When Discipline Is Out of Order: Why Families Are Breaking Instead of Being Built

By Shannon Perry

There is a reason so many homes today are filled with confusion, tension, resentment, and instability, and if we are going to be honest, we cannot keep pretending that it is random or unexplained. When we come back to the Word of Elohim, we begin to see that what we are witnessing is not new—it is the result of truth being taught partially, applied incorrectly, or ignored altogether. One of the clearest examples of this is found in how we have handled instruction about children, parents, and discipline.

Most of us have heard part of the instruction. Many of us can quote it or have at least been told it in some form. Children, obey your parents. Honor your father and mother. And on the surface, that sounds right, because it is right. But what happens when we stop there? What happens when that instruction is taught without the rest of what Elohim actually said? What happens is not order—it is imbalance, and imbalance produces damage.

Scripture does not give us half instruction. It gives us the full structure. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with promise), that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but nurture them in the chastening and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:1–4, ASV). That passage is not divided. It is not meant to be separated. It is one complete instruction, and when we isolate one part from the other, we create something that Elohim never intended.

Many of us were raised under the first half of that instruction without ever experiencing the second. We were told to obey, but we were not raised in the admonition of the Lord. We were told to honor, but we were provoked, corrected without understanding, disciplined without guidance, and in many cases, controlled without truth. That kind of environment does not produce righteousness—it produces confusion, anger, and internal conflict that often follows us into adulthood.

If we are honest, some of us spent years carrying anger, bitterness, and resentment without fully understanding where it came from. We knew something was off, but we did not have the language for it, and we did not have the instruction to process it through the Word. When there is no foundation in the Lord, no consistent truth being taught and lived, children grow up trying to make sense of their environment without a standard to measure it against. Over time, that lack of foundation creates patterns—patterns of thinking, reacting, and coping that are not rooted in truth.

This is not about placing blame; it is about identifying what has been missing.

Because when we are not raised in the admonition of the Lord, we are left to interpret life through our own understanding. Scripture warns us about this for a reason. “Trust in Jehovah with all thy heart, And lean not upon thine own understanding: In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6, ASV). Without discipleship in the home, without parents who are themselves submitted to the Lord and teaching from that place, children are left leaning on their own understanding before they even know what that means.

This is where we begin to see how deeply connected discipleship and parenting actually are. Parenting is not just about behavior correction. It is about formation. It is about teaching children how to live, how to respond, how to understand truth, and how to align their lives with it. Without that, discipline becomes reactive instead of purposeful. It becomes about control instead of instruction, and control without truth does not build—it damages.

At the same time, we have to be careful not to swing to the other extreme. The answer is not to remove discipline altogether. Scripture is clear that correction is part of love. “He that spareth his rod hateth his son; But he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24, ASV). Discipline is not the problem. The absence of the Lord within discipline is the problem. When discipline is rooted in truth, guided by the Word, and carried out without provoking, it produces growth. When it is disconnected from the Lord, it produces fear, anger, or rebellion.

This is where many families today are struggling. We see homes where there is little to no correction, where children are leading instead of being guided, and where peace is maintained by avoiding confrontation rather than establishing order. We also see the opposite—homes where discipline is present, but it is not connected to truth, not explained, not rooted in the Word, and as a result, it creates distance instead of understanding. Both extremes are out of alignment, and both produce instability.

What we are seeing now is the result of this imbalance over time. Less instruction. Less discipleship in the home. Less teaching rooted in the Word. More reaction. More confusion. More fragmentation in families. This did not happen overnight. It has developed over generations, and now we are watching the fruit of it in real time.

But the fact that something has been off for a long time does not mean it cannot be corrected.

The starting point is not trying to fix everything at once. The starting point is coming back to what the Word actually says in full and allowing it to realign our understanding. Children are called to obey in the Lord. Parents are called not to provoke, but to raise their children in the chastening and admonition of the Lord. Both are required. Both matter. One without the other does not produce what Elohim intended.

This is also where we have to take responsibility, not just for what we experienced, but for what we are now building. Many of us were not given what we needed growing up. That is real, and it matters. But now that we see it, we have a choice. We can continue in the patterns we were given, or we can allow the Word to reshape how we lead, how we correct, and how we build our homes moving forward.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is alignment.

Because when discipline is in order, when it is rooted in truth, when it is carried out without provoking, and when it is connected to teaching and discipleship, it does not break families—it builds them. It produces clarity instead of confusion, understanding instead of resentment, and stability instead of chaos.

And that is what the Word was always meant to produce.