How to Discipline Your Kids God's Way

Lisa and I have four kids, fourteen books on marriage and family, and decades of speaking around the world on this subject. And I want to be straight with you from the start: we are not talking down at you. We are fellow strugglers in this thing. We’ve made mistakes. We’ve had moments we’d love to have back. Everything we’re about to share, we learned by doing it wrong first.

Let’s talk about discipline — probably the most controversial word in parenting today.

Start with how God parents you

Before we get into techniques, we have to start here: God is our perfect heavenly Father, and he disciplines those he loves. Hebrews 12:6-8 makes that plain. He doesn’t punish us — Jesus took the punishment on the cross for our sins. But God absolutely disciplines. And he does it because he loves us too much to let us continue behaviors that work against our own flourishing.

That’s the model. When you’re trying to figure out how to parent your child, the first question isn’t “what would the parenting trends say?” or “what does the helicopter parent handbook recommend?” It’s this: how does God parent me? He’s loving. He’s consistent. He sets boundaries. He follows through. And when discipline is over, there’s always reconciliation.

That’s the framework. Everything else flows from it.

What discipline actually is

When our oldest daughter LeeBeth was born, the pediatrician gave us our discharge instructions. He said the first 30 days, you do whatever she needs you to do — feed on demand, respond to every cry, prioritize her health and growth. But from day 31 on, you start teaching her what you need her to do.

That raised the most important question of parenting: what exactly are we supposed to be teaching our children?

Discipline is the answer — but not the way most people think of it. We define it two ways. First, discipline is behavioral practices within boundaries — the proactive side, the environment and expectations you establish before anything goes wrong. Second, discipline is behavioral correction when boundaries are crossed — the reactive side, what happens after a line gets crossed. Most parents only think about the second. The first is where the real work happens.

1. Survey your own land

Lisa’s father surveyed land for a living. When a surveyor marks a plot, the boundaries are clear. There’s no guessing where the property line is. The same principle applies to parenting.

You have to decide in advance what the behaviors need to be in your family — not in the heat of the moment, not when emotions are running hot, but in advance when you’re calm and thinking clearly. Every child is different — different personality, different emotional wiring — but the boundaries need to be clearly marked before the test comes.

We have an underground fence for our dogs. When they get close to the boundary, they get a warning. One time is usually enough — they learn the boundary is real. Parents need to communicate the same thing. Your kids are feeling for the lines. The best kids I know come from parents who loved them enough to set them and hold them.

2. Make the sentence match the crime

One time our twin girls got into an argument in the back seat. Lisa warned them once. Then again. Then she pulled the car over, put it in park, and told them to get out and walk home. She followed slowly behind to make sure they were safe.

That was the last time that argument happened in the car.

The key is that the consequence fit the behavior. If a child is misbehaving in a store, you leave the store. If they’re misusing screen time, the screen goes away. The punishment that’s arbitrary — “go to your room” for every offense — loses its meaning fast. But when the consequence is directly tied to the behavior, kids learn something real.

One important note: always validate the emotion before standardizing the reality. “I can see you’re upset — do you want to tell me why?” Let them express it. Then move to: “I understand how you feel, but here’s how we behave in our family.” Feelings are real. But feelings don’t define the family. The boundary does.

3. Consistency + Reliability = Security

This is the equation that changed how we parent.

When Lisa was at Target with LeeBeth at age two and a half, she hit the floor in a full tantrum — legs flailing, right there in the checkout line. Lisa got through the line, got to the car, strapped her in. Then she told her: “I will get you out of the car when you stop crying.”

She waited. She unloaded the groceries. She started cleaning the garage. LeeBeth kept crying. But eventually, there was a break. The moment the crying stopped, Lisa was right there — out of the car seat immediately. She wanted LeeBeth to learn: you stop crying, you get the reward of getting out.

That one experience communicated something more powerful than any lecture: mom means what she says. Her word is consistent. Her love is reliable. And that consistency is what creates security in a child’s soul.

God’s word is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Our parenting should mirror that. When you say something, mean it. When you set a boundary, hold it. Your kids aren’t looking for a best friend. They’re looking for someone steady. That steadiness is love with skin on it.

4. Don’t be a pendulum parent

A lot of us grew up saying, “I’m not going to be like my father,” or “I’m going to be different than my mother.” I get it. But what can happen with that mentality is the pendulum swings so far in the opposite direction that you find yourself being a rebellious parent — doing the opposite of your parents just to do the opposite, rather than because it’s right. In reality, you’re acting like a rebellious adult child.

The answer isn’t to react against your upbringing. It’s to anchor your parenting in what God says — not too far this way, not too far that way. Live in the center of what God plans.

5. The dam bridge of forgiveness

We used to live out from the city, and to get our kids to school we crossed a bridge built on top of a dam. We called it the dam bridge — and I’m not cussing, that’s d-a-m. We called it the dam bridge of forgiveness.

Most of our family conflicts happened in the car on the way to school. By the time we crossed that bridge, we had reconciled. Because if we don’t walk in forgiveness, it will dam up — and the things that are supposed to flow freely in a family start backing up. Bitterness. Resentment. Distance.

Sometimes it was Lisa who needed to apologize because the morning was hectic. Sometimes it was the kids. But the reconciliation always happened before they got out of the car. Because the goal of discipline is never punishment for its own sake — it’s restoration. That’s how God disciplines us. The correction comes from love and always leads back to love.

Build your family on a mission statement

Everything we do as a family operates off of our family mission statement. Ours is simple: Our family exists to love God, to love one another, to serve God, and to serve one another. That’s it. Every action in our home should align with that statement or work against it. When something works against it, we open a can of discipline.

If you don’t have a family mission statement, sit down this week and write one. Single? Write one for your life. Dating? Write one for the relationship. The family is an entity — it needs a direction. Trends come and go. Philosophies change. God’s plan is for consistency throughout our entire lives.

The goal is kids who know what love looks like

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about discipline: it’s not really about behavior. Behavior is just the surface. What you’re actually doing is teaching your children what love with structure looks like — which is the same thing God has been teaching you your whole life.

Kids who grow up with consistent, loving boundaries don’t just have better behavior. They have a framework for understanding how God relates to them. When they hear “God disciplines those he loves,” they know exactly what that means — because they’ve experienced it firsthand in your home.

That’s raising a Christian family. Not perfect kids. Not a perfect home. But a home where God’s love is the operating system.