Fortune was three the first time I caught myself about to discipline her for the wrong reason.She had knocked over a vase — not out of rebellion, but curiosity. She wanted to see what was inside it. My first instinct was frustration. Not because she had done wrong, but because I was embarrassed. A guest was in the room. In that half-second before I opened my mouth, I had to ask myself a question that has shaped how I parent ever since: Am I about to discipline my daughter, or am I about to control the moment? control can look identical from the outside — both involve correction, both involve a raised voice or a consequence — but they come from entirely different places, and they produce entirely different children.
The Difference Scripture Draws We often quote Proverbs 22:6 — train up a child in the way he should go — without asking what “training” actually meant in its original context. The Hebrew word is chanak, the same root used for dedicating or initiating something into its purpose. It’s the language of a midwife rubbing the palate of a newborn to trigger the instinct to nurse. It is not the language of a warden enforcing compliance. Discipline, biblically, is formative. Control is reactive.Look at how God disciplines His own children.
Hebrews 12:10 says He disciplines us “for our good, that we may share in His holiness.” The goal stated is transformation — not submission for its own sake. Compare that to how Pharaoh governed Israel: through control. Pharaoh didn’t want the Israelites to grow; he wanted them to comply, because compliant people don’t ask questions about their calling.That’s the test I now use with my own children, and one I share with every parent I coach: Does this correction point my child toward who they’re becoming, or does it just make my life easier right now?
A Story Scripture Tells
TwiceThere are two fathers in Scripture worth placing side by side: Eli and David.Eli was a priest, not a tyrant. He rebuked his sons Hophni and Phinehas for their corruption in the temple — 1 Samuel 3 tells us he spoke to them. But he never removed them from position, never enforced a real consequence, never let correction cost them anything. His words were discipline-shaped, but his follow-through was absent. That’s a different failure than control — it’s the opposite error, permissiveness — but it teaches us something important: discipline isn’t just the words you say, it’s whether your words carry weight.
David, on the other hand, is remembered as a man after God’s own heart, yet his household reveals a quieter failure — silence where correction was needed. When Amnon wronged Tamar, Scripture tells us David was angry, but he never acted (2 Samuel 13:21). When Absalom later avenged his sister by killing Amnon, David again withdrew rather than confront and restore. The silence itself became a parenting decision, and it cost him dearly; Absalom’s bitterness grew unchecked until it hardened into rebellion against his own father’s throne.Neither man modeled control. Both, in different ways, failed to model discipline. And that’s the trap purposeful parents can fall into without realizing it: we assume the opposite of control must be passivity. It isn’t. The opposite of control is formation — correction with weight, delivered in relationship, aimed at who the child is becoming.
Where Nigerian Parenting Culture Often Blurs
This Line I say this with love, because I was raised in the same culture I’m speaking to. Many of us grew up in homes where obedience was the highest virtue — where a child who didn’t ask questions was considered “well brought up,” and a child who did was labeled stubborn. That model produces compliant children. It does not always produce children of conviction.Control asks: did you do what I said? Discipline asks: do you understand why this matters, and can you choose it yourself next time?The first builds a child who behaves when you’re watching. The second builds a child who behaves — and eventually leads — when you’re not in the room.This distinction is not a rejection of correction. Proverbs is full of the language of the rod, of firm boundaries, of consequence. Purposeful parenting is not permissive parenting. But every act of correction should be able to answer the question: what is this teaching my child about who God made them to be? If the honest answer is “nothing, I just wanted quiet,” that’s control wearing the costume of discipline.
A Framework for the Purposeful Parent
When correction is needed, I’ve found it helpful to run through four questions before responding — especially in the heated moment, when reacting is easier than parenting:1. Name the behavior, not the child.”That was a lie” is discipline. “You are a liar” is control dressed as identity. Scripture corrects actions; it rarely labels a child’s nature as fixed and broken. Your words plant seeds. Choose which harvest you want.2. Explain the “why” before or after the consequence — every time.A child who only ever hears “because I said so” learns to fear authority, not to understand wisdom. Even a two-sentence explanation — “we don’t hit, because your brother’s body isn’t a toy” — builds the muscle of moral reasoning they’ll need long after you’re gone.3. Separate your emotion from the correction.This was my failure in the vase moment. I was about to discipline from embarrassment, not from love. Before you correct, ask: am I doing this for their formation, or for my image? Children can feel the difference, even if they can’t articulate it.4. Leave the door open for restoration.Control ends in punishment. Discipline ends in relationship. After every correction, there should be a moment — even brief — where the child knows they are still fully loved, still fully yours. That’s what makes discipline formative instead of just painful.What This Looks Like on an Ordinary TuesdayPrinciples are easy to nod at. They’re harder to apply at 6 p.m. when a child has lied about homework, or when Flourish refuses to share and a tantrum is building in the middle of a house full of guests.In those moments, purposeful parenting doesn’t mean you pause for a theological seminar before responding. It means the posture underneath your response has already been shaped, long before the moment arrives, by the four questions above. You correct quickly, but you correct from a place you’ve already examined — not from wherever your frustration happens to be that evening.This is why I tell the leaders I train that parenting and leadership are the same discipline wearing different clothes. The leader who controls a team gets compliance while they’re watching. The leader who disciplines — who forms, who explains, who separates ego from correction — builds people who carry conviction into rooms the leader will never enter. Your home is the first organization you will ever lead. The patterns you build there will show up again in every boardroom, pulpit, and team you’re given afterward.
The Long Game
Here’s what I’ve learned, both as a father and as someone who has been privileged to talk to parents and leaders for the past decade: the children raised under control often grow into adults who either rebel hard once they’re free of it, or who never develop the inner conviction to lead themselves — because they were never asked to. The children raised under discipline, even when it was firm, tend to grow into adults who can be trusted with freedom, because their obedience was never about fear. It was about formation.You are not just raising a child who behaves today. You are raising the adult, the spouse, the leader they will become in twenty years. Every correction is a small deposit into that future.
A Prayer for the Purposeful Parent
Father, give me wisdom to discipline and not merely to control. Show me when my correction comes from love and when it comes from my own frustration. Help me raise children who don’t just obey because I’m watching, but who choose what is right because You have formed something true in them. Let my home be a place of formation, not just compliance. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
If this spoke to you: What God Didn’t Say About Your Kids goes deeper into the parenting myths many of us inherited without questioning — and what Scripture actually says instead. [Available on Selar →https://selar.com/7k99976167]
What’s one moment this week where you had to pause and ask yourself: am I disciplining, or am I controlling? I’d love to hear it — drop it in the comments
