What changed your perspective?

[SnowWhite]

What did someone say/do that helped change your perspective?

I have a friend who said something along the lines of how she'd never expect a child to do something that she wouldn't expect an adult to do. I really thought about that and it helped change me from treating my children like less than to real people who deserve respect and grace. It really helped change my heart and gave me the tools to think about how I parent as a whole.

[beansmama]

This basic argument:

If Proverbs is literal, then you need to beat your 2 year old on the back with a large stick. But that would bruise or break their back and is illegal. So, obviously it's not literal. So, if it's not literal, why are you hitting them?

[tigerlily]

A few weeks ago, I was reading my dd1 the parable of the man who tells his son to go work in the field. The son says "No, I'm not going to," but later goes and does it. The father tells the other son to go work in the field and he says "Yes, I will.", but never goes.

Jesus asked "Which son obeyed the father?"



Delayed obedience is obedience. No need to punish or get fussy about it -- if my child does what I ask -- even if it doesn't happen in my time frame, she has obeyed.

Despite already "knowning" this, it was definitely a moment that changed my perspective.

[Elora]

http://gentlechristianmothers.com/co...d.php?t=203777

[JoEllen]

For me personally, I know first-hand what it feels like to have a "simple" spanking escalate to full-blown abuse at the hands of the people you are supposed to love and trust the most. I always swore I would never raise a hand to my children.

[november]

I always thought I would spank. I knew I would. I thought non-spankers were the cause for all evil in the world....eyeroll. When I was.pregnant, I saw one person make the statement that adults don't get to hit eachother when we mess up, so why are we allowed to hit our kids? Furthermore, she mentioned how contradictory it is. I can hit you (child) but you can't hit me. It just makes no logical sense. And that's when the wheels started turning and Lexi told me about GCM.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2

[charla]

I was mulling over Psalm 23 and the verse that states: Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. I was trying to figure out how the rod could be a comfort if it was used to hit. That got me started on a search about the rod which led me to GCM.

[blondie]

I always planned to spank too. We had actually started the "flicking" thing when O was pretty young. She was so sweet and I could see the innocence in her eyes and reason with her at a really young age, so I stopped. People at our church really push and pressure to do the "training" and thankfully I saw the light before it got very far.

---------- Post added at 11:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 PM ----------

I guess that didn't answer your question...I guess no one really said or did anything. I just had a heart change/lightbulb moment. I grew up a lot and became my own person instead of just doing what everyone else at church was doing, or what my parents said I should do.

[SnowWhite]

Originally Posted by blondie

---------- Post added at 11:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 PM ----------

[/COLOR]I guess that didn't answer your question...I guess no one really said or did anything. I just had a heart change/lightbulb moment. I grew up a lot and became my own person instead of just doing what everyone else at church was doing, or what my parents said I should do.

That's okay. Thanks for your answer!

We weren't spanking family when my friend said that to me, but I felt like it really challenged me to treat my child with a lot of grace, instead of finding different ways to control my children with fear, KWIM? Personally, I should add that my sister told me about GCM before I even had kids.

[PDX Mommy]

Probably the biggest thing for me was finding GCM. I already knew I didn't want to spank but I didn't know what else to do. I did time outs for a bit when Evan was really young (too young to understand them). But I have also experienced a "simple" spanking turn to abuse. I didn't want that for my kids. GCM gave me reasoning and the words to back up my decision.

[ReadingMommy]

Before I had kids, I just assumed we would spank because that's what I was raised with and that's what I was told the Bible required. (I remember, though, telling DH that I didn't want to and I was going to make him do it! Which I really can't see. DH is naturally more gentle than I am!)

Once DS was born, a couple things happened. First, something that's sensitive (At least for me. I hate thinking about it):

PPD...with me it took the form of severe anxiety. I was on a relentless hamster wheel of OCD thoughts about harm coming to my sweet baby and it was the most awful thing I've ever experienced. But it wasn't an experience that drove a wedge in between me and DS, thankfully. On the contrary, the only good thing I can say about it is that it made me even more fiercely protective of him. I tuned myself completely into his frequency and let all my natural, intuitive mommy love take the reigns. That stress, along with some other major situational stress at the time was making much of my life a living hell, but DS was my true joy and I knew I loved him more than life. Nothing and nobody was going to come between me and him. And I absolutely knew, without a doubt, after experiencing what I did that I would never intentionally physically hurt my child. It hit too close to the nightmares incessantly barraging me during my PPD experience

Secondly, I found GCM around that time (even though I didn't join until last year), and everything clicked into place. The rod studies confirmed for me that spanking is not a biblical requirement, and I was relieved when I came to understand that. The rest came and is coming slowly over time as I learn to know my children and learn how to be a Mommy.

I will also say that parenting my own children has brought up a lot of thinking about my own childhood and remembering. All of which confirms the path we are on.

[Tasmanian Saint]

http://greenegem.wordpress.com/2011/...ng-4-my-story/

[Tandem mama]

I had lots of non-spanking friends who told me why they didn't spank. I was spanking "right" and it wasn't frequent so I thought to each their own.

Nothing anyone said changed my views. It was when our family was in a high stress situation and sunshine was acting oppositionally. I spanked her. She did the behavior again. I spanked again. Harder. Repeat another time. I had this sort of revelation. "this is not working!!!" another time, during that same period, I was yelling and screaming and spanking her and I had a sort of out of body experience where I saw myself. I was terrifying!!! My poor baby. I looked like an abusive parent. I was not spanking hard but wow I was so scary. That's the moment when all my defenses of what I was doing flew out the window. I broke down and cried and apologized to my little girl and prayed and swore i would not spank again. At first it was difficult because I didn't have the tools. At first I wanted to spank. I may have slipped a couple times, I can't fully remember. But I've worked hard and it's been over a year since she's been spanked. She doesn't cower in fear when she makes a mistake anymore. Before that stressful time I'd only spanked a couple times. We are doing better and better. I still struggle with yelling but I've come a long way from that day when I looked like a monster.

[sherry]

Babysitting as a fourteen year old. The parents instruction if the kids didn't listen: "Hit them with the fly swatter". So I did that once. And realized, at 14, that was seriously useless in getting kids under control. The lesson kind of stuck with me.

And I will be forever grateful to the co-worker who, very gently, warned me off of Babywise.

I was never big on spanking, but I was still punitive. I made threats, yelled, showed obvious frustration, provoked my son to anger, pinned unrealistic expectations on him, etc. I will never forget an incident in which I threatened to take all of my son's toys out into the yard and light them on fire if he didn't stop acting out. The look of fear and hurt on his face I will never forget. I actually broke down and cried and told him how sorry I was.

When I became a Christian, I knew I couldn't follow the fundamentalist, traditional approach like TTUaC, GKGW, BW, SaCH or tomato staking. The methodology and interpretation of the Scriptures never sat right with my spirit. I knew God was leading me in another direction. It was actually during a spanking debate on another forum I'm a member of that I found out about GOYBP and AoLFF, which lead me to here. I knew I'd found what it was I'd been trying to do all along, only I didn't have a name for it, a list of tools, a support system or a central clearinghouse of information on it.