Did any of you have a hard time w/ GD parenting books at first?

[Titus2:5Catholic]

I've now read "The Discipline Book", "Positive Parenting", "You can't make me...", "Raising your spirited child", and I'm working on "Easy to Love....". I've also read a couple of others (Parent Effectiveness Training and one other that I don't remember the name of)

I'm finding it very difficult to read them. I don't feel like they realize that there are times your child must obey now just because you said so. Many of them seem to have an attitude against authority in general and obedience in general. And quite a few seem to have a New-Agey attitude (I want to get Biblical Parenting, but until I find it in a thrift store... :) )

I must say too, I'm not completely sold on the idea of punishment as always evil. Punishment as revenge because the child behaved badly, yes. But I don't think it's wrong that there are negative consequences to certain actions that will always be enforced. In fact, I think it's highly necessary; although certainly the goal should be to avoid getting there in the first place.

[Katherine]

Yes. Although some of them were "AHA" type books, I read others with scrunched up face, raised eyebrows, or shaking my head at parts...

It goes against the grain of everything I ever "knew" or had heard/been taught about how families ought to function. In fact, some of it was the incarnation of the "evil" secular, psycho-babble parenting philosophy that no Christian should fall prey to. :rolleyes I had heard some of the specific PP/GP/GBD ideas scoffed and criticized from the pulpit my whole life, so it really took some time and the SLOW process of gradually reconsidering one little concept at a time for me to become more accepting of the premise as a whole.

All I can tell you is that, for me personally, I have come to embrace and have new understanding for MANY of the GD ideas that I initially recoiled from or flat-out disagreed with. I can't say that will happen to you, of course. :shrug We all travel our own path in learning how to parent our children, and we all arrive at different conclusions. The two most convincing things for me were:

1) putting into practice some of these "dubious" ideas ;) and seeing the dramatic changes begin in both my own heart and my ds's behavior. :heart :) You can't imagine how shocked I was when I tried some these from "Raising Your Spirited Child" and they worked almost instantly!! :eek And reflecting feelings felt soooo awkward and weird for me at first... and I couldn't imagine it ever helping.. but it does!

2) relapsing to punitive behaviors or even just attitudes and seeing ds's behavior and my relationship with him deteriorate--seeing the worst (most selfish) side of myself come roaring back to the surface... wondering why everything was coming unglued.. and realizing that I had returned to this *attitude* of parenting. :cry

[ServantofGod]

Yes. For me, "Easy to Love..." was the easiest to use. I felt that some of the books seemed too vague about what to actually do. I guess I'm just very action-oriented and I wanted to see real solutions, not just some airy idea of being positive and gentle. Easy to Love was specific and solution-oriented and I like that.

When I came here, initially I had problems with some of the ideas. I remember reading that a biting toddler might be teething and I was like - :laughtears Yeah, RIGHT! But to my utter surprise, when Collin bit Kyla and I gave him a teether and explained that he was to bite it when he felt the need to bite - it WORKED! I could not believe it! He carried around the teether for a few weeks and he never bit anyone again.

I will admit that I'm not sold on the idea of 100% totally never-anything punitive...but it is kind of moot, because I don't think it's possible to be 100% never punitive.

There are still some gentle concepts that seem too permissive to me.

[Chris3jam]

You know, I could have written Palil's post, word for word, especially that everything, and I mean, everything, about child development and child psychology as being touted as evil, worldly, dangerous, and outright wrong, from the pulpit. It still is being taught. Not to mention, things like ADHD, Bi-polar disorder, SID, and all the others do not exist --- they are just excuses for not disciplining children, at the cost of that child's soul (as in, if you "give in" to this excuse of a "disorder" you WILL lose your child to the world. It is fact.). :eek :rolleyes Children do not have mental disorders -- maybe physical ones, ones you can see (like CP, or other physical disorders). This is taught as fact, from the pulpit. :rolleyes

What helped me a lot was to think about who Jesus was, how He would handle a situation, etc. What is God like? How did He do this? What is His instruction to us in this matter? It was reading these books in conjunction with the Bible, and finding out what the Bible really says.

For instance, this morning, my 7 yo was very upset. So, he punched the wall a few times (among other things). NOT good. It could have put a hole in the wall, he could have hurt his hand, he is showing MAJOR loss of control, and sinning as all get out! It produced a "righteous anger" within me at this horrendous display. I wanted to jump all OVER him for this! He knows better! He should have better control! As my dh says, "He should have gotten a good butt-whipping for that, to show him just how unacceptable that is!" Then --- I think, what SHOULD I do? If Jesus were standing next to me (and He is definitely watching), what would I want Him to see? Where is my heart? I want to show my child that what he did was totally unacceptable and will not be tolerated. But, how is whipping him going to do that? One of the most illogical things I have ever seen (and done) in my LIFE is spank a child for hitting! Imagine -- you are hitting your child after explaining to the very same child exactly why hitting is wrong! It will teach him nothing but that the rules for big people are different than the rules for little people, and he would be justified in using force with a smaller person in order to "right a wrong" in his eyes. And that it is ok to hit people. I've seen this happen with my own eyes.

(OK, Chris, let's get back on topic! :grin) So, I went and I talked to my son. I was still a bit angry, so I probably didn't handle it as well as I should have, but I explained my emotional reaction to his action, and I asked him, "Now, did I act on my anger? The Bible says, "be ye angry, and sin not". So, I control myself. Yes, you were very angry. That is legitimate. You were wronged. BUT -- you moved into sin when you displayed it in such a destructive and violent way. I expect you to control yourself a lot better than that. You come to ME when you have a problem. There are many other things you can do to handle your anger. God expects you to do right, just like He expects me to do right, no matter how I feel." Etc. (I told you -- not a good example, but I was still *hot* at his violent, out-of-control behaviour)

But, you know, I got a much better and cooperative reaction from that than the hardening of his heart a spanking would have produced (trust me, I've been there).

I would recomment reading "Families Where Grace is in Place", and "Heartfelt Discipline". Yes, more books! :grin But, read them with your Bible open right next to them. And check it out.

[MarynMunchkins]

Well...no. :giggle But 1) I'd been reading here for almost a year before I read any books. 2) I've only read a few. I have "Biblical Parenting", "Grace-Based Parenting", "Families Where Grace is in Place", and "Playful Parenting". All are fabulous! :tu

And we are (most likely) dealing with bipolar disorder, which makes me appear permissive to many people when dealing with my ds. :shrug Except, of course, those who have seen Doug raging, and then I seem calm and collected. :lol At any rate though, some of that pyschobabble is becoming daily life for us, so it doesn't seem so bad. :)

[katiekind]

I'm not familiar with those books. Not everything in a book is going to hit one through the goal posts for you. I've gotten insights out of books where I've also done some eyeball rolling. If the author has been around the block with raising kids of his or her own, I tend to be open-minded about what he or she may have learned about parenting that I can learn from him. I don't have to agree with everything.

I do like Clay Clarkson's Heartfelt Discipline, and Ross Campbell's "How to Really Love Your Children". On the subject of punishment, maybe you're tripping over semantics? Although I know when I came to these boards I did not completely "buy" the idea of punishment never...but I started to realize that I actually do never punish. Now that doesn't mean my son's misbehavior is not dealt with. It is. So that's why I'm thinking maybe there's some semantic ground that's at issue. Plus as a paradigm change maybe it is new to think about?

You might like Gregory Popcak as a Catholic author who has a book called Parenting With Grace.

[ellies mom]

My response (for myself) is usually to read another book. It drives DH crazy, but I may get a few good bits (an Ahha moment) out of one book that is presented differently than another book even though they are on the same subject. Just about every book has something I roll my eyes over and something I find worthwhile. Continue reading Easy to Love Difficult to Discipline. I had a hard time getting through the first chapters but there is a ton good info with concrete examples (including examples where the situation was not handled well at the start.)

I also think the differences between punishment and consequences can be complicated. I think it is normal to use them interchangably but on this board we tend to keep them separate. So if both of our children leaves his bike in the driveway overnight, and we both have decided that means the bike is put away for three days, that is a logical consequence (natural would be to let DH run over it or it get stolen). You may call that a punishment and I may call that a consequence and in this situation it is just semantics.

[Titus2:5Catholic]

It goes against the grain of everything I ever "knew" or had heard/been taught about how families ought to function. In fact, some of it was the incarnation of the "evil" secular, psycho-babble parenting philosophy that no Christian should fall prey to. :rolleyes I had heard some of the specific PP/GP/GBD ideas scoffed and criticized from the pulpit my whole life, so it really took some time and the SLOW process of gradually reconsidering one little concept at a time for me to become more accepting of the premise as a whole.


It's hard, because I do see a lot of problems with psychology as it's currently practiced; I do think it is predominately anti-Christian (why else would the APA be debating moving pedophila out of the psychological disorder catagory?), on the other hand, I do think it can have a lot of value; I've seen my bipolar friend really helped, for example.

A friend as part of her state's WIC program had to watch a parenting solutions video. It was supposedly postive parenting, and she said one of the senarios used was that little Johnny wanted to have candy verses cereal for breakfast. Mom was supposed to explain that cereal is healthier then candy (the child was two or three). If the child said no and threw the bowl down on the floor, then a time out would result; during which time it was ok for the child to punch a hole in the wall, trash the room, etc. When the child calmed down, you were then supposed to discuss the differences between cereal and candy, then help the child clean up the room he trashed! She went to spanking after this and I can't say I blame her if that was how gentle discipline was presented!

And it seems like a lot of this "empathizing", "reflecting feelings", etc; is that kind of thing. I know it's not, but it's hard sometimes to keep my finger on what the difference IS, KWIM?

[ArmsOfLove]

. Well, what your friend was shown is definately not GBD/PD :td

And it seems like a lot of this "empathizing", "reflecting feelings", etc; is that kind of thing. I know it's not, but it's hard sometimes to keep my finger on what the difference IS, KWIM? Maybe I can give an example to show the difference :)

Child hits mom. Mom says, "You are angry. I understand. You didn't want to lose your toy. Can you use your words?"

Versus, child hits mom. Mom takes child's hand firmly and gently in hers and says clearly, "No hitting. Hitting hurts. I will not allow you to hurt me." pulls child into a hug or gives them space depending on the child. Mom says, "You are angry. I understand. You didn't want to lose your toy. You need to use your words when you are angry. Let's practice. Say, 'I'm angry.'"

As for the no punishment ever--punishments are added to a situation to cause pain (physical or emotional), create or increase loss, and drive home the lesson. To that extent, they are actually insulting. They say to a person, "I don't trust you to learn the lessons of life without me hurting you."

Certainly there are times when life's lessons come with pain--that's fine. The idea of no punishment isn't that you make life always happy and like living in Disneyland :shrug It's just that you prevent the pain they aren't ready to learn from (you don't let the toddler get hit by the car to learn not to be in the street) and you allow the pain they are ready to learn from (you might let the 5yo fall on the wet cement after warning them about this probability).

What I try to ask myself is, "What is the lesson inherent in this experience? How can I emphasize and maximize on this lesson without detracting from it?" Because when you punish you actually take attention away from the lesson. A child who is angry at mom for a punishment isn't going to focus in on what they learned by falling on the wet cement. Sometimes all I have to do is ask my child, 'Did you learn anything from that experience?' and they tell me :tu Sometimes they have an area that becomes chronic and they obviously are missing the lesson so I might introduce a logical consequence/solution a la Jane Nelson--so it would be relevant, respectful, related and helpful for preventing the problem in the future. For example, Liam is having a hard time getting his room clean with the television on in the room--he gets too distracted. So now the television doesn't come on until the room is clean. And he's expected to clean it first thing in the morning--mostly so that it's done before anyone else gets up to mess up his work ;) (he gets up earlier than the rest of us :) ).

Does that help at all?

[cklewis]

I would STRONGLY recommend that you get anything by Clarkson, Vanvonderen, or Kimmel to start out. That'll set the larger principles straight and other things will fall into place.

Playful Parenting and Raising Your Spirited Child were very practical. Have you seen How To Talk To Your Kids so They Listen and Listen so They'll Talk? :tu

Instead of getting Crystal's book (since you're on a budget), go to her website. And try Joanne's site (http://joanneaz_2.tripod.com/ positivedisciplineresourcecenter/id14.html) too. I think you can get a pretty good sense of what's up without forking out a lot of $$.

If you click on my name in my siggie, you'll go to my blog where there are a ton of websites. I am always surprised by how thorough those resources are for being FREE! :tu

C

[Katherine]

It goes against the grain of everything I ever "knew" or had heard/been taught about how families ought to function. In fact, some of it was the incarnation of the "evil" secular, psycho-babble parenting philosophy that no Christian should fall prey to. I had heard some of the specific PP/GP/GBD ideas scoffed and criticized from the pulpit my whole life, so it really took some time and the SLOW process of gradually reconsidering one little concept at a time for me to become more accepting of the premise as a whole.

It's hard, because I do see a lot of problems with psychology as it's currently practiced; I do think it is predominately anti-Christian (why else would the APA be debating moving pedophila out of the psychological disorder catagory?), on the other hand, I do think it can have a lot of value; I've seen my bipolar friend really helped, for example

I'm not bowing down at the alter of modern psychology by any means... it is wrought with problems, as are many other fields of human service. I have simply observed that--in an effort to separate themselves from the psychological theories and practices they disagree with--the conservative Christian community has in many ways thrown out the baby with the bath water.

We like to pick and choose.. If researchers and psychologists were saying things that supported the cultural ideas already entrenched within the Christian community, then all would be well. For example, if someone "proved" that behavioral disorders had no biological factors or foundation whatsoever, or could be cured by just "trying harder" then Christian conservatives would have a field day with it... "SEE... it's all in your mind.. it's all a bunch of excuses, etc." If someone did a well-documented and widespread survey and found that practicing Christians of certain denominations did not suffer from behavioral disorders or mental illness... If researches were coming out left and right saying that there is no evidence of genetic or physiological factors in things like depression or alcoholism, it would be a high point of sermons every other Sunday in churches like the one where I grew up.

That's not what is happening, so the field of psychology has become the target--it's been labeled as evil and anti-Christian, and many ideas are rejected and even held up for ridicule and abuse without ever being seriously considered or researched. (and I think we all understand that there is both sound and biased research out there)

Isn't gluttonly a sin as well? Why, then, are so many Christians agreeable to the idea that genetic factors contribute to obesity, but not that neurotransmitters or food sensitivities can cause bad behavior, or that some people might be genetically predisposed to depression? Maybe, just maybe... it's b/c eating is culturally acceptable within the Christian community, but behavioral issues are always viewed as black-and-white--sinful behavior versus "being a good Christian." :think

The point I was making is that many ideas about parenting and child development, and a tremendous body of legitmate research in the same arena, is shunned, desparaged, and even censured b/c it doesn't mesh with the parenting philosophy which is already established in churches.

edited for typo

[Chris3jam]

:clap

The point I was making is that many ideas about parenting and child development, and a tremendous body of legitmate research in the same arena, is shunned, desparaged, and even censured b/c it doesn't mesh with the parenting philosophy which is already established in churches.

Or, as our Pastor puts it, it does not fall in line with the Bible. And if we must follow the Word, or follow the world, we as Christians should be following the Word.

Personally, I do not see were it is unBiblical. But, apparently, that's just my opinion. :rolleyes

[hollybells]

Then --- I think, what SHOULD I do? If Jesus were standing next to me (and He is definitely watching), what would I want Him to see? Where is my heart? ...

... So, I went and I talked to my son. I was still a bit angry, so I probably didn't handle it as well as I should have, but I explained my emotional reaction to his action, and I asked him, "Now, did I act on my anger? The Bible says, "be ye angry, and sin not". So, I control myself. Yes, you were very angry. That is legitimate. You were wronged. BUT -- you moved into sin when you displayed it in such a destructive and violent way. I expect you to control yourself a lot better than that. You come to ME when you have a problem. There are many other things you can do to handle your anger. God expects you to do right, just like He expects me to do right, no matter how I feel."

:tu Yes, exactly ... the first part is what I try to remind myself of when I'm at my wits end. And we've already started working on that verse. I say "we" because I've told ds (5) that I struggle too, so we both need to ask God to help us. :pray

I'm going to start looking for some of these books. :)

Holly

[Lois]

Wow I learn so much every day here!!! The more I hear the "why" and "how to" of GBD the easier it is for me to do and shair...thanks for posting!

[Tengokujin]

For me, I needed to really work through GBD in terms of meshing it with my theology. THEN I could read various secular books and fit them into my framework of what I was convinced was right. I guess I have been blessed because I approached this whole mind change thing theologically from the beginning.

I had to spend ( and still spend :)) a LOT of time just considering how God is a parent to me. What sin means. In what ways we still have the image of God. How sin has warped that. Punishment, consequences, etc. etc.

And the best thing is that all this is changing ME.

The books already mentioned are good. Each one has a different slant but you will put together what you believe.

[cklewis]

I had to spend ( and still spend :)) a LOT of time just considering how God is a parent to me. What sin means. In what ways we still have the image of God. How sin has warped that. Punishment, consequences, etc. etc.

:think you know, you're right. You're EXACTLY right!! :amen

C

[Grover]

I have gained alot from reading this thread,so thankyou for asking the question.Initially it was such a u turn for me that it was hard.I just took on board as much as I was able and I am stil,2 years down the line not at the point where many are where punishments never happen,but I am getting there.Take each day step by step.Try out some of the ideas here .I have been amazed at the things that have worked,As i said its a complete u turn thinking .