Now mom who was the ‘bad’ parent in this sequence of events is in court trying to have the father found unfit because he wouldn’t give in to the kid’s hissy fit. The father has been beaten down to the point that he is quoted in the story as saying that he wished he had taken the boy to McDonald’s. Now this is a divorce / child custody battle and I am sure that there are many other things involved, but this part is pretty simple no one wins when selfish childish outbursts are rewarded and not disciplined. What do you think about it? - jp
According to a recent news article that you can read at the NY Post site, there are some people who have lost their minds about parenting in our society. What is worse is that they have pushed someone who was trying to do what was right into apologizing for doing the right thing. The gist of the story goes this way: a father was going to take his son out to eat (Not so bad yet). The boy didn’t want to go to that restaurant and threw a tantrum (Ever been there). The boy wanted to go to McDonald’s (No big surprise there). What should a good parent do? Reward the tantrum? I’ll be honest this father was much softer than I tend to be. He told the boy they could go anywhere except McDonald’s or not eat. See I would say forget it you can have a sandwich at home. This boy chose to make his stand ‘take me to McDonald’s’. Do you know why he made the stand? Because he knew he would win (Only he didn’t win, everyone lost). At this point in the standoff mom comes to the ‘rescue’ and takes Junior to McDonald’s just like he wanted.
Now mom who was the ‘bad’ parent in this sequence of events is in court trying to have the father found unfit because he wouldn’t give in to the kid’s hissy fit. The father has been beaten down to the point that he is quoted in the story as saying that he wished he had taken the boy to McDonald’s. Now this is a divorce / child custody battle and I am sure that there are many other things involved, but this part is pretty simple no one wins when selfish childish outbursts are rewarded and not disciplined. What do you think about it? - jp
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What is the difference between hurting someone and harming them? Would you rather hurt your children or harm them? Do you allow your own pain avoidance to cause you to harm those you love.
We recently took our 11 month old twins for a minor surgery. It hurt them. I know it did. I sometimes spank my children for their disobedience and the whole point is for it to hurt, or it won’t do any good. My son has chores to do including mowing which sometimes causes him sore muscles and even the occasional blister that hurt him. The problem is that our society has equated hurt with harm and they are not the same. The saying used to be “no pain, no gain”, but now we try to avoid pain at all costs. The fact is that all of the things above are beneficial to our children. Even though those things did hurt they are not harmed by those things. Think about it this: Have you ever had a cavity so bad that it gave you a toothache and you had to go to the dentist to get it pulled, filled, or a root canal? Most of us have. When you went to the dentist did it hurt? Sure it did. There was a shot and the drilling or prying, the tingling and sore jar, the place where you bit your tongue or cheek while everything was numb, etc. Did the dentist do something that hurt you? Yes! Did the dentist do anything that harmed you? No! The dentist tried to help you. Let’s go back about 6 months to a year before the visit to the dentist’s office. You ate 12 little candy bars, a half cheesecake, a bag of jelly beans, a bucket of ice cream, etc. and then forgot to brush and floss. Maybe you did something like that once a week or once a month. Did it hurt? No! It tasted good and you felt that sugar rush. Life was going good, right? Wrong! That was what harmed you. Those were the things that caused the cavity that wound up hurting so badly. Now let’s conclude. In the process of the whole “I can’t stand to make the kids cry”, I just can’t bring myself to spank them because I will hurt them”, “I don’t want to make them work, they have to be kids”, “If I make them go to church they will hate it”, etc. kind of mindset, we are metaphorically feeding the kids sugar and sending them to bed without brushing their teeth. There are different kinds of abuse. One is the physical abuse of beating and other harm done to children, but the other is much more subtle. It is a spiritual abuse where children are not disciplined and do not learn respect for authority, do not mature, and do not learn self-control. We are trying to avoid hurting them, but wind up harming them in the long run. We blame it on love, but true love is willing to discipline now even though it causes pain to avoid the harm of the future. That is the example God gave fathers and we need to follow His example. Proverbs 13:24 He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. Deuteronomy 8:5-6 Thou shalt also consider in thine heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee. (6) Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, to walk in his ways, and to fear him. Hebrews 12:6-7 For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. (7) If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? -jp Here is an article on how we define success. What if you get to the top of the ladder only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall? This article is worth our time and attention. There are many more available at www.focuspress.org - jp
http://www.focuspress.org/files/Articles/July__08_think_pgs_22_23proofedjp_edit.doc If you have a daughter you need to take 45 minutes and go listen to Dave Ramsey’s interview with Dr. Meg Meeker. She is a pediatrician who has studied the relationships between fathers and daughters for years. She authored a book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. She has two great messages for fathers: 1) Dads are more important to their children than they realize. And 2) Don’t parent out of fear. The book is also worth the $10 that they are charging for it on Dave’s site for a limited time.
The interview is on the first hour of the show from Wednesday, January 16, 2013. You can skip the commercials and it will be about 30 minutes long. Just go HERE and then select the January 16th show from the dropdown list. The show will only be available for about a week or two so go listen soon. To see the difference a dad can make let me show you what happened in our family just this week. My wife has been exercising quite a bit since the twins were born. I decided about a week ago that I needed to lose some weight and exercise. It has been amazing to see the kids wanting to get on the Wii Fit and exercise the past few days when they never did one time since the twins were born before I started exercising. We talked about discipline some last week, focusing on the punishment aspect of it. Before that we had talked about keeping promises. Just like it is essential to keep our promises on good things, it is imperative that we follow through on the repercussions of disobedience and rebellion and not just make empty threats. If we continuously say we are going to take this away or make them do such and such or spank them if they do so and so again but never or rarely actually do it, then our children will eventually develop at least three serious problems. First, they will not believe anything we say we are going to do either good or bad. Second, they will be shocked every time someone tells them there are consequences for a certain action and then follows through with what they said the consequences would be. Third, they will not believe that obedience to God is really very important because "surely He won’t send me to Hell, mom and dad said they would spank me for this or that and didn’t, He must just be trying to scare me like they did." They may not verbalize it or even consciously think it, but they will live it.
We may think that we are showing them mercy or grace, but if we are not clear and careful we are actually teaching them tolerance of sin, disobedience, and rebellion. This is not to say that there is never a time to show mercy, but it needs to be clearly communicated that this is what happened this one time and why. The rule of obedience must be established first before the mercy or grace can be shown effectively. 2 Peter 3:9-10 says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (10) But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." As Fathers we are in the position of showing God to our children. If they see us slack in this area they will believe God is slack as well, and He is not. There are eternal consequences for your children’s souls at stake, so let’s be diligent about it. Last week we looked at keeping the promises made to our children. We need to apply this matter of integrity not only to the promises that are positive things that our children want us to do, but also those negative things that they would rather us forget like discipline and punishment. If we don’t follow through then we are just making empty threats and they don’t believe we will ever punish them. We often shirk our duty in this area because it is unpleasant for us as well as them. Many parents of the past who were punishing their children would tell their children, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you." I never could understand that until I had to discipline my own children. Of course the fact of the matter is that proper discipline may hurt for the moment, but avoiding it will do permanent harm. The Bible doesn’t tell us to enjoy discipline, but what comes from it is worth the suffering of the moment. Hebrews 12:11 says, "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby."
I don’t always get this and I imagine you may struggle with it as well. It is so easy to look at some negative behaviors and think that it is just a phase or that they will grow out of it or that it was just once, but those things soon become habits that are soon so deeply ingrained that they are extremely difficult to root out. One man took his son out to some trees. The first tree was just a few inches high and he told his son to pull it out by the roots. The young man was easily able to do it. The next tree was about 6 feet high and 2-3 inches around. The young man tried to pull it up and struggled for several minutes before finally getting it out with large chunks of soil caught in the roots and leaving a fair sized hole in the ground. The third tree was a full grown oak tree large enough that the young man could not even reach around it. He told his father that he could not pull the tree up without help and tools. The father explained that these trees represented the bad habits and sins in a person’s life. If those things are rooted our as soon as possible they can be removed fairly easily and with minimal damage to the lives around, but the longer they grow the more difficult it is to get rid of them and the more damage is caused to yourself and those close to you. As parents we are responsible to examine our children’s lives for saplings of sin and help them root those things up before they get established and deeply rooted. Discipline including punishment is the way we help them do it and help teach them to have self-discipline so that as adults they will continue to get those things out of their lives when they recognize them. So, face the pain now to avoid the pain in the future. No pain, No gain. Integrity is in short supply in our culture today. People lie, cheat, deceive, and steal so often that we are used to it. People don’t keep their commitments, promises, contracts and agreements in all kinds of situations. This is a serious character flaw that usually begins in early childhood. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that many parents have integrity problems of their own and they don’t see it as a big problem that their children "tell stories" or "borrow" things that are not theirs or "forget" to do a chore they said they would.
This is a constant issue with kids. It would be rare to find one single event that caused someone to have integrity or to not have integrity. What really happens is that over the course of life thousands of little events push us one direction or another. As parents it is important for us to make sure that every time we have the opportunity to push them toward integrity we do it, and that is a matter of integrity on our part. We have dealt with this with both of our older children recently. My wife gave one a certain time limit to finish some school work and then asked to see it when the time was up. The child said the work was done, but it wasn’t. Not getting it done in the time allotted is not good, but lying about it is unacceptable. Just today I sent the other to do some school work on the computer only to come in minutes later to find a game being played instead. This event also involved punishment. There are accidents that do happen, sometimes we really do forget things and when we do we need to admit it and not make some other excuse. Sometimes we say the wrong things believing them to be true at the time. When we realize it we need to clear the air. If we walk out of a store and find that the dog food bag on the bottom of the cart didn’t get scanned, then we should go back and pay for it. Let me promise you that people will think there is something wrong with you and give you strange looks when you do the right thing, but it will help your kids learn that integrity matters. The Bible says, "LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? (2) He that WALKETH UPRIGHTLY, and worketh righteousness, and SPEAKETH THE TRUTH IN HIS HEART. (3) He that BACKBITETH NOT with his tongue, NOR DOETH EVIL TO HIS NEIGHBOUR, NOR TAKETH UP A REPROACH AGAINST HIS NEIGHBOUR. (4) In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that SWEARETH TO HIS OWN HURT, AND CHANGETH NOT. (5) He that PUTTETH NOT OUT HIS MONEY TO USURY, NOR TAKETH REWARD AGAINST THE INNOCENT. He that doeth these things shall never be moved." Psalm 15:1-5. If that doesn’t just scream integrity I don’t know what does, unless it is Job. He said, "All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; (4) My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. (5) God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. (6) My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live." Job 27:3-6. Job was not bragging, he was stating his determination to live right. God confirmed that Job was a man of integrity in Job 2:3. How often people use their situation or certain circumstances as a reason to do something dishonest, but God doesn’t accept those excuses. Job was a man of integrity in spite of the situation he was facing, I want a son like him. I wonder why there aren’t any Jobs in the world today. People say "I had to" do what ever, and that is a lie as well. Will we be men who like Job will say, "my heart will not reproach me as long as I live"? Will we train our children to be those who can dwell on the Lord’s holy hill? How do you spend your time? You have probably seen an article that compares our time each day to a bank account that has a certain amount put into it each day, but like some bad cell phone plans there are no roll-over minutes if you don’t use it you lose it. So we use them up each day in various ways. We spend some on sleeping, eating, working, playing, talking, learning, etc. But the real question is are we spending them right. Just as we could make the mistake with money of spending more on entertainment than we save for the future, or spend more on eating out and not have health insurance, or maybe something more minor like spending too much for gas because we did not even look to see that the station across the street was $0.30 cheaper; we make mistakes with spending time on the wrong things. We work extra overtime to buy a big screen HD TV and miss out on spending time with our families We spend all day at work Tweeting and checking Facebook and then have work to take home. We spend the time we are home, and could be engaging in a Bible time with our kids and teaching them good values and building their character, watching some form of entertainment that corrupts those values. Some of the things we mess up are obvious, but others are more subtle. Stephen Covey in his book First Things First says it this way: “The enemy of the best is the good”. How often do we miss out on doing what is best because of something that is good. One of the problems is that we have never really spent any of our time deciding what is best. Another problem is that we get so caught up in being like everyone else that we ignore what is best. A third problem is that what is best is not what is easy. A fourth problem is that what is best is not the thing that is most demanding or urgent. I am sure that there are more, but this is sufficient to get us thinking. Take a look at the chart below which is also taken from the book mentioned earlier. As you look at the chart notice that every activity that takes our time will fall into one of the four categories: Important-Urgent, Important-Not Urgent, Unimportant-Urgent, Unimportant-Not Urgent. These are the only four possibilities. Allow me to give some illustrations. The phone rings. This seems urgent. There is something about that sound that drives us to answer it. For some it is not possible to let it go, but let’s consider the possibilities. If it is a telemarketer wanting to sell us something we don’t want it is neither important nor urgent, If it is a weather alert telling us about a flash flood watch it may be important, but not necessarily urgent. (I have received 3 such calls this year and not been flooded yet. But it is good to know about the possibility). If it is a family member calling to tell you about some special deal online to get a $10 gift card for $5 that ends in 5 minutes it is urgent, but not important. If it is someone calling to tell us that a loved one is being rushed to the hospital because they stopped breathing that is urgent and important. But even within these categories we prioritize things. Consider the Important-Urgent category. There are many things that may fall into that category, but they are not all equally important or urgent. They differ based on our relationships with the people involved. If, or when, my wife calls to tell me that she is in labor with our twins there would be almost nothing in this world that would be more important and urgent than that, to me. It would not be to you. But if on the way to the birth, one of our children (already born) choked on something and stopped breathing that would quickly become more important because it was more urgent. If someone else that I knew including my own parents had the same thing happen it would not be as important as my child. I would trust that my other parent could do more to take care of getting the necessary medical attention than I could, but that my child would need me to get them to medical attention. Even though labor is quite important and urgent it is not as much so as breathing, in fact, when my wife’s water broke with our last child we called the midwife thinking there would be a birth in a couple of hours. The reality was that our 3rd child was born almost 20 hours later.
Sometimes there is something that is so important that it over rules something urgent. Several years ago I was awakened in the early hours of a Sunday morning to the news that something dreadful happened to a church member who was 4-5 hours away from home. Sunday worship was not cancelled because of this urgency. I did not leave to go check on this member because I had to teach, preach, and worship God. I was preparing to leave after worship when I got the call that there was no need, it was too late. When the family got back home I spent a good deal of time with them comforting them and helping make arrangements for the funeral. Now worship does not seem that urgent. People often live with the attitude, “There will be another Sunday next week and the week after. I don’t have to go this week, but this _________________ (fill in the blank with: ball game, concert, wedding, funeral, tournament, etc.) is only this Sunday.” I know a young man who makes quite a good bit of money in professional fishing. Many of the tournaments are over the weekend and because of his conviction to not compete on Sunday, but rather go to worship God, he probably loses some of these tournaments. If he continues to live by these standards I doubt that he will regret it at the end of his life, but if he sacrificed them to win one he probably would regret that. Mat 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. How soon should training begin? The answer quite simply is: from the beginning. Even before little ones can understand much, their little egos are raging. Even from birth we are either training them to be selfish and fulfill their fleshly desires, or we teach them that not every desire is to be fulfilled. The only thing they know is desire and its fulfillment. A lack of training is actually nothing more than poor training. If we begin training them too late we will find an extra difficult task of trying to retrain them from the poor training that has been allowed. Regardless of the reason it was allowed, it will be more difficult to overcome.
Unfortunately, by the time many decide to begin training it has become clear to everyone that has had contact with the child that he or she is a spoiled brat. The parents are often the last to make this discovery, but even they must eventually admit the truth that is spoken of in the scriptures. Proverbs 20:11 says, "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right." Don't wait too long! I don’t know about you, but one of the greatest difficulties that I face as a father (or in any area of life for that matter) is consistency. We talked some about God and His giving of perfect and good gifts, but there is something else of interest in the same verse. James 1:17 says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." I know from personal experience that it is easier and better when I can know what to expect. A relationship with someone who has wild mood swings or who can’t make up their mind whether to be friends or enemies is nearly impossible to maintain. There are many parents who are this way with their children. Our children need to be able to depend on us as something stable in their constantly changing lives.
Problems arise when we are inconsistent in our expectations and/or discipline. First lets look at the expectations. If I expect my 6 year old to sit at the table and eat with her fork and spoon like a human being and then let my 10 year old eat spaghetti with his hands or stick his face down in the plate like a dog and don’t say anything about it my 6 year old may be frustrated that the same rules that apply to her don’t apply to him. That doesn’t mean that we can’t be flexible or even change the expectations at some point. In fact, the expectations certainly should change as they grow up. We don’t and shouldn’t expect the same abilities from a 2 year old that we do from a 10 year old, but we should expect both to obey what they understand and have been trained to do, when they are commanded to do it. This inconsistency can also be a problem for the older children when they were not allowed to do something until they were 14 and then the little sibling is allowed to do it at 10. There can definitely be some resentment about why they didn’t "have to wait like I did." The second part of the problem is in discipline. If 5 days ago my son calls me ‘fatso’ and I laugh about it, then 4 days ago he does it again and I spank him, then 3 days ago he repeats it and I call him names back, then 2 days ago he says it yet again and I ignore it, then yesterday he says it and I sit him down and talk to him about his feeling, my feelings, and how it is unkind to call him names, then today he does it and I put him in "time-out"; what can he expect the next time? Your guess is as good mine. This may seem a little absurd, but similar things happen every day all over this country and perhaps in your house as well. Certainly, the above is not an actual course of events, but it shows the problem of inconsistency. That doesn’t mean that we should always punish an action in exactly the same way, but the punishment should fit the crime and if there is any variation it is that there is an escalation of the severity of the punishment with repeat offenses. (Remember we have already discussed in former posts the importance of making the rules clear and understandable, as well as warning the child of what punishment will occur and carrying it out as warned.) If a child does what he shouldn’t, but didn’t know before then give him a warning and explain why it shouldn’t be done and what the consequences are the next time. If there is a next time carry out the punishment as warned remind him of the last time and why you are disciplining this time, then set a more severe punishment for the next time. Remember that the punishment must be something that will hurt (physically, emotionally, mentally) without harming(no permanent damage is caused). For me to tell my son that he can’t play Barbie dolls with his sister wouldn’t be a good punishment, because he doesn’t want to anyway. That would punish her rather than him. For me to tell him that he can’t play with his legos or read his favorite book series would hurt him, but of course not harm him. In fact, maybe I could make him play dolls with his sister without complaining. That would punish him and bless her at the same time. We usually make poor and inconsistent disciplining decisions when we do it in the heat of the moment. Our anger and frustration come out and we say ridiculous things like, "You won’t leave this house till you are 30!" or "I wish you had never been born!" or "I’ll beat you black and blue if you do that again!" (Unfortunately, some carry out on that one.) Those are the kind of things that cause real harm to children, but loving discipline (including physical punishment properly administered, on the bottom with love and not in anger) will help rather than harm in the long run. Proverbs 19:18 "Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying." Proverbs 23:13-14 "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. (14) Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell." Do we believe God or not? Leaving a child unpunished for wrongs will warp his soul and bring him to eternal suffering, better a little pain now to avoid that. |