Your children learn by example and repetition

Have you ever thought about "how" God designed children to learn?

Baby: babababa
Mom: Like this, "mama"
Baby: babama
Mom: Mama...ma-ma...mama
Baby: (eventually) mama
Mom: YAY!
Over the course of several years using example and repetition the parent teaches the child to speak the English language.

Child: Me help?
Mom: Like this! (holds spoon and stirs cake batter)
Child: (attempts to imitate) like this?
Mom: Yes! Yay!
Over the course of a few minutes using example and repetition the parent teaches the child how to stir cake batter.

Child: (tries to write the letters in their lesson book)
Mom: Oh, you have that letter backwards! See! Try tracing these. (writes some letters to trace)
Child: (tries again)
Mom: very good! You got it!
Over the course of a few years using example and repetition the homeschooling parent teaches the child how to write.

Child: (child reads from book and mispronounces a word)
Mom: No, that's "A-mare-i-ca" not "A-mur-i-ca" sweetie. Try it again, "A-mare-i-ca."
Child: A-mary-ca
Mom: Close! A-mare-i-ca
Child: A-mare-i-ca!
Mom: Yes!
Over the course of a few years using example and repetition the parent teaches the child how to read and properly pronounce words.

Child: (hits sibling for taking toy)
Mom: Why do you hit your brother?! I've told you that's naughty! (spanks child)
Over the course of a few years using example and repetition the parent teaches the child how to handle situations in which they dislike what someone smaller than them has done.

The real reason parents spank isn't because they believe God commands it.

The real reason parents spank isn't because they believe they were spanked and turned out OK.

The real reason parents spank isn't because they believe it is the right thing to do.

The real reason parents spank is because their own parents...over the course of many years using example and repetition...taught them how to handle situations in which they need a smaller/weaker person to do what they want...and they are still imitating their parents. Through example and repetition they have been trained and now that they are old they can't depart from it because they don't know any other way to do it.

And, the real reason parents spank is because it is a heck of a lot easier to "receive that free cookie at the grocery store" and make someone else accountable for etiquette and politeness, "What do you saaaaay kids?" than hold yourself accountable to set the example yourself repeatedly and you say, "Thank you!" so that the children become polite by imitating you.

Ephesians 5:1

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children

If your children are misbehaving they don't need a spanking...they need a better example to imitate... 

Parents, should be able to this to your children in all things...

"Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ." 

1 Cor. 11:1