Words

Yesterday one of our boys insulted another one pretty badly with some choice words. Not swear words, but very belittling. This has happened before, so obviously the original consequence (loss of computer time) was not "painful" enough to stop him from doing it again. We realized the consequence needed to be more closely tied to the offense. So we borrowed an idea from Lisa Whelchel's book Creative Correction.

My husband set this up before he went to work, and I supervised throughout the day. We gave nails and a hammer to this boy and told him to nail 25 nails into this board. Just like the nails were "hurting" the wood, words hurt people. I allowed him a couple of short breaks, but this took him nearly two hours.



Then we had him take all the nails back out, one by one. This was actually much harder than putting them in, and my husband had to help him finish after he got home from work (or he would probably STILL be working on it!). We showed him the damaged wood, and told him that even when he apologizes for hurtful words, the wounds remain behind. You can never take words "back" as if they had never been spoken. They leave a mark on the hearer.


It was a pretty powerful visual. In addition to spending hours on this project, he had to do all his regular school work too. He had no play time ~ his entire day was spent nailing the wood and doing school work. Only God knows his heart, and knows if he has truly learned this lesson, but we pray he has (and I'm very grateful to Lisa Whelchel for this idea!).

Psalm 141:3 ~ Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.