What Is Appropriate
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If you are a parent, you will eventually need to deal with improper behaviors with your children.
And Christians are not spared these behavioral issues either.
However, behavior problems usually occur more frequently with children with autism. Your child may even experience complete meltdowns which are highly noticeable by others.
Sometimes others will tell you that your kids have a discipline problem. They say that you need to spank your kids more often to make them behave better. They repeat the mantra “spare the rod, spoil the child” over and over again. (By the way, this mantra is actually NOT a quote from the Bible.)
Then they quote Proverbs 13:24 which says, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.“
And they quote Proverbs 23:13 which says, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die.”
However, do these verses actually say that you should beat your kids to make them behave better? I think not!
The rod in these passages refers to the shepherd’s rod which is used for gently guiding the sheep and keeping the sheep out of harm’s way. If the shepherd hated his sheep, he would not use the rod and would allow them to go wherever which would lead to their death.
Psalms 23:4 says that “your rod and your staff, they comfort me” because it is used for watching over us sheep and for protecting us sheep from death. Thus, I believe that we should use non-violent means of discipline to properly instruct our children.
I love Focus on the Family, and I agree with most things said by Dr. Dobson. However, his methods in his “Strong-Willed Child” book may work well for non-autistic children, but, in my opinion, they definitely do not work for kids with autism. Instead, his methods create more problems.
Rather, I prefer methods in “The Explosive Child” by Ross Greene and “Transforming the Difficult Child” By Howard Glasser.
As a parent of a child with autism, we need to discern which behaviors are willful and which behaviors are medical. This discernment is very difficult!
However, it is my experience that most of their behavior problems are directly due to their autism which is a neurodevelopmental disorder. So, of course, they are going to have behavioral issues!
It is our job to help them learn constructive ways to deal with their frustrations and irritations. As stated above, Christian discipline should be loving, firm, fair and consistent.
I encourage you to investigate other questions and answers about the
Christian perspective of autism.
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