Just a cursory browse thru the parenting interwebs will deliver a sweeping range of opinion on discipline & punishment.
Largely what it comes down to is connotations and semantics. And possibly, a question of what worldview lens you’re using to view the concepts.
On any given day as a parent, you’re going to face some situations with your children that need correction. How you approach that correction might stem from a variety of sources: how YOU were parented (so you either model that or swing wildly away from the model), what your perception of punishment is, and what friends/family/culture tells you.
What’s the difference between DISCIPLINE & PUNISHMENT?
Let’s look at punishment from a “justice” perspective. In our justice system, which is supposed to be fair and equal, where the sentence fits the crime (whether that’s how it always works or not)… punishment (or a sentence) can be either RETRIBUTIVE or RESTORATIVE.
In most cases, our justice system is aiming for restorative punishment…. You do the time or community service or rehab or whatever it is SO THAT you can come out on the other side a changed person. Realizing the error of your ways and being able to re-enter society as a better citizen.
Retributive punishment is more vengeful in a sense. That eye-for-an-eye kind of mindset. You did something so grave you OWE me (or society) a really deep debt that you may not even be able to settle.
Does God punish? Yes. The OT examples of a just God are certainly there. The Flood. The battles where all of Israel’s enemies are wiped out—women and children and animals included.
If we read those passages, though, (1) God is perfect and just –and WE are not HE and (2) He is never doing it happily. It’s not an act He enjoys in any way because all of it is His creation.
The difference between God’s discipline of his children and God’s judgment on his enemies is an infinite difference. John Piper’s article addressing God’s Punishment vs God’s Discipline,
When I speak of God’s judgment upon his enemies, I am referring to the misery that he brings upon them, not for any purifying or restoring or rehabilitating purposes, but solely to express his holy justice, his retribution, not restitution. And it is purely on the basis precisely of what the enemies deserve. It is not to demonstrate mercy. It is to demonstrate righteousness and justice. For example, Revelation 16:5–6, “I heard the angel in charge of the waters say, ‘Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!’” So, there is the mark of pure retributive justice. It comes upon the sinner solely because of what they deserve, not because of any good that the punishment will do them.
You can see it even more clearly in Revelation 19:1–3, because here the judgments are eternal, not temporary. So, clearly they are not helping at all for a person to become holy. They are punishing him for not being holy. Here is what it says: “After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality, and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.’ Once more they cried out, ‘Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.’”
So, this is what I am talking about when I speak of God’s punishment upon sin in contrast to the discipline of God’s children. It is what the guilty deserve. It is holy and just retribution, and it is eternal. Therefore, it is not designed for rehabilitation. It displays God’s justice, and it highlights how valuable mercy is to those who receive it.
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/is-pain-punishment-for-my-sin
Sooooo….
When it comes to parenting, the whole “punishment” mindset isn’t super useful. In most cases, because we’re flawed people reacting (or over-reacting) to triggers, our own moods and frustrations, looking to punish our kids when they need correction tends to get enacted in that vengeful way. Our tone, our face, our hands are not models of a loving Father, but rather a dysregulated, “I’ll show you who’s boss” kind of affect. I’m going to win this power struggle. I brought you into this world and I can take you out.
Sometimes as parents in the heat of the moment (when our emotions are high and the day has been long), we operate out of selfish motives. We just want peace & quiet. We just want them to be GOOD, for crying out loud. And—if we’re honest—we can get a slight CHARGE out of making it all stop. We’re bigger, we’re in control. We got it in hand. Done and done.
We parent from anger (I’ve told you 100 times to be nice to your brother!) or fear (if this behavior continues you’re going to end up in Juvy!). God acts from neither. God always, infinitely, acts from love.
Discipline and PAIN, not punishment
So let’s look at DISCIPLINE, then, and a facet of it: pain. If we agree that our children DO need correction….they’re not complete developmentally whole beings and they do need direction from older, more experienced parents with their best interests at heart…. They will do and say things that aren’t appropriate and if we don’t curb those impulses, if we let them bulldoze thru life that way, they will not be pleasant to be around; they will not learn how society works and how to not be a sociopath.
Discipline is rooted in love. It’s used to shape a child’s future behavior by focusing on teaching and training.
Punishment says, “You did wrong, and now you must pay for it.”
Discipline says, “You did wrong, but here’s how you can learn and grow from it.”
Punishment looks backward, while discipline is forward-thinking, helping children understand what they need to do differently next time.
Proverbs 3:11-12
My child, do not despise discipline from the Lord,[ae]
and do not loathe[af] his rebuke.
12
For the Lord disciplines[ag] those he loves,
just as a father[ah] disciplines[ai] the son in whom he delights.
Proverbs 12:1
The one who loves discipline loves knowledge,[a]
but the one who hates reproof is stupid.
Proverbs 15:5 and 32
A fool rejects his father’s discipline,
but whoever heeds reproof shows good sense.
The one who refuses correction despises himself,[cs]
but whoever listens to[ct] reproof acquires understanding.
Hebrews 12:7b-13
For what son is there that a father does not discipline? 8 But if you do not experience discipline,[j] something all sons[k] have shared in, then you are illegitimate and are not sons. 9 Besides, we have experienced discipline from[l] our earthly fathers[m] and we respected them; shall we not submit ourselves all the more to the Father of spirits and receive life?[n] 10 For they disciplined us for a little while as seemed good to them, but he does so for our benefit, that we may share his holiness. 11 Now all discipline seems painful at the time, not joyful.[o] But later it produces the fruit of peace and righteousness[p] for those trained by it. 12 Therefore, strengthen[q] your listless hands and your weak knees,[r] 13 and make straight paths for your feet,[s] so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but be healed.
Discipline, though hard in the moment, ultimately leads to growth, peace, and righteousness. It’s a mark of our LEGITIMACY as sons and daughters of God. (Not so warm and fuzzy as the thought of being filled with the Holy Spirit, but there you go.)
If this scripture is true, and it is, then negative emotions, like their positive counterparts, help us learn. Pain, in the form of discipline, produces the fruit of peace and righteousness by those who are willing to be trained by it. Or, as Jordan Peterson says, “We need to learn, because we’re stupid and easily damaged.” That too. 🙂.
When we choose to discipline our kids, we’re not just reacting to a mistake—we’re actively training our children in righteousness. Discipline allows us to partner with our children, coming alongside them to help them develop the life skills and character traits they will need to navigate the world as faithful disciples of Christ.
PAIN is a motivator. Both punishment and discipline contain pain, but discipline produces fruit while punishment tends to end there.
Piper again:
God’s discipline may come from our own sinful behaviors and their consequences as Christians OR they can come as persecution or suffering that He allows. You can see the former in 1 Corinthians 11:30 and following. Some Christians had sinned. They had really sinned in the way they had treated the Lord’s Supper. And here is God’s response: “That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died,” — died for their abuse of the Lord’s Table, their sin. Christians sin. They died for it.
He goes on, “But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord” — meaning: ill, weak, death — when we are judged by the Lord — “we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1 Corinthians 11:31–32). Amazing. This is a stunning example of God’s disciplinary judgment that goes so far as to bring about the death of his child. And that death is the disciplinary effect of sin in the child’s life because it keeps him from going to hell. It says, “that we may not be condemned along with the world.” That is why he took us out. Amazing.
Then there are times when we are allowed to suffer for our good and God’s glory. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul writes about going to the third heaven (whatever that is!) and it was so amazing that God wanted to be sure to keep Paul wholly connected to Himself in humility. Paul writes:
Therefore,[g] so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble[h] me—so that I would not become arrogant.[i] 8 I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. 9 But[j] he said to me, “My grace is enough[k] for you, for my[l] power is made perfect[m] in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly[n] about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in[o] me. 10 Therefore I am content with[p] weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties[q] for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
So, there is an infinite and precious difference between God’s retributive justice in punishment and God’s purifying discipline in our pain. And that difference does not lie in the origin, the human origin of the pain — whether good or evil. It lies in the purpose and the design of God in our suffering.
Grace Hamman writes in her book Jesus Through Medieval Eyes of a painting of Christ (Christ as Savior and Judge, Petrus Christus;, c. 1450). He’s showing His pierced hands and side, while behind him two angels stand—one with a lily and one with a sword.
As we’ve said, God is perfectly just. We try, as parents, to emulate that justice, but often fall short. He is also perfectly merciful.
Look at it like this: our child gets a painful splinter in his hand. That’s some sort of foolishness/rebellion/character flaw that needs correction. We could be the “sword parent,” bringing down the ax and cutting off the tip of his finger to get rid of that rebellion. There! Done! Guess you’ll never do THAT again!
OR, we could be the “lily parent”. There’s STILL pain. Correction STILL needs to happen to bring about change and draw their attention to the matter. But what do we do as merciful parents? Give me your hand. Hold still. And we dig that splinter out, poking and probing until we get the last bit so it doesn’t fester. Once it’s out, voila! The finger no longer hurts. No discipline seems pleasant at the time…
That’s how, I think, God wants to discipline us. Give me your heart. Hold still. This might hurt.
Now….if we refuse…. We might require add’l correction. Which never makes us happy. The prodigal father likely tried many many times to remove his son’s splinter. In the end, he gave the son his inheritance and said go do as you will. He was deeply grieved by it, but he knew that the world would likely mete out some discipline which would be far worse than what he would have received from a loving father at home.
As parents, it’s easy to fall into a justice-driven mindset. “You did this wrong, so now you’ll face a consequence.” Consequences should serve a greater purpose than just delivering punishment. They should aim for heart change, the kind of transformation that reflects the child’s growth in character and understanding.
For example, after a child acts out in anger, instead of simply punishing them by taking away privileges, and stopping there, a parent focused on discipline would go further.
Natural and Structured Consequences
Pain is a gift from God. It warns us that something is not right and needs attention. When a child experiences pain (Don’t touch the stove!), it helps them connect their wrong action to the warning.
Natural consequences: sometimes our kids foolishness or naivete will produce their own pain as a natural outcome.
Structured Consequences: are required when pain is not the natural consequence of their behavior. Principle here→use the least possible force.
“What you did was wrong. Can you tell me WHY it was wrong? Can you tell me how it affected or hurt others around you? Let’s talk about how you can handle your anger better next time.” This approach helps the child see where they went wrong, but also provides a path forward, guiding them toward the behavior they should model in the future.
I think in popular culture today, because parents are reacting so strongly AGAINST the punishment mindset, in many cases they’ve ALSO thrown out the discipline and thrown it all in the same pot.
That’s a mistake.
Jordan Peterson:
Poorly socialized children have terrible lives. Thus, it is better to socialize them optimally. Some of this can be done with reward, but not all of it. The issue was therefore not whether to use punishment and threat. The issue is whether to do it consciously and thoughtfully.
How, then, should children be disciplined?
This is a very difficult question, because children and parents differ vastly in their temperaments. Some children are agreeable. They deeply want to please, but pay for that with a tendency to be conflict-averse and dependent. Others are tougher minded and more independent. Those kids want to do what they want, when they want, all the time. They can be challenging, noncompliant, and stubborn. Some children are desperate for rules and structure, and are content even in rigid environments. Others, with little regard for predictability and routine, are immune to demands for even minimal necessary order. Some are wildly imaginative and creative and others more concrete and conservative. These are all deep, important differences, heavily, influenced by biological factors, and difficult to modify socially. It is fortunate, indeed, that in the face of such variability, we are the beneficiaries of much thoughtful meditation on the proper use of social control.
He goes on to describe 5 general principles of discipline:
The first: limit the rules.
The second: use the least force necessary to enforce those rules.
The third: parents should come in pairs.
Raising young children is demanding and exhausting. Because of this, it’s easy for a parent to make a mistake. Insomnia, hunger, the aftermath of an argument, a hangover, a bad day at work any of these things singly can make a person unreasonable, while in combination they can produce someone dangerous. Under such circumstances it is necessary to have someone else around, to observe, and step in, and discuss. this will make it less likely that a whiny provocative child and her fed up cranky parent will excite each other to the point of no return. Parents should come in pairs so the father of a newborn can watch the new mother so she won’t get worn out and do something desperate after hearing her colicky baby whale from 11 in the evening until five in the morning for 30 nights in a row. I am not saying, we should be mean to single mothers, many of whom struggle, impossibly and courageously, and a proportion of whom have had to escape, singly, from a brutal relationship, but that doesn’t mean we should pretend that all family forms are equally viable they’re not. Period..
The fourth: parents should understand their own capacity to be harsh, vengeful, arrogant, resentful, angry, and deceitful.
Very few people set out, consciously, to do a terrible job as father or mother, but bad parenting happens all the time. This is because people have a great capacity for evil, as well as good, and because they remain willfully blind to that fact. People are aggressive and selfish, as well as kind and thoughtful. For this reason, no adult human being can truly tolerate being dominated by an upstart child. Revenge will come.
The fifth: parents have a duty to act as proxies for the real world merciful proxies, caring proxies that proxies, nonetheless.
This obligation supersedes any responsibility to ensure happiness, foster creativity, or boost self-esteem. It is the primary duty of parents to make their children socially desirable. That will provide the child with opportunity, self-regard, and security. It’s more important even than fostering individual identity. That Holy Grail can only be pursued, in any case, after a high degree of social sophistication has been established.
(See his note on English common law p. 136)
Part of establishing a relationship with your son, or daughter, is learning how that small person responds to disciplinary intervention, and then intervening effectively… we cannot assume that the word no can be effectively uttered to another person in the absence of the threat of punishment. A woman can say no to a powerful, narcissistic man, only because she has social norms, the law, and the state backing her up.
A parent can only say no to a child who wants a third piece of cake because he or she is larger, stronger, and more capable than the child, and is, additionally backed up in his or her authority by law and state.
What no means, in the final analysis is always “if you continue to do that, something you do not like what happened to you.” Otherwise it means nothing. Or, worse, it means another nonsensical nothing mattered by ignorable adults. Or worse still, it means all adults are all ineffecutal and weak. This is a particularly bad lesson when every child’s destiny is to become an adult, and when most things that are learned without undue personal pain are modeled or explicitly taught by adults.
What does a child who ignores adults and hold them in contempt have to look forward to? Why grow up at all? And that’s the story of Peter Pan, who thinks all adults are variants of Captain Hook, tyrannical and terrified of his own mortality (think hungry caught crocodile with clock in his stomach).
The only time no ever means no in the absence of violence is when it is uttered by one civilized person to another.
There’s not much that we accomplish that doesn’t include some discipline. We can’t run a marathon without training (discipline). We can’t write a book or finish a painting without it. We can’t lead a healthy life without it.
Let’s for sure not withhold it from our children. … If we’re not training our children with love-based discipline, the world will punish them, and they won’t do it from a place of love for them.