Discipline

For what ever reason the other day my children decided to act as if they were born of some other woman, one who clearly never disciplined them.  I had all the familiar phrases in my head, ones like "consistency is what children need. " and they all spoke clearly to me about my failure as a mother to raise children who respected me and honored me with their words and actions. All day long the inner voice beat me mentally while my children ran me through the ringer with disobedience.
I was at my wits end when at 10pm they were finally asleep after putting them to bed at 7:30pm. What caused this horrible behavior?  I have a few ideas but none are absolutely the cause.  A better question is 'how are they now? ' it's been a few days and they are amazingly better.  They miss their dad,  but they are obedient once again.
What did I do?  I listened to that inner voice, not the one that said I was a horrible mother, but the one that said to be consistent.
There is nothing more important in my life than to raise God fearing, respectful children.  And so when one of them is being anything other than that I am doing my best to respond quickly to that behavior. The problem is that I also have sin in my life that wants to take precedence over the discipline of my children.  There will never be a time when washing the dishes,  playing sudoku, or dragon mania, or even preparing home school lessons will be more important than turning the hearts of my children toward God.  If one of them needs discipline or correction whatever I am doing should be immediately stopped or put on hold to take care of them.
Are my children behaving perfectly?  No.  Will they ever?  Probably not.  But will I make them a priority?  Absolutely!