senses into them but we go on beating them with anything we can lay our hands-on.
Punishing children without making them understand what they did wrong is wickedness, they did wrong truly but they don't see it that way and a parent must make the kid understand what is right from wrong because they see it as wickedness, they don't want to desist from the act, after all, they will just get flogged.
I know a man who doesn't beat his kids always but the kids don't dare him because he is disciplined.
He doesn't beat them at every mistake they make and I see it as normal because even as adults, we make mistakes without getting punished for them.
My childhood experience.
I didn't live with my dad since I was five years old but one event has when I four and it remains a memory that I couldn't get off my head. It still baffles me how I held on to this memory because I am poor at remembering events but the lesson I was taught that day left a mark in my heart.
My parents are church ministers and we lived very close to the church premises. On this fateful day, the church was celebrating its anniversary and I had a lot to eat. My parent was very busy that day but they made sure I and my brother had enough food and drink.
After the celebration, I was filled up but my dad asked more than twice if I was okay because mom wouldn't be cooking since it was night already and she went through too much stress at the church. I told him I was okay and even showed him my belly, he tickled me and we all laughed. He couldn't eat at the church so mom brought his food home, dad went to shower while mom served it.
Immediately mom left the dining room, one of the meat was flashing at me from the front of the TV set and I went to steal one from dad meal. As I was about to put it in my mouth, he walked in and was very mad at me.
He gave me ten hot strokes of cane and that was the first and last time he flogged me. He told me to always remind him that he wants to flog me every morning. but whenever I reminded him, he told me " I pardon you today, remind me tomorrow" and it went on like that for a year.
He created that fear and I never tried such a habit again and that lesson was part of me through my teenage, youth, and even as an adult.
I have seen parents who give their kids public disgrace all in the name of punishment, I have seen parents who leave scars on their children and I feel bad because it doesn't guarantee that you will get the change you want from them.
The pain you inflict on them would only make them stronger and cruel enough to do something more than they did before. As parents it is important we understand our children and develop a way of correcting them instead of been cruel to them in the name of discipline.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 George you made me laugh when you said the meat was flashing at you😝 You could have told Dad to give you small portion instead of going there at his absence. I know right from then, you will always remember that day.
Discipline is different from wickedness and parents ought to understand. Children need discipline in a loving way as this could instill morals into them.