Lori and I just finished 40 hours of Biblical counselling training. One of the things included was watching videos of three one hour marriage counselling sessions. The videos were very well done, to the point it was sometimes painful to watch them.

In the last video, the couple was dealing with a parenting issue. Their 15-year-old son had snuck out his bedroom window to be with his friends after being told he couldn’t go out on a school night. His mother went into his room to check on him as he was climbing back in. The mother freaked out and started yelling at the son all the ways he was being punished. The dad came into the room because he heard mom yelling. He then made the mistake of telling her she was being too hard on the son in front of the son.

What got me about this was the mom complaint to the counselling couple that her husband “leaves the discipline up to me.”

Dad didn’t even know the boy had snuck out when mom started to lay down the law. Maybe hubby does have a habit of leaving it to her, but if she jumps right in she is at best reinforcing that habit, and at worst causing the problem.

I wonder if women, on the whole, are faster to discipline than men? I certainly know couples where this is not the case, but from my experience women are often faster on the draw with this. Discipline is rarely an emergency issue. Young children need to be disciplined while the wrong is still in their minds, but older children do not. In fact, I think it’s better for children to sit awhile with the fact they messed up and are going to be disciplined. Let them stew while mom and dad take some time to calm down and decide together what is appropriate.

~ Paul – I’m XY, and this is a place where faster if not usually better.

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