I think anyone who shares the same kind of philosophy (and yes, I'm thinking of YOU, you-know-who-you-are!) would agree that to half the people observing us it seems like we do too much, and to the other half, like we're not doing nearly enough. Because we're believers, we do know that we have a God-given authority, and that we have to teach and train these little helions children because God instructs us to do so. But because we don't use many punitive tactics, we break with what seems like the majority of Christian parenting philosophies in how carry that out. I don't mean to be judgmental of anyone here, or to sound superior. I admit that I am not really a great disciplinarian. I probably am a bit of a pushover, even in my small circle of like-minded parents. So I'm not at all saying that I'm excelling where most everyone else is failing. I'm just describing some of our philosophy and why we stick with it. Is your parenting philosophy built on a thoughtful interpretation of God's Word? Then great. I would only encourage you to look within your heart, examine your motives, and be sure that it really is based on His Word, and not on just popular belief.
Anyway, this is basically how it works for us:
We believe the kids are people, just as we are. Sure, they have the same propensity for sin as we do, but just as we wouldn't want someone to believe of us that we are, at heart, manipulative and bent for trouble, we don't believe that of them. We believe they have valid feelings, thoughts, and ideas - immature ones, yes, but valid nonetheless.
We believe that one of the best ways to help them behave well is to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Practice makes perfect. So we believe it's our job to be fair, to listen to them and be considerate of them, to take their individual personalities into account, and to make sure they feel good overall - because that makes it easier to be the best you can be. How do YOU behave when you're tired or hungry? How do YOU respond to being told what to do all the time, without your input ever being acknowledged? How would you respond if you were corrected or criticized all the time? Would you ever get tired of being told that you're a "troublemaker" or "a handful" all the time? (It's terrible to hear parents angrily criticizing their children, but it's almost just as bad to fill your child's lighthearted jabs about how much trouble they are.)
In the same vein, we believe helping them grow, but also in letting them be their age. My two year old cannot be expected to understand much of delayed gratification. She only lives in each moment, and that is entirely appropriate for her age. That doesn't mean giving her whatever she wants, of course, but it means that if she throws a fit on the floor, making her feel better is of infinitely more worth than trying to punish her. As soon as she lets me, I pick her up and hold her. Even better, I nurse her, and everything is better. Calming her emotions for her is perfectly okay. She's only two. It means knowing that my five year-old wants to throw things when he gets angry. That doesn't mean he's going to be an ax murderer unless I do something drastic. It just means he's five, and he still needs lots of help learning how to be angry without hurting people. My seven year old and ten year old boys are...well, they're seven and ten year old boys. I don't expect them to sit still for very long stretches or to have perfect table manners. Even they still need help calming the beast within (but already...not as much help as when they were two and five!). And my 12 year-old is navigating those bizarre waters we all remember from that age. I expect more from her, but still, she's only 12. There have been times when she's told me "No," and while sometimes that riles me up, I generally try not to take that personally. Instead of grounding her, I challenge her to think it through. "You're not going to take a walk with us? Let's think that through. How do you think this is going to end?" There's not much reasoning with a two -year old. That's okay. But there should be lots of reasoning and the prompting of logical thinking with a twelve year-old, and that's okay, too.
So we do a lot of talking things out. And sometimes we talk and talk and talk. Sometimes tempers flare, sometimes she says things that could be construed as wildly disrespectful, but I would rather flesh all this out together, where I can help her learn the boundaries, learn to be rational, learn to forgive and be forgiven. I'm okay with that. I would rather any of the kids push the boundaries HERE than elsewhere. This should be a safe place to get rid of all the junk. Home is where they should learn how to deal with strong emotions and with personal struggles. If we squash it all the time, how will they do that? So we talk. We try to be the kind of people we want them to be. We try to help them see the reasons for things we ask them to do, rather than wield the "because I said so" sword all the time (sometimes it's necessary, I know, but we don't want to be dictators). If a lesson needs to be learned, we try to let it be through natural consequences as much as possible - and as close to natural as possible.
And here's what we don't do - we don't spank, as I explained in the previous post. We don't really "ground." And we don't really do "time-outs." Often someone needs a bit of space and time to cool off, so we do occasionally send kids who are old enough (the seven year-old and up - don't send an angry five year-old to his room to be alone, as I learned the hard way) upstairs to take a breather if they aren't able to control their anger or be reasonable. That's as much for their benefit as for ours. But here's my problem with time-outs: often it's for out-of-control behavior in young children. So if this immature little person is already out of control, how can you expect them to suddenly control those out of control emotions - only this time, in an even more restricted space? It's my opinion that what's being taught here is how to surpress those emotions so they can be free, rather than how to deal with those emotions constructively. And if it's not for out of control behavior...well, then what IS it doing? What are they supposed to think about? If they've truly made a sinful choice, how can repent by themselves? To me, that seems to be asking many things at once from a child, some of which they may not even be developmentally able to do. Andrew Paduwa said of learning that you can't help a child "too much", and I think that can apply to discipline as well. I think you can't help them too much when it comes to helping them be good.
Of course, that takes time. It may be that time-outs and spankings get quicker results (although I would just question if those are merely short-term results). And for heaven's sake, I'm not saying that people who use those strategies don't also invest time and energy in their children. I'm just saying that if you don't, as we don't, people will probably look askance at you and questions whether you are letting things slide. "If you don't take care of such-and-such now,.then they'll never...or you'll never...or they'll always..." But I've found, as in all things involved with raising children, if it starts with an "if-then" like that, it's an idea probably based on fear. Okay, it IS true that IF you don't teach them at all, THEN things will be bad for everyone involved. But beyond that, in the details, we don't want to be ruled by many "if-then" fears. If I comfort my two year old because she's upset that I won't give her something, she won't continue to throw herself on the floor every time she gets emotional. She'll grow out of that on her own. But she'll also know love and mercy at the same time she's learning about boundaries.
And that pretty much sums it up. Of course we believe in boundaries. But we believe we can show love, mercy, sympathy, and kindness as we teach those boundaries. We believe there is no such thing as helping them too much as we teach our children, that helping them get lots of practice in being good is better than daring them to be bad, then punishing them for it. We believe in removing temptations if we can, and helping them work through temptations that are unavoidable. We believe, most of all, in speaking to their hearts, because eventually they will have to make decisions on their own. They have to decide whether to follow God's Word or not, and we truly want it to be about following Him, rather than following a list of our do's and don't's. We're not really after getting well-behaved children. (gasp!) We're after growing people who will help "turn the world upside down."
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