Discipline without Destruction: Correcting Eye-Rolling without Crushing the Child
Dr. Leonard Sax, a contemporary psychologist and family physician, is influencing families in classical Christian schools through his talks on an evidence-based approach to parenting. He has written a number of books, including The Collapse of Parenting. Sax spoke at the 2025 Association of Classical Christian Schools conference and is now visiting various schools around the country. Typically, parenting books read like cookbooks, because the recipes work in one household but do not translate to another. Children are not ingredients to be manipulated, so mechanical formulas rarely satisfy. However, Sax’s insights about the crisis of confidence among modern parents merit attention and have proven helpful to many.
This essay is not an endorsement of Sax’s entire body of teaching but an encouragement that much in his work on evidence-based parenting is commendable. This essay will reinforce some of his evidence-based conclusions about loving yet strict parental authority by grounding them in time-tested wisdom rather than modern empirical research. To be more concrete, this essay focuses on a specific question, “How should an adult respond to a child rolling their eyes?” I chose this as a “counseling case study,” because flimsy frameworks and frothy platitudes that cannot survive reality do not build sturdy children. For most of history, adults have not debated how to respond to rebellion. But today, many parents empower eye-rolling in Christian language. Previous ages saw that corrective discipline did not lead to a child’s destruction, and that an adult can correct eye-rolling without crushing a child’s spirit. The first part of this essay will look at the big picture and the second part will look at the practical details of how to respond. If you are a busy parent, teacher, or leader, you may skip ahead to the second part.
Part One: The Big Picture
In an interview over how childhood has changed, Sax speaks indirectly to eye-rolling when he asserts, “American parents are confused; they think you have to choose between being strict or loving.” Sax continues, “Parents are not looking at Scripture or evidence but are looking to the patterns of this world. Many parents today are more interested in protecting a 9-year-old’s right to free speech than in protecting the moral order of the classroom or the community.” The abandonment of authority is not the right response to abuses of authority.
Sax argues in the same interview, “We don’t set our children free so that they can discover right and wrong for themselves. We teach them right and wrong according to our authority so that they can actually become free.” Although Sax does not speak directly to eye-rolling, he does highlight a few related themes in his book, The Collapse of Parenting: children being treated as equals, the normalization of disrespect, and the devaluing of traditional authorities like parents, pastors, and teachers. Fortunately, Sax is not the only modern voice showing how dangerous it is to allow children to roll their eyes. Dr. Phil warns parents not to be intimidated by rolling eyes and to confront the contempt head-on. Dr. Jordan Peterson chimes in, “The idea that kids can roll their eyes at their stupid father is a really, really bad idea.” Peterson cites Gottman’s famous study on predictors of divorce that demonstrated that if one partner rolls the eyes at the other during a filmed counseling session, there is a 95% probability that they’ll be divorced within the next year. If eye-rolling, the telltale sign of contempt, is the nail in the coffin for a marriage, what does it mean for the parent-child relationship?
One of the most sobering verses in the Proverbs sheds light on this question. Proverbs 30:17 states, “The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother will be picked out by the ravens of the valley and eaten by the vultures.” A life that begins with rebellion in childhood will be met with harsh judgement in later adulthood. To mock and scorn are signs of a child’s contempt toward the God-ordained authority of their parents. Contempt, rooted in self-autonomy and foolish pride, is the belief that someone is worthless, disgusting, and beneath them. Notice how the proverb emphasizes the eye. Often called the window of the soul, Jesus used the eye as a symbol for one’s spiritual perception (e.g. Matthew 6:22-23). In Proverbs 30:17, a little boy does not need his mouth to mock and scorn his mom and dad; he can do it with his eye. This is about as close as you can get to a direct verse on what we call eye-rolling.
Proverbs 30:17 is an ominous illustration of disregarding the fourth commandment in Exodus 20:12 (honor your father and mother), and the verse uses graphic imagery with the eye-plucking ravens to demonstrate the deadly seriousness of a child’s contempt for authority. A scavenging vulture plucking out the contemptuous eye is the symbol of lex talionis (punishment fits the crime). You see this in Deuteronomy 19:21 which says, “Show no pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” Deuteronomy 21:21 also shows how seriously ancient Israel took rebellion from characteristically stubborn and unrepentant children when stoning was the given punishment for a child’s intractable stubborn rebellion. While these are not how-to parenting verses for New Covenant believers, they reveal God’s priority of the family as a binding institution for rearing children.
The modern era has given the society-wide eye roll to much of the time tested wisdom, and this shows up in approaches to parenting and education. Rather than embrace the traditional authorities of parents, pastors, and teachers, the primary authority today is the self. When I taught in public high schools, we were instructed through our Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports representative that the right response to a teenager’s eye-rolling was to ignore it and look for an opportunity to affirm something good that they were doing. Now, this has morphed into Social Emotional Learning which is essentially where an adult teaches kids to pick their emotional scabs and then lament that they are bleeding. In the book Bad Therapy, Abigail Shrier writes, “Social-emotional learning (SEL) content in schools may inadvertently nourish anxiety rather than relieve it […] prompting kids to share sad or angry experiences in front of peers.” According to the modern era, the worst thing you can do is to instruct a child to repress a feeling. According to Keith McCurdy, SEL is Freud’s psychology repackaged in therapeutic language. Traditional wisdom emphasizes the fulfillment of duty and the guarding of tradition, not self-expression and the fulfillment of private desires. Proverbs 25:28 shows the value of repressing disordered emotion when it says, “A man who gives full vent to his spirit is like a city broken into and left without walls.”
Classical Christian schools would be less vulnerable to child-centered (instead of Christ-centered) permissive parenting errors if they were better acquainted with the classical doctrine of total depravity. Only God can tell us what a child is and what a child is for. John Milton’s 1644 essay “Of Education” gets it right in stating, “The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright.” The value of Milton’s Puritan and Reformed anthropology lies in his awareness of the depravity and deception in all children, but also their dignity and decency as image bearers. He knows that every child is a ruin in need of repair due to moral corruption inherited from Adam, yet he knows that no child is beyond corrective repair. The doctrine of total depravity, not absolute depravity, explains why children might roll their eyes at a parent, pastor, or teacher, yet still have the decency to relent and respond positively to authority. A parent or teacher is naive if they fail to realize the evil that would be unleashed through children if all familial and civil restraints were removed. Jordan Peterson seems to understand an aspect of human fallenness when he writes, “If you're harmless, you're not virtuous. You're just harmless. You're like a rabbit; a rabbit isn't virtuous, it just can't do anything except get eaten! That's not virtuous. If you're a monster, and you don't act monstrously, then you're virtuous.” In Peterson’s psychologized view, it’s better to be a restrained monster than a well-behaved coward. So when you put Peterson, Milton, Sax, and the Proverbs together, what you get is a view of the child that sees them as a ruin—but a repairable ruin, through careful instruction and loving discipline.
Part Two: The Details
The prior part of this essay is a manifesto of ideals, and what follows is a manual of realistic responses to eye-rolling children. This second part is by no means comprehensive, yet it attempts to cover a broad range of possible attitudes.
1. Take the thirty-year view, not the thirty-minute view.
When I was a captain on my baseball team in college, I gave up the right to think about myself all of the time. I had to think about the team first. Although I was still a teammate, I had been given a position of authority in order to influence the team upward. The same is true of any person who is an authority, because an authority is responsible for setting a standard for excellence. An authority is a blessing when they set up the right boundaries and impose consequences for failing to honor those boundaries. The best golfers, the best chess players, the best artists, and the best in any field reach the peak by submitting themselves to authoritative standards of excellence for long periods of time.
The thirty-minute view of parenting allows children to decide what standards are best. The thirty-year view of parenting teaches children right and wrong so that they internalize it. The thirty-minute view avoids the discomfort of correcting an errant child, while the thirty-year view sees a child’s eye-rolling as an opportunity to sow a seed that will bear fruit many years later. Hebrews 12:11 states the reality well: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” The thirty-minute view draws conclusions too quickly based upon the immediate response of the child. Sax cites a study that follows kids from both permissive and strict homes, and concludes that kids from strict homes fare better in the long run. In short, the thirty-minute view seeks relief whereas the thirty-year view seeks restoration.
2. Discipline with a shepherd’s staff, not a whip.
This line is inspired by Mark Dever’s approach to pastoral ministry and is a useful concept for parenting. Paul teaches in Galatians 6:1 the right attitude for correction when he writes, “If anyone is caught in any transgression [e.g., a child eye-rolling], you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness.” Paul also cautions fathers to not crush their children’s spirit when he writes, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
Our temporary authority is derived from God’s absolute, eternal authority. Parents and teachers fulfill the role of steward, not sovereign. Therefore, those who have authority over children must always exercise restraint when responding to eye-rolling contempt from a child. Far be it from a Christian to forget that they would roll their eyes at Christ were it not for the Spirit graciously drawing them to the Lord (John 6:44). Discipline is simply putting obstacles and detours in the way of the child that is on the path headed to destruction. Although eye-rolling from a child is clearly a severe error, we discipline knowing that wrath belongs to the Lord, not to us (Romans 12:19). Cruelty has no place in a Christian home or school.
To discipline with a shepherd’s staff is to humbly correct someone who has broken God’s law. To discipline with a whip is to proudly protect a human preference out of annoyance, irritation, or anger.
3. Don’t be wobbly on discipline.
Parents know that they should be both loving and firm. Most, however, have a characteristic bent toward either firmness in truth or patience and grace. As parents try to avoid the extremes of tyranny on the one hand and sentimentality on the other, they often end up wobbling between the two and never strike the balance. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, parents will be too harsh. On Tuesday and Thursday, they’ll be too lenient. Children need consistent parents, not wobbly ones.
We should certainly avoid responding in anger to eye-rolling children. At the same time, we must not abdicate our God-given parental authority for fear of making mistakes or being perceived as unloving. Our love for our children and others should be both truthful and restorative, as the Bible commands.
4. Operate in faith and trust the Lord for the results.
I often feel the same way about evangelism that I do about discipline. I have felt led to share the Gospel with a stranger before, only to be discouraged by his negative response to the Gospel. A child’s response to correction can be likewise discouraging. Excessive attention to immediate results can erode our confidence in what the Lord is doing in the child through discipline. Like farmers, we must plant seeds in childhood knowing that the harvest will not come until adulthood. A fifteen-year-old corrected firmly for eye-rolling is far more likely to be a respectable twenty-five-year-old. A fifteen-year-old allowed to show contempt for authority will likely not respond well to being pulled over at age twenty-five for driving five miles per hour over the speed limit.
5. Consider the broader community.
In his book Life Together, Bonhoeffer writes, “Nothing can be more cruel than the leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe rebuke which calls another Christian in one's community back from the path of sin.” A school or home without discipline is like a country without laws or like a body without a soul. A faith community that does not see sin as bitter and worthy of judgement will not see grace as sweet and worthy of gratitude. Spurgeon writes, “A church which is not strict in discipline is not likely to be very sound in doctrine.” Much of the confusion regarding the correction of children comes from church environments that value casual, convenient, comfortable, and consumeristic relationships instead of common commitments and standards that are binding, sacred, and solemn. No parent wants a teacher for their children that permits the worst-behaved children to rule the roost.
6. Don’t be naive
The New Testament is full of examples of how to correct those in error. The collective impact of just four of these verses correct the naive spirit that can erode our commitment to discipline.
Titus 3:10–11 “As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned.”
Proverbs 22:10 “Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.”
Proverbs 21:11 “When a scoffer is punished, the simple becomes wise; when a wise man is instructed, he gains knowledge.”
Romans 16:17 “I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.”
We cannot explain away the Bible’s clear teaching on the need for firm yet loving discipline within a faith and learning community. These are hard verses, yet their meaning is plain. At the end of the day, the reality is that we can only control so much—and correcting errors like eye-rolling is part of the j-o-b of an authority. Communities that embrace this view of authority are some of the most gracious and loving communities you can find for your child. No parent or teacher can totally avoid discipline-related challenges.
Moreover, not all children have the same temperament and will not respond the same. Proverbs 23:13-14 gives hope to those who would faithfully disciple and discipline their growing children, “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” The rod symbolizes more than mere punishment but represents direction, oversight, and care. Psalm 23:4 states, “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” If we are to repair the ruins of our fallen children, then loving discipline is a needed tool in our toolbelt.
Discipline and discipleship are inseparable if we are committed to shepherding the sheep in our care. Many children are like sheep without a shepherd, because their parents have not embraced the authority God has given them. Erasmus noted that many parents who had well-furnished mansions had neglected the discipline and cultivation of their children. For Erasmus, children without discipline are worse than savage beasts that are at the mercy of their lower impulses. So next time you see the eye-roll, remember to exercise your authority with love and without tyranny. Discipline will not destroy the child.
