The rod can be a friend in need

There is this friend from back in high school who we greatly feared because she was some classes ahead of us. She is one of those individuals that you won’t miss in life. She is loud, she is chatty, and she is interesting, commands respect and a lot of fun to be around.
As you may have noticed, I sure had a lot of admiration for her.
Fast forward, we are now both adults giving out best efforts at being parents in the dot com era.
Her children are of a cross cultural heritage so the other day she shared a really interesting perspective which not only greatly amused me but got me thinking about different styles of disciplining children.
There are parents who are strict disciplinarians; they are loud and non-nonsensical. There are parents who really don’t care so much, they say one thing and do another and the children are fully aware that their words hold no water.

There is the parent who can’t stand disciplining a child and even when they do they quickly call up the child and apologise for ‘hurting’ them.

Then there are parents like myself who like many typical African parents believe in the power of the stick and its effectiveness on the behinds of little chaps.

This lady that I’m talking about writes about how the father of the children is similar to the barking dog which seldom bites and how the children fully understand his style. Their teenage son in an angry fit at the father walked to his room in a fury and slammed the door. Daddy was soon at the boy’s door begging and pleading with his son for forgiveness.

At that point, my crazy friend decided to handle the situation by getting drilling machine and in moments removed the door from its hinges before proceeding to remove the television from the boy’s room. She completed the action by placing a full length mirror in its place for the culprit to view himself every so often instead of his much loved television set. After I had laughed my entire head off I went on to reflect on this act of discipline. The young man wasn’t only in shock but he will sure think thrice before ever slumming another door in his mother’s house.

The bible speaks of training up a child in the way he should go so that when he grows he won’t depart from it. It also speaks of how a spoilt child brings shame and disgrace to its mother…no mention of the father!

This is serious! You don’t have to abuse or spank your child into lameness but surely discipline is a virtue to be taken seriously.
We cannot raise tomorrow’s leaders if we keep holding back on the values and systems that held us together from years back. I’m still clapping for my African friend with an African style of disciplining a child.