Gentle Discipline

Does God punish us?

August 7, 2006 by amanda 2 Comments

Joe and I had the most amazing conversation last night about God’s character and how that translates into our marriage and our parenting. I’m hoping to do a couple of blog series on the stuff that we discussed because it was really awesome.

The conversation started with a discussion of God’s character and whether or not God punishes us. The way that you answer this question not only changes the way that you look at God, but also the way you relate to Him, the way you talk to yourself and respond when you sin, and the way you respond to others when they sin. This is such an important topic, and its one that Christians are really wishy washy on…

I believe we sometimes experience consequences of our sin, however I do not believe that God punishes us, especially after we repent and ask for forgiveness. When we are forgiven it is complete. There may be consequences that happen from our sin, but I do not believe that God actively punishes us.

Hebrews 8:12For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.

Hebrews 10:15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16″This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”[b] 17Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”[c] 18And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.

Proverbs 28:13 He who conceals his sins does not prosper,
but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

1 John 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

God teaches us by grace. He gives us grace and we respond. When we repent, we are forgiven.

I think of how this applies in my life and how I often choose not to follow in God’s pattern. If I sin, I often want to do to myself what Satan would like for us to do: to isolate, tell myself that I am not worthy of love, and to hide in shame. I am basically putting myself in time out. I withdraw myself from those who love me and tell myself how terrible I am. This is not how God handles us at all! When we sin, we are supposed to do just the opposite. We should confess and be healed!

James 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.

The Christian community almost encourages outward “sinlessness” above heart change. I think that many of our marriage and parenting methodologies try to make everything pretty on the outside, and yet never address the heart.

If I raise children that act perfect on the outside, but don’t have it in their heart, then I have failed! Why does the evangelical community (and our curriculums in particular) keep missing this fact?

The focus on outward appearances has made generation after generation of Christians who do not want to admit their sin and who try to act as if they are perfect. We try to push this perfection on others. The problem is that it is superficial. It is not true. How much better off would the Christian community be if it were filled with believers who admitted their mistakes, tried to be better, and lived in grace?

So why is it that we model to our children and to each other a completely different gospel? Why do we continue to punish ourselves, each other, and our children when that is not the way that God teaches us?

I think that a lot of us are in fear that if our spouse, our friends, or our children are not “punished” when they admit sin to us, then they will have “gotten away” with what they did wrong. I am guilty of fearing this. The fact remains that this is NOT how God teaches us though. He does not make us pay when we confess our sin. He shows us grace.

I’m off to think some more. Please feel free to share any thoughts

Those wonderful twos.

June 21, 2006 by amanda Leave a Comment

My dd has recently hit the “disequilibrium” that we’ve all heard so much about. She is almost two-and-a-half, and she has been teaching me so much in the past few months.

I was talking to a friend on the phone, and she mentioned that this should be easy because I’ve already been through this with ds. In reality, I’ve never been through this. Ds has a completely different kind of personality and never had anything anywhere close to “terrible” twos. As a matter of fact, at this age he didn’t even say “no” yet. He still just said “Sure!”

I saw a few weeks ago that Crystal recommended Your Two-Year-Old as a good book for this age (go figure), so I picked it up from the library. The library version is really old – it was published in 1980 just days after I was born So there are some outdated aspects, like a discussion on whether or not to put a car seat in the front or back |-| I’m assuming that those references have been removed in the latest version of the book. Then again, maybe they just changed the cover – I don’t know.

Back to my point though: despite the age of the book, its been a very nice read. It has really reminded me that everything that my dd is dealing with is totally normal and has given me a few new tools It has also given me a wonderful peek inside of the two-year-old brain and how it is developing and working. Its really been lovely

As for my problem though… Yesterday and today have been plagued with instances where she requests something, then I acknowledge her request, and then she gets upset even though we’re agreeing. She’s not mad, she’s obviously having a problem communicating, but I have been trying to figure out the best way to validate her feelings and let her know that she is heard. Today’s example was (her) “I’m hungry.” (me) “We’re going to go get something to eat right now.” “No! I’m hungry!” “I know, we’re going to go get some food.” “But I’m hungry!” ??? I ended up distracting her and she was SO happy when we stopped and ate. She kept thanking me for the meal. She really was hungry and really wanted food, but she was still upset. As I was pondering a good response to that today, I read this quote

…he doesn’t want to stay, but he doesn’t want to go ( and this, of course, is often the case when he isn’t in a bad mood) — some simple suggestion such as “But where are your shoes?” can shift his attention, with good results. Also, don’t give him more than once or two chances to make up his mind. If it becomes clear, and it often will, that he is not going to be satisfied with either of two alternatives, just pick him up and remove him from the scene, or otherwise terminate the situation. He may cry and scream, but this is preferable to continuing on and on with a fruitless, frustrating, and rather ridiculous, “Do you want to go home now?” “No.” “Do you want to stay?” “No.” If nothing pleases, so be it!

Yesterday the same thing happened with her shoes. She had her shoes on and was crying because she wanted to wear her shoes. I thought maybe she wanted them off, but then she was crying even harder. I put them on and she just kept crying and saying “I want my shoes on!” Its tricky. I’m telling you…

Distraction does seem to help a whole lot. I’m glad that I was able to get a little pat on the back today though. The book really helped

The punitive mindset

March 3, 2006 by amanda Leave a Comment

Although I have spent plenty of time trying to explain it, I still find that many of my friends (the non-GBD kind) don’t see how coming from a punitive mindset changes everything about their discipline, even if the actions that they take are very similar to those of us who practice grace-based discipline.

Last night I finished Crystal Lutton’s Biblical Parenting, and I felt that she concluded with a great discussion of this point. Here she is using the example of a teenager who is about to get her license.

A healthy boundary for a parent to set with regards to their vehicle is that no one without insurance may drive their car. Tell your daughter in advance, perhaps at a famliy meeting, what will happen if she doesn’t keep up the insurance payments. I suggest that she not be allowed to drive your car without insurance. If she misses a payment, take her license and keys. When she catches up on the premiums, return them. This is not punitive. It is logic an adolescent can follow, and it prevents the natural consequence of being in an accident without insurance or a ticket for the same, and your daughter knows the consequences beforehand. This same action would be punitive if done reactively. If you’ve never discussed what will happen if she doesn’t keep up the premiums, it’s punitive to enter her room and demand her keys. Everything within the window needs to be proactive, not reactive.

That makes perfect sense, right? The behavior of the parents can change whether their actions are punitive or not. Its not just what you do… its how you do it.

In the above quote, Crystal also references her “window” which I thought was a great visual for showing how we are to react to our children in a way that is neither permissive nor punitive. I wish she had it online (she may, but I can’t find it), because I’d love to discuss it, but it’d be hard without the pictures.

Now that I’m done with the book, let me say that I truly enjoyed it. I would love it if our small group could study it. My only comment/concern is that I honestly don’t know that many of the men of the group could handle it in Chapter 2 when Crystal says (in speaking of how gender roles and the role of community has changed)

Because of this ever-increasing reliance on a husband to help in parenting the baby and young child, men’s ideas on how to parent children of this age have become more pronounced and are often seen as the “expert” advice. However, it is the woman who has been designed and called by God to parent these young people and, while the help of a husband/father is vital in our culture today, the man would be wise to follow his wife’s lead during these early years.

I totally, absolutely, completely see where she’s coming from, but I know that the military men in our group would piss their pants when they read that. If it was later in the book, I think that we could have a great discussion, but I think that the fact that it is so close to the front means that they wouldn’t even go on. I am sure that was not her intention at all, and they’d see that if they kept reading, but I don’t think they’d ever touch the book again

I’m hoping that our current group book Families Where Grace Is In Place will be enough of a gateway that we could later do Crystal’s book

Descriptive Praise

February 24, 2006 by amanda Leave a Comment

http://aolff.org/

I’ve been devouring my way through Crystal Lutton’s Biblical Parenting this week. I have known Crystal for quite a while, so I feel like I’m doing this backwards, but when my friend had her book sitting on the couch, I couldn’t help but steal it, lol.

Yesterday’s lesson for me was on descriptive praise. I have often heard that you shouldn’t use subjective words like “pretty” or “good”, instead you should use descriptive praise. I wasn’t really sure that this would work, and I honestly wasn’t sure that it is how God works. I kept thinking of

Luke 19:17″ ‘Well done, my good servant!’ his master replied. ‘Because you have been trustworthy in a very small matter, take charge of ten cities.'”

Here it seemed to me that God was being both subjective and descriptive, but then I suppose that God knows what is well done or not, lol, so maybe its not subjective. Hmm, I’ll have to think about that.

Plus, non-descriptive praise is everywhere. Even Joe on Blue’s Clues tells kids they’re “really smart”. It didn’t seem like a huge deal to me. I’ve never told my kids that things that they do make them “good” or “bad”. I know that’s a big no-no.

Anyways, this quote in Crystal’s book helped to give me a nudge to change.

If your child brings you a picture tell them what you see. “You used lots of green. I see squiggly lines and some straight ones.” If your daughter asks what you think of her dress tell her what you see. “It’s blue and it has flowers.” You will be amazed at how her face lights up. My son calls me into his playroom to show me what he’s done with his cars and I tell him what I see. “You have lined them up and all the trucks are together.” He feels a sense of accomplishment and knows that I have noticed his hard work because I can tell him what he did.

So yesterday we made brownies. I’m using up the last of my Duncan Hines dairy-free mixes (which they’ve done away with, but that’s another blog entry). My 4-year-old son always pulls up a chair to stand next to me when I am mixing, and he always helps me to stir. He asked if he could do it all by himself, so I gave him the spatula. He stirred for a good minute, and did it to completion. Instead of my usual “Good job, you stirred the brownies.”, I said “You stirred the brownies completely. Now they’re ready to go in the pan.”. He looked like I had just told him that he had won a lifetime supply of toys, lol. He lit up, stood taller, and looked so proud. Its amazing what a difference of a few words can make!

Thank you, Crystal!

Kids and Chores

February 18, 2006 by amanda Leave a Comment

This is a topic that I’ve been thinking about quite a bit recently. We’ve never had any kind of formal chore charts for our kids, but they are always happy to help when it comes time to pick up the house. They help enthusiastically and with a generous heart. I have thought about making charts, but I wonder if that will take some of the enjoyment and the gift of it away.

I found some lists online for what should be expected for each age, and my kids do pretty much everything on there. There are some things that don’t apply (like feeding pets – we don’t have any), but they are great about doing the items on there that apply to our family.

So I guess I’m just wondering what you do with your families. If you have a chart system, when did you start?

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