Instruction of Children

I went to a great meeting at the FPEA conference this weekend, Ginger Plowman (author of "Don't Make Me Count to Three"). Despite that she spoke INCREDIBLY fast, I was able to get a lot out of the workshop. Some main points were:

Instruction of children is just as important as discipline (spanking). This was a good reminder. I know that the outward behavior of children is a manifestation of what is in their heart, but during the day to day madness, I can focus primarily on the outward behavior. I react to whatever it is they are doing to annoy me, disobey me etc, discipline, and move on.

She also said, "the first objective should not be to let them know how YOU feel about what they have done wrong, but drawing the child out about what THEY think they have done wrong."

Now, obviously we are talking about a child who can actually understand and communicate to you what they have done. Kayla (six years) is very capable of communicating to me what she has done wrong. Wyatt (two years) is beginning to be able to do this as well. Personally, I feel at times like I do not have time to actually draw my kids out. I want to tell them (sometimes loudly and very firmly) what they have done wrong, how this affected Mommy, and that they better not do it again! This is dangerous in many ways, but mostly because it creates a man pleasing "fear" of me and will turn into a possible robotic obedience to please me.

Here are some "deceptive philosophies" of discipline and correction:

Bribing - This encourages selfishness.

Threatening - Basically teaches that mommy or daddy does not mean what they say. Most of the time, we do not follow through with our bribes. Right? May our yes be yes, and our no be no.

Appealing to emotions - "Why would you do that? You know it makes me sad! Do you want mommy to get upset?" This teaches them to be man pleasers.

Manipulating their environment - This was an interesting one for me. She used the example of a toddler and grabbing random items from a table (at another persons home). The child grabs the vase, you move it out of the way, the child grabs the flowers, you move them higher, the child grabs the whatever, you move it higher. Intead of dealing with the child and their self control issues, you manipulate the environment. Basically, as she put it, if you can reach it, it is yours, if you cannot reach it, it is mine. This helps at that very moment, but is not teaching them the root issue of obedience and self control.

Reasoning - Talking them into obedience. For example, I tell Kayla to come to lunch. She says, "no thank you I am not hungry". I proceed to reason with her telling her it will get cold if she does not come, her brother wants to eat with her, I will give her cookies if she eats etc. A great point she made was that usually we are outwitted by the child and end up bribing, but also, that the reasoning puts the child at peer level with the parent. THEY get to decide when the reason is good enough to make it worth their while to obey.

Now how should we respond? Our objective in our communication with our children should be to understand THEM as much as they understand US.

We should:

Probe their hearts
Talk about how they responded to the particular temptation
And discuss other ways they could have responded

Something practical PJ and I plan on doing is creating a "sin chart" much like the one she actually discussed in her seminar. She sells them, but we have decided to make our own. This will hopefully help us to think and prepare for times of disobedience with our children, but also be able to make it based upon the situations that arise most with our particular children. It will have different situations (arguing, selfishness, disrespect) and then scripture to go along with them. Basicially a chart of "put on, put off" of various sins. This way, when a situations arises we will be more prepared to actually take the time to talk, draw out, and help them understand what they are doing is not only disobeying mom and dad, but most importantly, sinning against God.

Some scriptures that she used, but I could not get them all down.

Proverbs 4:3
Romans 3:23 (Instruction)
Mark 7:21
Proverbs 18:2 and 18:13
2 Peter 1:3
James 1:5
James 1:19 (Threatening)
Proverbs 15:28 (Threatening)
Col. 2:8 (Reasoning)
1 Corinthians 10:13