Parenting
I am not a parent so I obviously don't know as much as some. However, I do believe I have a little more experience with kids than most people I know who are my age without kids. I have been babysitting for a long time now. About 12 years to be exact. I have witnessed families with incredible parenting, horrible parenting, alternative parenting, and really strange parenting.
I have realized that it really doesn't matter what form of discipline or training you use. Consistency is the key.
I was once given a copy of the book, "To train up a child," by Micheal and Debbi pearl. I was about 19 years old when I started reading this book and to be honest I had to put it down after the first chapter. I was sickened. They start out by comparing children to military personal. Here is a passage from the first chapter.
"When headstrong young men join the military, they are first taught to stand still. The many hours of close-order-drill are simply to teach and reinforce submission of the will. "Attention!" pronounced, "TENNN--HUTT!!" is the beginning of all maneuvers. Just think of the relief it would be if by one command you could gain the absolute, silent, concentrated attention of all your children. A sergeant can call his men to attention and then, without explanation, ignore them, and they will continue to stand frozen in that position until they fall out unconscious. The maneuvers "Right flank, Left flank, Companeeey--Halt" have no value in war except as they condition the men to instant, unquestioning obedience."
Boot camp is made to break a person. They want to break you...your spirit. They want you to blindly follow, no questions asked...just do it because you are scared of what they will do to you. I do not believe that this is how God intended us to be with our children.
Everyone is different. God is an intelligent and interesting designer and our children are gifts to us from him. We don't need to break their spirit, but curb it. We are to be examples to our children of Christ's love and a parent-child relationship should emulate our relationship with God. God does not ask us to blindly obey out of fear. We obey because we made a decision to seek God for his forgiveness. The bible instructs us to test everything but to hold fast to what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:21). We obey because God bestows his love to us in unimaginable ways. And I don not think it is wrong for a child to question why you are asking them to do something. If they question, answer once and if they still insist on questioning that is when disciplinary action should take place.
The reason why I am writing about this is because of the recent tragedy that occurred in Paradise. 1 Child is dead, another is in critical condition (her kidneys are failing), and 7 children are without parents and probably will be without them for the rest of their lives. I am not sure about this but I have a feeling that these parents prescribed to the Pearl's teachings. They used plumbing pipe to "discipline" their children with. The same kind of pipe that is described on the Pearl's web site. I am not going to post a link to because I really don't want people going there and reading what they have to say, however I will describe it to you. Basically a mother wrote in asking about what kind of rod she should use in disciplining her children. They answered by going into specific detail about what size, how much, where to buy it.
This couple in Paradise beat their child to death, and critically wounded another.
I am in tears writing this. I am so glad that I put that book down so many years ago and if I didn't throw it out during our last move I would burn it.
I do not think that everyone who agrees with the Pearls are child abusers. I really don't. I just think that this book...in the wrong hands...in the hands of someone who doesn't realized the depth of God's love for us could cause serious damage. And it already has. This is not the first time a child's death has been linked with the Pearl's "ministry," but I pray that it is the last.
I have a lot more to say about this issue...and I will say more in another post. Until then I pray that the parents who do
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ReplyDeleteI agree, Pina. Completely.
ReplyDeleteIt's bizarre to me the lengths many religious people go to to insulate themselves in these issues. They gather around them teacher who tell them "what their itching ears want to hear," just like Paul said to Timothy. (Interesting how the same people quote that verse toward others who pursue a Christianity that's bigger and more Christlike than American culture. I've seen a lot of that myself. I've been called a sellout or been told I was "not interested in truth" because I WASN'T conforming to all these stupid default positions of the religious elite. It's frustrating, to say the least. You want to hold up a huge mirror sometimes and scream at the hypocrisy, "I'm refusing to conform BECAUSE I'm so interested in truth!" Gah.)
When there is hate in the hearts of people like you mentioned, they look to justify it, sanctioning their unlove with religiosity. When they can't find it in scripture or conscience or prayer alone (but they want to), they read books by people who have completely removed their approach from God's character, and they take those books as gospel.
It's sad that the issue is so much bigger even than raising children. A lot of the same sicknesses and symptoms work their way into the way people do engagement, marriage or politics. No conscience. No Spirit. Just the laws they inherit from the teachers who tell them what they want to hear. How many marriage books and classes and dogmas are entrenched around sexism, chauvinism and mysoginy? A HELL OF A LOT of them. It's disgraceful. You even bring it up and people start marginalizing you for being "out there." I've known a lot of abusive people in abusive, dehumanizing relationships who sit telling others to be just like them.
That's flippin' scary.
But yeah - a lot of popular-book-sanctioned "Christian parenting" can be merely a guise for unloving, prideful jerks who want to be worshiped rather than earning real respect. When we think we're above questioning our motivations or logic, we've lost ourselves. The "I said so, that settles it, you do it" parent has failed already - thinking their child has nothing to offer, and being too arrogant to consider otherwise.
You see so many people who live this way and then become flabberghasted that their children are estranged from them. They pass the problem off on some isolated moral issue and dismiss the actual heart divide between them and their child. They call the child "prodigal" and sit there satisfied with themselves... But then you meet the kid and find he/she is a pretty great person, and really strives to live with sensitivity to the conscience... and it's the parent who never had room for such a thing.
The worst part is that the kid is made to think he/she has stepped away from "the church" by default, simply for not having swallowed a militaristic conformity.
I think I've made it obvious who I think Jesus would be pulling for in this situation.
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ReplyDeleteI should add that I don't know the situation here, so - as often is the case - I was speaking very generally.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to add that I think it's really odd that we'd ever desire to model our most precious, personal and intimate relationships after the military.
ReplyDeleteThank God he doesn't treat US that way.
Ashley, I was wondering if you read the same book. Because they talk about hitting kids even in the first chapter (which is all I read). They also talk about on their web site. That is where I got the info. they shared about what kind of plumbing to buy to hit your kids with. They even talk about how great it is that the rods can fit in your car or your hand bag.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, kids in the wrong hands would be an appropriate thing to say also.
One reason why I am speaking so strongly about this is because I have a feeling that there are alot more people out their who take the Pearl's methods and go crazy with it. Then children are abused...and sometimes killed like the one in our town.
P.S. Thanks for the link to your blog. I love your photography and your family is so beautiful!
ReplyDeleteExpecting perfection, thinking it can be attained, and requiring it, from your child is a recipe for disaster. There is no grace in this system. Here's a quote from the site (on why he doesn't hug a child after a spanking, but rather tells them to stop crying and sends them back to do right whatever it is they did wrong which led to the punishment - oh, and this comes after the part where he says that if they can cry for a hug while you spank them, you're not spanking them hard enough!): "When they do something lovely, then you can love them."
ReplyDeleteWhat on earth does that teach a child about the love of God - the God who died for us "while we were yet sinners"?
I spent hours on this site and found the same thing throughout - law, law, law. Acceptance via sinlessness! If our Father in heaven treated us the way these parents are taught to treat their children, we would have no hope.
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ReplyDeleteChildren ARE sinners. Certainly they can thus be compared to them.
ReplyDeleteIf they didn't have a sufficient moral compass, there would be no point in discipline at all now, would there? It would be like giving a fish a timeout... Pointless.
I think Laurie's statement made sense, personally. Our values in parenting shouldn't be less loving, gracious or merciful than the one we call "Father."
"When they do something lovely, then you can love them." Wow. This is karma, not gospel. And it's exactly what Jesus was condemning in the SotM. The only way someone could say something that is if he is on the road to hell. And this book hasn't been dropped by all Christian publishers and distributors? Really?
ReplyDelete"For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt. 5:46-48, ESV). The "perfection" Jesus is after here is obviously of a different kind: Not perfect regimentation. Not perfect behavior. But perfect, unprejudiced love. The kind of perfect love that casts out fear. I can't imagine how many fundamentalists have taken verse 48 completely out of context and ordered their entire lives and child-rearing after it.
Laurie, I thought your posted comments were excellent, probably the best I've read on the issue so far. Thank you.
Piña, thanks for raising these issues to a wider audience, despite the danger of flame wars...
BTW, the Pearl's site has removed the quote I cited above. It was a bit of a shock to go back to the page I copied and pasted it from and find it gone.
ReplyDelete