Abuse vs. Discipline

Abuse vs. Discipline


Abuse: There is no control; no respect; no regard for a person's health, well being, or their feelings. Abuse tears down a person and degrades them.

Discipline: Exercises control, has respect for a person, holds a person's health and well being in high regard. Discipline cares about how a person feels, and discipline builds a person up and encourages them to do good.

Here are examples:

Abuse: "What is wrong with you?"
Discipline: "What is wrong with what you did?"

In this example, saying "What is wrong with you?" degrades and tears down a person, you are attacking a person by saying that. Saying "What is wrong with what you did?" attacks the sin, and it only tears down the sin without tearing down the person.


Abuse: "You are no good!" "You are stupid!" "You are nothing but an imbysall!"

Discipline: "What you did was no good!" "What you did can cause problems!"

In this example, when you say "You are no good!", "You are stupid!", or "You are nothing but an Imbysall!", you are attacking the person. You are saying that the person is no good, you are also saying that the person is stupid or that the person is an imbysall. This tears down a person and does nothing to build them up. When you say "What you did was no good!" or "What you did can cause problems!", you are addressing their sin, and you are attacking the sin and not the person.

Abuse: Excessive physical punishment, has no regard for the person's health or well being. Many times harm is done, along with excessive pain. The person dishing out the punishment does not care how much harm they do to the other person and causing harm to a person shows no respect for their body.

Discipline: Physical punishment can be used to inflict a sting to produce repentance, but that punishment does not cause harm, and it is controlled. The person dishing out the punishment has a high regard on the other person's health and well being, and uses a punishment that will sting but not cause harm. The person giving the punishment carefully chooses the punishment and makes sure that the punishment does not harm the person they are punishing.

Whenever you cause harm to a person, or inflict a punishment that can have a potential of harm (example: ear pulling can cause permanent hearing loss in that ear, or hitting in the head can cause a lifetime of problems ranging from early dimensia to being blind) it causes resentment in the child, and you are not showing love by doing that. If you truly loved your child, you would avoid doing things that can cause harm, especially things that can permanently harm your child. When you discipline a child, you show love to that person and it is done to instruct the person by making them want to repent and to learn what is right. You will be respected when you discipline and not abuse.


Abuse: "I don't care how you feel!", "It is my way or the highway!", "There is something wrong with the way you feel!", "You should not feel that way!", "You have no right to feel that way!", "Why are you not over that yet?" or punishing a person for feeling the way they do.

Discipline: "I care about how you feel!", "You can talk to me anytime!", "I will pray for you!", "I care about you!", "It is not easy doing the right thing and sometimes it hurts, but I will support you when you do right!", or "If we follow our feelings all the time, it can lead us to do wrong, it is better to obey the Bible and do right!"

If you do not care about how a person feels, have the my way or the highway attitude, or belittle a person's feelings by making them feel that they should not feel the way they do, you may shut off all communications with that person and cause them to never trust you again. It may cause a person to bottle everything up inside and create many other problems in their lives. When you listen to a person, and show regard to their feelings, you open up communication and trust in their lives. They feel more free to share their feelings and vent rather than bottling it all up.


Abuse: Slandering a person, gossipping, or when a person tells you something out of confidence, you go and tell everyone else what they wanted to be kept secret. Taking what a person says and twisting it to make a person looks bad to others.

Discipline: Gently restoring a person with the Bible when they express their struggles. When they share something in confidence, you keep it between you and that person and do not share without that person's permission. You listen to the person and have high regard and respect for them.

Once you betray a person's trust, you may cause that person to never trust you again. You can betray a person's trust and deeply hurt them by slandering and gossiping about them, or when you tell others things they told you in confidence. By doing this, you have closed off all communications with that person. If you gently restore a person when they express their struggles, and hold a high regard for them, and keep confidences, you open communications with that person and you build relationships with them.

Abuse: Making a public display of a child's misbehavior, telling the world about their faults. Punishing or yelling at them in front of everyone else.

Discipline: Dealing with the child one on one with their misbehavior.

Making a public display of their misbehavior, telling the world about their faults or punishing them in front of others often degrades them. It can set them up for further abuse and bullying from the others who they were addressed in front of and it promotes gossip and slander which also deeply hurts the person and promotes others to sin. Dealing with them one on one saves a lot of gossip and slander, and shows respect for the person. A person will feel loved and respected when being addressed one on one rather than being done in public. If a person is addressed in public, they will be resentful.

If a Christian brother sins and does not repent, there are steps involved, first, address them one on one, then if they refuse to repent, take another brother, then take it to the church if they still do not repent. Many times churches abuse people by publically addressing their sins without seeing them in private first.

Rodney Calmes