Yep, it's E. E. again. Can you tell I feel strongly about all this? I'm preaching to myself though too. How often do I let things slide because I don't want the "conflict" in my home (the drawback of being a phlegmatic personality type - avoiding conflict at all costs!)? My neighbors have three kids and can't imagine having four because the kids are so out-of-control. When you have five - you HAVE TO get some rules going - or you'd go nuts! Someone asked me how she could become more organized - I told her to have more kids!  That's how I did it! I'm so much more together with five than I ever was with one. Another side effect of my personality - things rarely happen unless they are fun or URGENT! Housekeeping becomes and urgent matter with five little bodies and two big ones around! Anyway, if you aren't a proponent of disciplining children and you have more than two children, my question is, "How's that working out for you?"

Happy parenting! Enjoy:

When I was the newly widowed mother of a fourteen-month-old daughter, my mother sent me this quotation from Matthew Henry, an eighteenth-century commentator whom my father had been reading aloud to her that morning in April, 1956:

"Proverbs 19:18, 'Chasten thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his crying.' Parents are here cautioned against a foolish indulgence of their children, that are untoward and viciously inclined, and that discover such an ill temper of mind as is not likely to be cured but by severity.

"1. Do not say that it is all in good time to correct them, no, as soon as ever there appears a corrupt disposition in them, check it immediately, before it takes root and is hardened into a habit. Chasten thy son while there is hope, for perhaps if he be let alone awhile, he will be past hope, and a much greater chastening will not do that which now a less would effect. It is easier plucking up weeds as soon as they spring up, and the bullock that is designed for the yoke should be betimes (before it is too late) accustomed to it....

"2. Do not say that it is a pity to correct them, and, because they cry and beg to be forgiven, you cannot find it in your heart to do it. If the point will be gained without correction, well and good; but it often proves that your forgiving them once, upon a dissembled (pretended) repentance and promise of amendment, does but embolden them to offend again, especially if it be a thing in itself sinful, as lying, swearing, ribaldry, stealing or the like. In such a case put on resolution, and let not thy soul spare for his crying. It is better that he should cry under thy rod than under the sword of the magistrate or, which is more fearful, than under divine vengeance."

The language of the eighteenth century sounds a bit stern. We rarely call our children "untoward and viciously inclined," but we see other people's children--in the supermarket, in church, in our own newly decorated living room--who fit that description exactly. Children need a rod, and they need it early. Not a big stick. My parents found that a thin eighteen-inch switch did the trick so long as it was applied at an early age and immediately following the offense. It is important to note Henry's specifying "a thing sinful in itself." Punishment for such things should be different from correction for childish mistakes--spilled milk (have him clean it up if he's old enough), a forgotten chore (have him do that one plus another he doesn't usually have to do).

One grandmother recently told my daughter a method of persuading children to eat what was put before them. When others had finished and a child was dawdling over his plate, she set a timer for five minutes. If the plate was not cleaned it went into the refrigerator to be presented at the beginning of the next meal. "Worked like a charm," she said

Elisabeth is on a roll! Here is another another one:

 

"I have four boys, ages sixteen months through nine years. When I ask them to empty the dishwasher the oldest often says it's my job. I feel they need to learn to work and help around the house, but why? I'd like a specific reason why he should have to do it. I have nothing against big families, but isn't it possible that older kids have to do a lot of work because Mom keeps having babies and can't handle it all? I often feel guilty. Don't children deserve a childhood?"

Good questions. Let me begin with the last. The idea that a child deserves to play rather than work is a mistake. Play is a natural part of childhood but so is work! It better be. I think I read that we learn half of all we'll ever know in the first two years! Watch a child who is given a piece of real work that he can do. He is even happier than when at play. When I phoned Valerie one Saturday she was cooking up fifteen meals to put in the freezer. I heard her six-year-old putting carrots through the food processor and he was having a ball.

Now the first question. Why should they help? Try something like this: "Because you are a working member of this family, for a start. The only one who isn't is the baby. I'm your mother and one of my most important jobs is to teach you to work. I can cook, you can't, but you can empty the dishwasher, so that's your job. The Bible says if a person won't work he can't eat. I'll cook for you, you clean up for me. Doesn't that make sense?"

Teach children the joy of work by your own example. Let them see that you don't hate it. Give everybody a real responsibility, starting early. Two-year-olds can empty waste baskets, set the table, pick up toys and put them away, put silverware in the drawer (provide a step stool), hang up their own clothes, help fold diapers, sharpen pencils. Time in teaching is very well spent. I believe that words of encouragement should be the only rewards offered for routine work. Giving money or special treats delivers the message that working is beyond the call of duty.

Amen, and Amen!

Ok, here I go again, back on my soapbox. I got an Elisabeth Elliott devotional this morning that must be shared. Here are snippets of it:

 

"Aren't children nowadays often getting far too much of the wrong kind of attention and not nearly enough of the right kind? Does it really make sense for kids of six and seven to be so frantically serious about organized sports and to be geniuses at computer games, but to have no idea how to amuse themselves without a coach, a team, a uniform, an arsenal of weapons, or an expensive and complicated piece of electronic equipment--not to mention daily transportation to and from the athletic field, park, ice rink, anywhere but the back yard? Must they be rounded up, herded, instructed, shouted at, praised, coaxed, and hovered over by adults who are paid money to pay attention to the poor little hooligans in order to keep them out of the adults' hair during 'working hours'?

"Is anybody paying attention to how a child works? Is it assumed that if asked to rake a lawn he'll do it halfheartedly? Will he sweep the garage in silent fury or will he rejoice in doing a thorough job of it? Will she scrub a sink till it shines and know herself to be a useful member of a household? School teachers desperately try to teach children who have never really labored with their hands to do schoolwork--not a very good place to start, it seems to me. If a child is not given to understand that he has a responsibility to help make the wheels of home run smoothly--if he is not given work which matters, in other words--why should he imagine that it matters very much whether he cooperates with teachers and fellow students? His parents have failed to give attention to a vital matter. Their attention has been elsewhere--on their own interests, jobs, amusements, physical fitness, or only on the child's health and a misguided notion of happiness which leaves out work altogether. If the 'quality time' his father spends with him is limited to amusements rather than work, small wonder the child assumes nobody really likes work. His choices in how to spend his time, like his preferences in food, are taught at home--by observation of parental attitudes.

"...Is the situation irremediable? I don't think so. Surely we could eliminate some of the frustration and discontent of 'civilized' family life if we took our cues from the 'uncivilized' people who work almost all the time (and enjoy it) and play very little of the time (without making a complicated chore out of it). Happiness, after all, is a choice. Let your child see that you put heart and soul into the work God has given you to do. Do it for Him--that changes the whole climate of the home. Draw the child into acceptance of responsibility by starting very early. Expect the best. If you expect them to oppose you, to 'goof off,' to be terrible at two, rude at ten, intractable as teenagers, they won't disappoint you.

"It takes longer, of course, to teach a child to do a job than it takes to do it yourself--especially if you have not given him the chance to watch you do it fifty times. It takes sustained attention--the sort of attention a child desperately needs. He can't get too much of that. He needs to be convinced that he is a necessary and very much appreciated member of the family.

"What about the sacrifices? We're going to have to make some if we mean to correct our mistakes. Instead of sacrificing everything for money and sports, which most people seem ready to do without a qualm, we may have to sacrifice money and sports for our children. We will certainly have to sacrifice ourselves.

"But, of course, that is what being a father or a mother means." - Author: Elisabeth Elliot  Source: Keep A Quiet Heart

And a bit more from another one of hers:

"...The earlier the parents begin to make the laws of order and beauty and quietness comprehensible to their children, the sooner they will acquire good, strong notions of what is so basic to real godliness: self-denial. A Christian home should be a place of peace, and there can be no peace where there is no self-denial.

"The task of parents is to show by love and by the way they live that they belong to another Kingdom and another Master, and thus to turn their children's thoughts toward that Kingdom and that Master. The 'raw material' with which they begin is thoroughly selfish. They must gently lay the yoke of respect and consideration for others on those little children, for it is their earnest desire to make of them good and faithful servants and, as Janet Erskine Stuart expressed it, 'to give saints to God.'" -  Author: Elisabeth Elliot Source: Keep A Quiet Heart

When Josh and I were driving home from church yesterday, we started discussing the movie "Cowboys" (John Wayne  - When all the adult men go off in search of gold, a veteran rancher is forced to hire eleven teenage boys as trail hands, and in the process of driving 1200 cattle across 400 rough miles, the young cowboys become cowmen.). Although it is a movie I would have to edit considerably before I would put it on my shelf, there are some lessons to be learned from it. Josh commented that he wanted to treat his kids the way John Wayne treated those boys. He didn't mean the common insensitivity that J.W. shows (and learns to change), but the way JW was determined to properly prepare them for what they were going to go through. He looked at what they would experience (400 miles of the toughest wilderness) and trained them accordingly. He didn't coddle them, he gave them what they needed to survive.

So... my question to myself is, "Am I giving my children what they need to survive this life?" They are going to face a world so fraught with temptations and agendas meant to pull them away from Christ - what am I doing to ensure their spiritual survival? When I see an act of disobedience, do I deal with it, or choose to pretend I didn't see it so I won't have to discipline? Do I make sure there are consequences for bad attitudes as well as bad behavior, or do I allow grumbling or delayed obedience? If I cannot teach them to say no to themselves, then how will they ever say no to sin? I think my new phrase to see every morning when I wake up should be "Are you giving them what they need to survive this life?"

Later in the afternoon, my friend Cindy was telling me that she had been reading "Little House on the Prairie" books to her kids. She was pointing out to them that obedience in that time of history often became synonymous with safety. If they had disobeyed and took the cover off the unfinished well, what would the consequences have been? What would have happened if the girls had let Jack, the bulldog, off his chain when the Indians came to the house? Cindy described a situation she had seen at the mall recently where a child was doing everything in his power (including kicking his mother in the shins!) and vocal ability to get to the candy machine that his mother was trying to keep him away from. Cindy pointed out to her children (as she was fleeing the disgraceful scene!), that if the object in question had been life-threatening instead of benign, the mother would probably have been a little more serious about requiring obedience from her child - even if it meant a minor amount of pain inflicted upon him in order to save him from a great amount of pain (or death!). We live in a culture that allows us to be more complacent about our child-rearing: guard rails, warning signs, and (often ridiculous) safety laws do their best to "think" for our children. We do not have to train them to stay away from the edge: the edge has been protected by an OCIA approved railing. And we rarely think beyond the physical realm into the spiritual realm. By failing to train them in physical things, we neglect the spiritual disciplines as well. It is a day for reform. My children were awful in church yesterday. I realize I've been slacking in my consistency. Time for some training lessons. It's clean the house day, so that should afford plenty of opportunities!

Enough blogging, time for living!

Hugs and prayers for a day of self-denial, 

 Kerrie