Christian arguments against the Pearls' teachings.
Dulce de Leche has a series on Wifely Submission
Part 1 Intro
Part 2 Before The Fall
Part 3 The Fall
Part 4 What God Has Joined Together
Part 5 Wives, Submit Yourselves to Your Husbands
Part 6 Spiritual Leadership
Part 7 Who Makes the Final Decision?
Also Eric Pazdziora explores The Myth of the Weaker Vessel.
Dulce de Leche looks at how Gentle Discipline Failed Her. Or did it?
Along similar lines, MamaPsalmist considers the Gift of a Willful Child.
And Dara Stoltzfus continues her look at how she was spanked and did NOT turn out OK.
Dulce de Leche hosts a post by Samuel Martin on the topic of How Jesus Would Parent, in which we look at an example of Jesus using Gentle Parenting.
Dulce de Leche continues her 10 Commandments for Parents series with 10 Commandments for Parents: Forsaking All Others.
Dulce de Leche looks at Gentle Discipline and The Strong Willed Child.
For more on this topic, check out the book, You Can’t Make Me (But I Can Be Persuaded) by another former Strong Willed Child, Cynthia Tobias.
In the last piece we saw how to set flexible yet solid boundaries and limits by which young children can abide. We also learned why using affirmations and encouragement with children is better than praises and rewards. And finally we saw that using natural and logical consequences with children helps them to be able to take responsibility for their actions. Again, it is important for us to remember that all the discipline strategies in this series are biblically supported, and are effective when used consistently and in conjunction with each other. In this piece we are going to discuss how to figure out the need behind unwanted behavior in order to help our children fulfill that need. We will also discuss regression in children and how to deal with it in a positive manner.
Fulfilling Needs—“Why is my child behaving this way?”
Many Christians, as we have seen throughout all of my series, believe that most of children’s unwanted behaviors are due to their sinful natures. They place so much emphasis on keeping children’s sinful nature in check that they forget, ignore, or deny the fact that God created children to develop the ways that they do, and that young children do not set out to sin. They are learning about their worlds. The more we understand child development and how God designed children, the easier it will be for us to guide and discipline (teach) our children.
From infancy, children have needs that must be met in order for children to thrive. Since young children have zero to limited vocabulary in the first few years of life, they cry and find other ways of trying to communicate their needs to us. As I’ve discussed in many of my series, an infant’s crying is not manipulative. Infants’ brains do not allow them to be able to manipulate us. A toddler will test limits, but will also try to communicate their needs by acting out as they still lack vocabulary and are just beginning to learn how to appropriately express themselves. [Read more...]
Dulce de Leche looks at what the Bible really says about parenting. Note that this post is part of the 2012 Carnival of Gentle Discipline which you can find at the bottom of the post.
The Hippie Housewife reminds us of the important place we hold in our children’s lives in this beautiful and thought provoking poem. <3
And in a similar vein, Dulce de Leche discusses helping our children feel safe to express their sadness.
Dulce de Leche continues her 10 Commandments for Parents series with Thou Shalt Not Kill. In this post she discusses how parents often kill pieces of their children’s individuality.
Also, take note of this post by Sara Mae which looks at The Nature of A Child and why we should respond to their tantrums with grace.
Dulce de Leche features an anonymous testimony about the damage of emotional and mental abuse in But He Never Hit Her.
Rach at the Incorrigible Gingers discusses how labeling children can be harmful in My Toddler Is Not Bad.
On a similar note Aubry, of My Offerings, discusses healthy and unhealthy attitudes towards children in Why Potty Training Changed My Life.
And Dulce de Leche continues with her 10 Commandments for Parents series with Honor Your Father and Your Mother in which she also discusses the difference between obedience and compliance.
Dulce de Leche continues her Opening Up The Gentle Discipline Toolbox Series with Opening Up the GD Toolbox: Redirection and Mutual Solutions and Connection.
Pearl in Oyster (PIO) discusses why we should watch out for Pampering.
Dulce de Leche continues her 10 Commandments For Parents series with The 10 Commandments for Parents: Taking His Name in Vain.
Pearl in Oyster (PIO) continues her 52 Tool Cards series with 52 Tool Cards Double Feature: Focus on Solutions and Problem Solving.
While we’re on the subject of gentle parenting, here is a Post from Momma on a Mission: Journey to Gentle Discipline.
Dulce de Leche shares a post about our words and the power they hold over our children.
Dulce de Leche continues her 10 Commandments For Parents series with The 10 Commandments for Parents: No Graven Image.
Pearl in Oyster (PIO) continues her 52 Tool Cards series with a very helpful post about eliciting cooperation by observing aloud and playful parenting.
Meanwhile, Dulce de Leche explains how we should Use Our Words carefully in order to make sure that our young children understand what we want from them.
Dulce de Leche explains how some parents inadvertently set themselves up as idols in The 10 Commandments for Parents: No Other Gods.
Alison Strobel explains Golden Rule Parenting.
Dulce de Leche explains the importance of feelings in Opening Up the GD Toolbox: Big Emotions.
Pearl in Oyster (PIO) offers a 52 Tool Card Double Feature: Wheel of Choice and Anger Wheel of Choice. She also has some insight from Jeff VanVonderen about three Greek words for anger in the Bible.
I have had so much to share lately that my Gentle Parenting posts have been building up. Here are some great posts to help you fill your Gentle Discipline Toolbox as well as encourage you in your Gentle Parenting.
Claire continues her Myth Busting at Dare To Disciple with Myth Busting 8: Breaking a lamb’s leg.
Dulce de Leche explains about Opening Up the GD Toolbox: Stories.
Carissa Robinson shares about Parenting Through Changes.
Pearl in Oyster continues her series 52 Tool Cards Double Feature: Empower your Kids and Encouragement.
Cultured Mama explains How to Raise a Human, Radically.
Sally Clarkson shares Her philosophy of parenting: Pondering Christ.
Elizabeth Esther explains How “To Train Up A Child” Got So Popular in a video.
Meanwhile, Dulce de Leche considers Defiance and the Thought Police in a very important post. Are you punishing your children for obeying but with a defiant attitude? Are you expecting them to obey right away with a convincing smile? If so, you are ordering them to pretend to feel something they don’t. You are ordering them to lie and be hypocrites. God does not have a problem with emotional outbursts, but He hates lying and hypocrisy. Dulce also warns,
The child is left with two options: lie convincingly or never question anything internally, not even to understand it better . . . Over years of practice, both options are exceedingly dangerous. You wind up with a compulsive people pleaser who will lie convincingly without qualm or someone who believes everything and never thinks for himself.
Kelly of Toll For Thee shares how he Disciplines her Adopted Child without spanking. (This site has been removed.)
While we’re discussing Gentle Discipline, Dulce de Leche has some more tools for your Gentle Discipline Toolbox:
Opening Up the GD Toolbox: Physical Needs
Opening Up the GD Toolbox: Play
Lisa Belkin of The Huffington Post asks, Can Adoption Lead to Child Abuse?
Elizabeth Esther explains why we should hold the Pearls accountable for their teachings in Are the Pearls to blame for child spanking deaths?
Clay Duda of the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange takes a look at the history of corporeal punishment in Spanking at Home and in the Classroom, What’s Right and Wrong?
The story has gone international as this post in the Belfast Telegraph demonstrates.
In fact, the story is so big that even Psychology Today is writing about it.
Oh, and by the way, the NY Times Article and its spawns showed us the happy congregation and their happy children. Read Dulce De Leche’s explanation of why they look so happy.
I have had so much to share lately that my Gentle Parenting links have been piling up.
Carissa Robinson describes Genuine Obedience.
Dulce De Leche explains about Gentle Parenting, that It’s a Lifestyle, Not an Event.
Claire continues her Myth Busting series with Myth Busting 6: “I could see it in her eyes”.
Greengem reminds us to keep Playful Parenting in our toolbox in My other car is a pterodactyl…
Pearl in Oyster (PIO) continues with her 52 Tool Cards series with 52 Tool Cards: Motivation and 52 Tool Cards: Follow Through.
In the previous piece we looked at how spanking/abuse negatively effects the development of empathy in children. We also saw that any type of physical punishment can cause aggressive tendencies in children and adults. Physical punishment also leads to anger in children and adults due to being hurt intentionally by the very people that are supposed to love and protect them. In this piece, we will see that fear is the main effect of hitting children. We will see that by teaching children that God wants them to be spanked, they often develop a fear of God which either strains their relationships with God or causes them to reject Him altogether. Finally, we will see that spanking “in love” is indeed harmful despite what many pro-spankers claim.
Fear-“That child needs the fear of the Lord put in him!”
We have all heard that line from pro-spankers a number of times. As I pointed out Part 5 in my series, “Spanking is NOT God’s Will,” putting the fear of God into a child is one of the primary reasons people spank children. They use fear and respect as interchangeable concepts when they have no similarities in their meanings. (See Part 6 of “The Christian History of Spanking for more info). Fear is indeed the primary effect experienced by all children who are physically punished whether mildly or severely. Pain is why physical punishment is effective, though only temporally, as most humans are afraid of pain and will usually do everything in their power to avoid it. It usually takes only 1 or 2 times of a young child being hit for him/her to become afraid of getting spanked. Most pro-spankers, especially Christians, view this fear as a good thing, and even a must, in order to teach children to obey them and ultimately God. Yet, 2 Timothy 1:7 states, “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.” And 1 John 4:18 says that there is no fear in love. Fear comes from satan. “Courage comes from God, while fear is what Satan tries to give us” (Meyer, 2011, p. 272). Throughout the Bible God tells His people not to be afraid of Him. [Read more...]
In the last piece I discussed one of the major effects of spanking, which is denial. We also looked at repression and the continuum of violence against children. If a swat or light slap on a child’s hand or bottom is intended to cause pain to the child, then it is a form of violence against the child just as it is for adults. Children are not sub-humans, and do not deserve to have pain inflicted upon them because they are unable to behave like adults. As we’ve seen in my last two series, “Spanking is NOT God’s Will,” and “The Christian History of Spanking,” God never intended us to spank our children. This series further proves this as it is showing the very harmful effects of spanking children—even if it’s done “lovingly” and by Christian parents. In this piece, I will be discussing how spanking effects empathy, anger, and aggression in children and adults.
Empathy—“That Child Needs a Good Spanking!”
We hear the above statement, “That child needs a good spanking,” by many advocates of spanking as if they have no empathy for what the child is actually experiencing or the pain a “good spanking” will cause the child both physically and emotionally. As we saw in Part 2 of this series, many pro-spankers were spanked/abused as children themselves but have repressed their pain and are now in denial that hitting children does in fact cause harm. This denial can often, and does indeed, lead to a lack of empathy when it comes to children as well as other adults. [Read more...]
Dulce de Leche looks at the punitive mindset and how it affects our relationships with our children in It’s Not Just About Spanking.
Dulce de Leche has posted Another Anonymous Post on Spanking in which the anonymous poster shares about how the spankings her younger brother received affected her.
Heather, from My Life, posts an argument for using gentle parenting based on the pattern given for marriage in Ephesians. But I’m not doing this post justice, so here is a small excerpt:
If the Scriptures speak of a marriage relationship full of respect and love, why do we read and implement teachings of parenting that exclude respect, love, grace, understanding,….? Are those things only reserved for a husband and wife’s relationship and when it comes to parenting we can pull out all the stops and physically punish our child(ren) and treat them as a wild animal that needs training?
Dulce de Leche shares how she made a Wrong Turn in her parenting and how she corrected it. Here is more about Correcting the Course.
( Part 1 ) ( Part 2 ) ( Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5)
This will be the conclusion of this series in which we have explored and discovered some of the origins of spanking children within Christianity. It was my goal to show that spanking is from man and not God, as so many well-meaning Christians have believed throughout the ages. In this paper, I will show how the idea of controlling children dates back to the early church in the ancient world, look at how Catholicism has advocated and used physical punishment with children, show the likely origin of the “Christian rules of how to spank children,” and will conclude with explaining Behaviorism and how physical punishment falls under that very old and outdated branch of Psychology.
The Origins of the Christian Need to Control Children
Many Christian advocates of spanking as well as the parents who follow these advocates are often quite concerned with controlling their children’s behavior, and really, one could say controlling their children. Advocates such as James Dobson, the Ezzos, the Pearls, and others teach parents that they must be in control of their children from birth. They claim that newborn infants must be taught that their parents are the bosses, not them. If this sounds familiar, it is because control and breaking children’s wills go hand and hand. We’ve seen how breaking the child’s will has been advocated for and done by Christians throughout history despite there being no biblical grounds for doing such a thing (See Parts 1, 2, & 3 for more info on breaking children’s wills). This need for adults to control their children dates back to New Testament times. In fact, certain verses of the New Testament are used to try and justify controlling one’s children. [Read more...]
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