Jo’s arguments

“You know, this is my very basic beef with Pearl and Ezzo, et al. This very basic concept that THEY (the parent) control the hearts of their children. Wow, how incredibly god-like. I was pretty sure that the Bible says only GOD can rule the hearts of his children. Controlling the hearts of our children is the most ungodly principle in all of these methods. To obey God, we MUST turn their hearts over to God. We cannot control their hearts. We can control their outward actions. But, we cannot even know their hearts, much less control them.

Trust me, I learned how to make my parents think I was happy inside simply by how I acted on the outside. They never knew that instead of breeding the love and godly repentance and obedience they were demanding, they instead breed anger, hatred and bitterness (from all 3 of the children they raised this way). Why didn’t they know? Simply because they could not know our hearts. Had their nurtured our hearts, guided us with love and respect and instead been living models of the God they so desperately wanted us to love and follow, they would have breed the love and commitment that God intended parents to give their children. Two of us were fortunate that we didn’t close our hearts to the God our parents showed us and learned to see he was not the God our parents emulated. But, we became Godly adults in spite of our parents and not because of (but by the greater power of our Savior). The third has been lost for a long time, I don’t know if that sibling will ever accept the God of our parents who tried to play God instead of follow him.

Didn’t mean to go off. But, this is what is at the very heart of these programs that is so fundamentally against the call of our Saviour. And, I cannot fathom Christ doing anything but crying when his youngest children are treated by misguided parents who feel they must be gods versus follow God.” – Jo

1 Comment

  1. Linda V’s Arguments | Why Not Train A Child? on October 30, 2010 at 10:21 pm

    […] I am also deeply concerned about the concept that we have a right to control a child’s heart.  Insisting that they always obey with a “happy heart” only teaches them to hide their true feelings.  Michael Pearl says, “If a child shows the least displeasure in response to a command or duty, it should be addressed as disobedience.”  Since he teaches to correct all disobedience with the rod, it is obvious that he is saying to switch the child until they are showing nothing but happiness.  He promises that switching the child will produce a happy child and demonstrates it with countless anecdotes.  It seems obvious to many readers of these stories that the child has no choice but to act happy, as any other show of emotion only means more switching. For more about hearts see Jo’s arguments. […]

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.