Better than hidden love

Better is open rebuke
than hidden love.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend;
profuse are the kisses of an enemy. (Proverbs 27:5-6)

There are two levels at which Christian parents need to teach the role of rebuke to their children.

First, children must understand that rebuke from a parent is an expression of love, saving them from danger. Since discipline is naturally painful, it is the responsibility of parents to explicitly teach children the purpose of discipline: to train them in righteousness.

For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11)

Without this framework, a child will only understand rebuke and discipline as pain, shame and frustration. Within this framework, children will grow to respect their parents for rebuking and disciplining them (Hebrews 12:9).

Second, for children to develop healthy, authentic friendships, they must learn how to give appropriate rebuke, the kind of faithful wounds that friends give, - and how to spot the profuse kisses of an enemy. Judging by how rarely I see adults rebuke one another in ways that are gentle, loving and firm, I can only conclude that this is not a skill that comes naturally. Early childhood is the ideal time to actively teach appropriate rebuke. Children naturally come in conflict with other children and with adults; they will quite naturally employ whatever mechanism comes most readily to them, whether defensiveness, withdrawal, outbursts, name calling, or something else (quite like adults). These conflicts provide the occasion of teaching firm, gentle and kind rebuke.

For example, Elisabeth's natural response is tattling (in other words, immediately going to an authority figure). When we are on the playground, and another child snatches away one of her sand toys, her immediate reaction is to turn to me (and my natural tendency is to use my authority to resolve the situation, without teaching her). My responsibility as a parent is to teach Elisabeth to confront the child in a tone and manner that is kind and assertive. Intervening to resolve a conflict before she has appropriately confronted the other child does not, in the end, help. It merely short-circuits the learning process that ought to have happened.

I believe that perhaps the most important part of the learning process is debriefing, in which parent and child can talk about the confrontation. In the sandbox, I can say, "Well done," when she has spoken appropriately to the other child, and, "Thank you," to that child when he has come to an agreeable solution. The best debriefing (I have found) comes on the way home when I can ask the questions: "How did the boy respond to you when you asked him nicely to give your shovel back? Did you need to ask Daddy to help you? Why do you think he was ready to speak so nicely with you?" etc. These discussion are the place where the good habits of direct, calm and kind confrontation are developed and honed for next time.

All the while, Elisabeth is learning, by experience, that:

Whoever rebukes [another] will afterward find more favor
than he who flatters with his tongue. (Proverbs 28:23)