I think that this part is well said- I've never heard it put quite this way. But imagine how your child sees you- you are probably twice his size, you are the person who loves and cares for him, he trusts you more than anyone. And now you are going to hit him? What does this tell him? It's OK to hit someone you love? It's OK to hit someone who is smaller than you? It's OK to hit someone if you have a good reason? Do what I want or I will hit you? I certainly get upset at my kids, but not enough to hit them.
To have a blanket no spanking rule is almost as bad as exclusively spanking. It needs to be an option in certain(hopefully that never happen) situations for kids as needed. And yes, speaking to them about the wrong doing regardless of spanking is a pretty good thing to do.
Oh please, save it. I've heard this from tons of "amazing" parents only to find out their daughter Sara is smoking pot and humping Jermaine the 19 year old senior 5 times a week. Do you really know what your kids are doing Mr. Father of the year? Between classes, after school, in the evenings, when they go to "hang out"? Have you installed any surveillance systems? All the hugs in the world won't cure adolescence. "Hands should be associated with warmth and caring so use plastic spatula's to spank" lol what kind of crap is this. A hand is a hand and people in general should learn not to bite the hand that feeds them. Karate chops, ball squishing, eye gouging are all acceptable techniques.
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hFgR0m-9FmM?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hFgR0m-9FmM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
Positive appraisal through love, modeling, explicit knowledge of expectations and unconditional support. When all else fails, burn the Xbox and the Pokemon cards.
Why am I disciplining them? For like, not walking the dog when it was on their chore list, or lying about brushing their teeth? If so, easy. My punishment of choice: the withholding of my love. Sure, its effects aren't as immediate as, say, a "time out" in the corner, or a good old-fashioned Wal-Mart mid-aisle beatdown. But by the time they hit their early twenties, you betcha, it's a doozy. A kid can shrug off a spanking, but this way I'll be sure and get the last laugh (even if it is from a nursing home).
I want to make it clear that I do not consider myself a "Dad of the Year" by any stretch of the imagination. All, I can claim is that, "So far, so good". The true fruits off our efforts will not be known until they all grow up and start their own family. Will they ask our advise on how to raise their own kids is very much TBD. Also, I do want to make it clear that the advise I am giving has not be "invented" by me. This is feedback from a lot of parents who have gone thru the whole child raising process with fantastic children. Most of this is backed up by research. Focus on the Family is a great source of Christian based discipline and family related issues. I will give a basketball example, NBA players makes the things that they do look easy. What you don't see is all the hard work they do in the gym to get to that point. There is a saying that a lot of kids that go thru "issues" as teenagers most likely believe: "I can't hear what you are saying, because what you are is screaming at me." So, kids are ALWAYS observing you. They are looking to see if you yourself are following all the lessens the parent is preaching. One of my favorite Christian songs is "Jesus, help me to be like You, because my son wants to be like me." When my daughter turned 8, I started having "Saturdays with Dad", no brothers and no Mom. We just go out and hang out and do what she wanted to do. This is the "work in the gym", or better yet, the "earning" the right to tell her what our expectation for her are as long as she is under our care. Also, and this is KEY, we are very, very meticulous about who our kids friends are and try to know their parents very well. IMO, this is where a lot of parents go astray--they don't make sure their their closed friends/parents value system match their own. For example, say you allow your 7 yr old to be best friends with a kid with a family who's value did not match your own. Then when they turn teenagers and you think they are a bad influence on your kid--it's too late to tell your kid not to be friends anymore. They are in the rebel zone already. Parenting is very hard work and is a thankless job a lot of times--until your kid gets to an age of maturity and starts to appreciate all your efforts. However, there are no guarantees in life, and our goal is not be a perfect Dad''s or Mom's--just be the best one that we can be. To follow up on the point, parents tend to take too much credit when their kids turn out to be great or super talented and too much blame when they turn out not so well. They are very unique and our goal is to make sure they understand we are always there for them and ingrain universal Christian principles and values. So I believe, as a Christian parent, all I am asked to do by God to do is show them where the "water" is, make sure we are drinking from the same water fountain and then it's up to them to drink themselves. BF
It's been my experience that the children of parents whose every goal is to inculcate "universal Christian values" in them tend to go one of two ways - either they're well domesticated and never question the values they were raised with, or they suffer a sudden (and usually very painful) crisis of conscience when they are away from the idea-shaping forces of their parents for the first time. It's not fun when, in your first few years of independence, you suddenly are struck with the inescapable conclusion that everything you know is wrong.
I agree 100%, it will get exponential more difficult as they get older. That's why we are working very hard to build a trusting relationship with our kids while they still view as "only second to God". You really have a very small window to "get the concrete foundation poured." We try very hard to explain to our kids why we vet their friends so meticulously--at an early age. Our hope is that once they understand the "why's" of our expectations along with the "what's" are the landmines of life--relevant to their current stage of development--then they can start making their own judgments. These conversations are not one time deals; it's an ongoing process that has to be reaffirmed on a regular basis. Hence, the "one-on-one" time with Dad on weekends. Once they turn into teenagers, it's almost too late. Also, there is nothing wrong with them making some mistakes—its how you learn. We just want them to steer clear of some of the big ones such as picking the wrong friends, drugs, peer pressure, sex before marriage (the rights friends will go a long way on this one), etc… Finally, I will reiterate again, we just try the best we can and leave the rest in God's grace. Remember, “Not too much credit nor too much blame…..” BF
The treating them as if they are older than they actually are. I actually rarely have to spank my son since he now responds to tone and my counting to 3. I'm not an effective spanker so much as spanking is an effective tool. I think as they get older that changes, and other methods become more effective as their brains develop.
IMO, a lot of "Christian" parents do make it seem that if a sin is done, it's automatic eternal hell. We emphasis the "Grace" part of Christian values the most. We try to teach our kids that it's only naturally that they will go astray every now and then—even though they know it’s not the right thing--however, the God of our Faith is forgiving and so we are to be also. Our kids know that God and their parents will always there for them. God and their parents do not hate them, only the sin. Also, the values, lessons and wisdom will "kick in" in time as they take on more and more responsibilities in life. Our goal is to make sure the values are like a bottle of Ragu, "it's in there." In regards to keeping the faith in adversity: I give my kids a visual on how to look at Faith and why it’s important. I try to teach our kids that faith is like the deep waters of the ocean. The amount of faith you have is like how deep below the ocean surface you are. The more faith, the more water you have above you. So, when the “storms of life” are raging on the surface, those who don't have much faith are like the boats at the surface and get caught in the storm and get broken. However, those whose faith a strong is like being down in the ocean depths. When the inevitable storms or even the occasional “hurricane” comes, they have very little affect on you—since you have so much water (Faith) between you and the storms. BF
I don't know. I think you have to work a fine line of keeping your child from being too sheltered. What we have to do is make sure they will avoid temptations based on peer pressure. I have plenty of friends that do hard drugs, and the vast majority of my friends smoke weed, but I do not. I always said no. Its really up to your child's personality and the beliefs they make for themselves. Clearly you are quite a bit more religious than me, but I don't consider sex before marriage a big one. I hope they would avoid pressure to have sex, and not pressure their partner into it, but if they both want to, I think its okay to have protected sex.
Wow. This is wrong on so many levels. Children aren't adults. They are still developing physically and cognitively. They don't listen like adults. They don't reason like adults. They aren't adults. Why on earth would you interact with them as you would an adult? I think more parents should try to learn about child development and how their children learn (my favorite theory: Piaget's four stages of development). If they knew more about what their child can and cannot understand, they might just be better parents.
I think your doing a great thing here - Study's have shown that girls who have a good close relationship with their fathers tend to have their first menstration later, and delay their first sexual intercourse until they are older. You are right about knowing their friends and friends parents - yes, they can change friends in HS, but if they have a tight core group of friends younger, or if they are very involved in youth groups through their church, they are much less likely to change peer groups. Kids that suddenly change peer groups in High School, often never felt accepted in the first place. Church youth groups and a tight group of friends often fulfills that need for acceptance.
I think this is the key when you do spank. We mainly use timeouts, but sometimes I feel a spanking is acceptable - but I always hug them and reiterate my love for them and why they were punished.
I'm glad that has worked for you. I take information from all sources possible and try to determine the best path. The older I get the more I realize how much I can learn from other people. In this instance, the book was published nearly 50 years ago and is still in circulation without an update ...because it works. As I mentioned, my day care said they've never seen a kid that resists authority like her (which has been around for 20 years). Once she's made up her mind, it take hours sometimes to coax her down. She digs in her heals and refuses to listen further. The key with her is we always to be 2-3 steps ahead of her. If not, then she rebels against any effort to correct behavior. If we do it correctly, she feels involved in any decisions and willfully complies. As soon as we let our guard down for something as simple as asking her to put on her shoes before school, then what seems like a simple request turns into a firestorm. EVERY morning, I have to start talking to her about putting on her shoes 15-20 minutes in advance and the consequences of not doing so. This way she can make up her own mind if she's willing to tollerate the consequences and doesn't direct her anger at us. Since we employed this method, things have been much smoother because we let her make her own decisions. The challenge is figuring out how to frame each and every possible decision she can make in the course of the day so she understands the consequences. It's tiresome ...but not as tiresome as a 45 minute temper tantrum just to put on underwear.
I'm an educator and I work with children every day. What I meant by discipline children the same way you would discipline adults is to take into consideration every factor of the moment, their environment as well as the human personalities involved, rather than rely on a preconceived plan. You wouldn't discipline every adult the same way would you? So you would not discipline every child the same way either. What I was alluding to was that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to disciplining children, just like there is no one-size-fits-all approach to disciplining adults, a point that I was making in order to hopefully dissuade parents from operating with double standards and in the process disrespect their children. I looked up your Piaget's four stages of development and it just seems to me like an oversimplification of the cognitive processes of children. In my experience, it's just not that cut and dry in the real world. Exceptions exist frequently enough that it's more realistic to act on a improvisational basis than a theoretical basis. My experience gives me the impression that people treat children the same way they treat adults. If they're warm, kind, and friendly toward one, then they're the same with the other. If they nitpick, find faults with, coerce, are needy with, and control one, then they're the same with the other. Of course everyone acts both ways at some point in their lives, but patterns or behavior are generally repeated in all of a person's social interactions.
