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As a father, one of my most important roles in my household was to be the one to carry out the tough discipline. My father spanked us. I was no different with my children. I believe the father’s role in a strong household is to be able to carry out this hard, hard, important, yet delicate, responsibility.
Now, in today’s society spanking is not that highly looked upon and even thought of as some form of abuse, but I don’t believe this for one second, but here is the key… IF done properly. When my father spanked me, never, for 1 second did I ever think my father didn’t love me. I knew he did and the reason I knew it is because I was spanked for the right reasons with the right understanding of why. Dad took the time to talk with us after our punishment was handed out. He wanted to make sure we understood why he had to do what he had to do. He also wanted us to know that our failure was not final! We got our punishment for what we did, he loved us, and now we move on… with the hope that we learned our lesson and would not be here again. Spankings came from the deep love and responsibility my father had to mold his children. I didn’t get spanked for making mistakes or doing what young kids do when an accident happened. I got spanked for character issues. In our house, growing up, if you lied, stole, cheated, were disrespectful, rebellious, back talked (especially back talking our mother), or anything of that nature…things that would shape who you were to become as a person, you got corrected. I, jokingly say today, “I never had a problem my dad’s belt didn’t fix.” Joking aside, with honor, this was very, very true. I would challenge anyone who thinks spanking a child is wrong, when done in love to correct a child for their long-term benefit, to have a sit-down conversation with me. Spanking my children was the hardest thing I ever had to do. But looking back, as my children are now adults, I believe it had eternal rewards for who they have become. Thank you, God! Today my adult kids are my best friends and we have an incredible relationship. If I didn’t show them what true love, respect, and correction were when they were younger, the relationships we have now would not be possible.
I only laid all that out to get to what this blog is all about because parents do make mistakes. I was no different. So here we go.
My daughters are actually my stepdaughters. I came into their lives at a very young age and was blessed to raise them. However, this made disciplining them all the more delicate. I had to be extra cautious to make sure they knew that I absolutely loved them whenever I had to correct them. Otherwise, my correction would do the exact opposite of what I was trying to teach them. My middle daughter was probably my toughest responsibility, but maybe my most rewarding. When I first came into her life, she was tough. She was not very disciplined at all. Now in her defense, she was also a very young 3 years old when I came into her life. I never disciplined her until she started to actually call me “Dad”. When her mom asked me if I was ok with her calling me dad I said, “I am totally ok with her calling me dad, but I then I want to be her dad. We need to work on correcting her behavior. I will do it very lovingly, but we have to correct her.” She would throw fits quite often and throw herself around whenever she wasn’t getting her way. Up to this point in her life, everyone around her just dealt with her explosions. This needed to change. Over time, we were able to stop this behavior. It wasn’t easy, but it didn’t take long. Whenever she would do a behavior of this nature she got corrected. We were consistent. The moment she realized said behavior came with consistent correction, the behavior stopped overnight. Our extended family was shocked at how quickly she changed. I was deliberate with her, but I was extremely loving. I would sit with her in her bedroom after the correction had been given and I would talk to her. I would make sure she understood how much I hated having to correct her, but I would explain to her, even at her young age, how God had bestowed on me a responsibility and a privilege to love her and I could not skirt that responsibility. I had to do the tough discipline because it was important for her to learn. I never let a correction go without explaining to her why it had to happen, that I truly loved her, that this failure of hers was not final, and that when it was all over, we move on. The most essential piece in all of it wasn’t the discipline by itself, but instead, the love that had to be given and received AFTER the correction.
Speed up to my middle daughter at the age of 7 or 8. At this time, spanking was pretty minimal as it simply wasn’t needed much. However, one day, my wife came to me with a startling problem. My daughter was being accused of saying something inappropriate to her friend who lived next door to us. I was floored by it and my heart broke. My wife said she got the story from my daughter’s friend’s mother. What happened was very inappropriate and I determined it deserved correction immediately. I had no reason to believe the story was inaccurate.
I summoned my daughter and punished her. My daughter denied it. Now I felt that not only did she do wrong, but now she was going to dig in and lie about it. I told her that on top of the punishment she received for her actions, she was now also grounded until she told the truth and that was that.
As day 1 turned into multiple days, my daughter was not giving up. She was not going to admit to this. Each day I would come and ask her if she was ready to be truthful and she would say she was being truthful and that she wouldn’t admit something she didn’t do. I was frustrated. I was thinking, I can’t believe that my beautiful young daughter wouldn’t simply get this past her and admit it so we could move on. Multiple days turned into a week. I had a mix of frustration to go along with heartbreak as I was convinced my daughter had done wrong.
After a week, my oldest daughter, came to me and said, “Dad can we talk?” Confused, I said, “Sure, what would you like to talk about?”. She said she had a conversation with my middle daughter, her sister, and she had told her, “Why don’t you just admit this and get it over with? You’re grounded until you do and you already got your punishment for it. Just admit it and be done with it so you can move on and get ungrounded.” But then my oldest said to me, “Dad, she said she couldn’t do that because if she did, she would be lying because she did not do this.” My heart about dropped out of my chest. I was sick to my stomach. I thanked my oldest daughter for telling me and I knew what I needed to do. After my oldest daughter left, I immediately called my dad.
When my dad answered he asked me what was going on. I said to him, “Well, Dad, I need some fatherly advice because I am not sure what to do here.” My father said, “Sure son what do you need help with?” I explained to my father the whole scenario and what my oldest daughter had said to me. I asked him, “What do I do here, what would you do?”. My father, without any hesitation at all, replied, “You need to go apologize to your daughter. She did not do this. You made a mistake here, son. She told her sister in a private conversation just between them that she wasn’t going to lie. She is sticking out this punishment because she did not do this.” My father told me what deep down I felt I knew, but I needed his wisdom to make it clear for me and he did just that. I thanked my dad and hung up. I now had to go up to my daughter’s room and admit my failure as a father.
I didn’t wait. This needed to be done immediately. I walked up to my daughter’s room and knocked on the door before entering. “Can I come in?” My daughter was sitting on her bed. I don’t remember specifically what she was doing, but I do remember she was just passing the time. “Listen,” I said…”parents aren’t always right and I screwed up here.” My eyes started to well up with tears. “I now know you didn’t do this…and I am very, very, sorry. I love you more than you will ever realize. With that love means coming to you now and asking for you to forgive me. To admit I made a bad mistake as your dad. I am so very sorry.” My daughter looked at me, listening, and my heart was just broken knowing the mistake I had made and that I had done wrong by her. I hugged her and continued to apologize. I tried to get her to understand that in my commitment to trying to raise her the right way with morals and values, I obviously should have dug into this way more before coming down hard on her. To her credit, I think she understood, but she was still hurt by it all, and rightfully so.
As much as this situation was probably the worst parenting decision I ever made, I think it taught me quite a bit. One, the parenting we had done up to this point proved to show in my daughter’s resolve to stand on truth no matter the consequence. As much as I hated what I did, my respect and admiration for my daughter and what she had done was taken to a whole greater level. The same goes for my oldest daughter for coming to me with what she had discovered in her conversation with her sister. It was not easy for her to come to dad and go to battle for her sister, but she wanted to see the right thing done as well! The whole situation was living proof that my children had morals and values and those were shown in action even when up against my horrible failure!
Looking back, all those years ago, my daughters were teaching their dad what Having Character looked like in real life! I will forever be grateful for what they both showed me in the middle of my regretful mistake!
Have Character!
J. Noah Russell
HAVE CHARACTER™
