Discipline mistake #3: Mom and Dad don’t agree

    Jim and Sally are a great couple. They love God, love God’s people, and serve unselfishly. We have known them for over thirty years, they have been married over forty. They had three kids, now all grown and married. They were agreed on their church and their place in it, but not agreed on how to raise kids.

    As a matter of fact, they were a walking, talking manual of how not to raise kids in unity. Often there was a conflict about when, how, or whether or not to discipline. Sally was doing her best to submit, but not very joyfully, and not very privately. Jim was always ridiculing Sally’s suggestions and using sarcasm to get a laugh or a snicker from his boys.

    The seeds of contempt were sown and the later teen years became quite heart-breaking for Jim and Sally.
   
    When Jim was around, he carried the day; but when he was at work and Sally had the kids, she did things her way. By not backing Jim up, Sally was undermining her own authority with her kids. By not honoring Sally in front of the kids, Jim was sowing seeds of dishonor that would later grow a bitter harvest.

    Today, Jim and Sally are still plugging along together. Their kids are grown and raising their own families, Jim and Sally’s grandkids. Struggles are apparent. They are not part of a church, their kids are not obedient, more heartache seems certain.

    For Mom and Dad to be on the same page is hard work. It takes a commitment from both. Each parent has a big contribution to make toward unity. Each will have to sacrifice to make it happen. It will be worth it.

    The Father wants us to be one because he is seeking children who will display His nature.

    Malachi 2:15  “Has not the LORD made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit . . .”

    Matthew 6:24  "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Although Jesus said this about God and money, its truth certainly applies in our homes. Our kids can’t have two masters.

RELATIONSHIP TRAINING: Teach in the calm; apply in the crisis

     Problem? Name-calling, hurting words, flashing tempers, getting even, slamming doors, shutting out, feeling pain, causing pain. Always a crisis.

     The best time to train and to teach is not in a CRISIS situation. Unfortunately, that’s when we usually try to do it. But when we’re doing that, we are way behind, and “playing catch-up” is hard.

     As a teacher, I had been taught the absolute necessity of schedule and routine for running a class. I found that it was just as necessary for running our home. Although it was a flexible schedule, I often included time to teach the kids from the Bible. Here’s what I learned:

Teach in the calm; apply in the crisis.

     There is just a certain amount of plodding along that must be part of the process of training children.

Isaiah 28:9-10 
"Who is it he is trying to teach? To whom is he explaining his message? To children . . . ? For it is: Do and do, do and do, rule on rule, rule on rule ; a little here, a little there."

     The adults of Isaiah’s day were insulted at Isaiah’s repetitions, but repetition for kids is necessary and enjoyable. They like doing the same things over and over. Often as adults, we find it difficult. My kids laugh about how Keith would fall asleep while reading a story to them. His eyelids would get heavy, his words unintelligible, and then his chin would drop to his chest. They would poke him awake and say, “Da-ad, finish the story.” He had read some of those stories ten to twenty times.

     But back to the crisis. When the same things kept happening over and over, I planned a time to look for answers from God’s word. We would read together, discuss it, and talk about how to apply it. The next time the “crisis” occurred, we had our discussions to refer to. We took God’s word and applied it.

      Having a designated time in the week where the children and I got together to learn was an important step in their building and learning processes. Usually a couple of times a week I would gather them and we would sit and talk.  Often, our talks revolved around Scripture. It was part of plodding along, not always fun, not always easy, not always exciting, but vital.

Hebrews 4:12 
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates . . . judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.

        Often, we learned about relationships—how to get along, how to love each other, how to treat one another, how to respond, how to forgive. We saw relationships with the Lord and with one another as primary. This was a constant need. Relationships are like fragile plants in the garden of our homes. They need care and attention. Left unattended, bitter weeds grow up.

     One of my great encouragers was“Nanny Duke.” She convinced me of the importance of reading scripture with the children. We saw its effect in her grown children. Her influence sharpened my determination to “get the word” into my own kids. Now she is ninety-six and I still enjoy my conversations with her. She never fails to bring God’s words into our talks.

     An additional note: Sometimes it is hard to find the scriptures that you need for the moment. We found that Touchpoints for Students by Ronald Beers is a great little resource for finding the scriptures to fit certain situations. Arranged alphabetically by topics, you can quickly find scriptures that address the various needs of young lives. You can order it from our website: www.parentwisdom.net.  It is a great reference book to just grab off the shelf, look something up, find it in the Bible, and prepare your kids for life.

Teach in the calm; apply in the crisis.

TRAINING: Say goodbye to bullies! Part 1

Are we training our kids to be victims? Or are we training them to be “more than conquerors”?
I think we are training them to be victims far too often.

I have read that as much as 90% of “bullying” is words. Just words. All of us have been hurt by words somewhere along the way, but I dare say that we have allowed ourselves to be hurt by them more than we should. When my feelings were hurt in second grade, my dad taught me this little ditty: “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”

 I went back to school the next day ready for the words, whatever they were. I had a shield; when the sharp arrows flew, I held up my shield—“Sticks and stones. . .” I felt brave like a warrior.

We have been taught that Christians are nice and sweet, that we do not retaliate, that we turn the other cheek, that we do not fight. We work hard as parents to speak kindly to our own children (as much as possible). Then when someone else speaks words that hurt our little guys, we are ready to deal with the bully! Call the parents, call the teacher, call the principal; and if all else fails, call the psychiatrist.

Instead of teaching our kids to stand up, we teach them to come to us and we will fix their problems. Instead of equipping them, we handicap them. We teach them to fear; we teach them that they cannot handle situations without us. We teach them by what we do.

Perhaps we should teach them to respond with courage according to what is right.

When John the Baptist saw the Pharisees coming to the Jordan River, he called them a brood of snakes. I wonder how he would have done on the playground in our modern schools. Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, blind guides, blind fools, whitewashed walls, snakes, vipers, and condemned to hell. Was Jesus a bully? Was Jesus being Christlike? How could he say such things?

What we teach our kids to do is the key. We should teach our kids that saying hurtful things is wrong and does not honor the Lord. We should also teach our kids how to respond if others are being hurtful. The Pharisees were hurting the people; John and Jesus called it like it was.

When bullies show up, fear is not God’s plan for us, nor for our children. Our kids need a different attitude.

How about this? Isaiah 43:1 "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.”

Equip them with God’s word and equip them with a practical strategy, such as my dad gave me. Here’s another strategy: Smile, look the bully in the eye, and say, “It’s a free country; believe what you want.” Then walk away.
Practice this at home. Practice, practice, practice. Telling your child to do this is not enough. Practice.

RELATIONSHIPS: Resolve conflicts now, today, asap!!!

“Are we clear?”

We learned to ask this question of one another early in our marriage. We were checking to see if there were any hurts or offenses that conflicted our relationship. I admit it; I was a clueless oaf when it came to relating to a woman. I was selfish; I did not mean to be, but I was. I just didn’t get it. I would offend and never know it. This relationship question moved our marriage a giant step forward, because we agreed to ask it every day.

Even today, I am something of an oaf, but I am a nicer oaf.

When we began to raise our children, a whole new set of wills entered our home and they were often in conflict. Although most conflicts were small and probably insignificant, they were real. They disrupted the peace in our home when they were not addressed. When these conflicts finally surfaced, we often realized that we were dealing with an issue that might be days or even weeks old. Our children simply did not know how to resolve their problems with one another.

Patricia discovered this passage about Moses in Exodus 18:12-24. Verse 16 is the key: “Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God's decrees and laws." Patricia saw that Moses took time to stop and settle disputes; she realized that she needed to do the same thing as the mother of this small tribe. It gave Moses an opportunity to teach God’s decrees and laws; and it would do the same for her with our children.

Here are four things we tried to get across:

1) Relationships became top priority! Everything stopped in order to make relationships right. If we had to be late, we were late. If dinner got cold, it got cold. Relationships came first.

2) Ask and extend forgiveness: Say, “Will you forgive me?” We insisted on this principle that Jesus taught. If you offend, go and clear it up. If someone asks forgiveness, forgive. This is God’s way, and it is a blessed way. (Now that our children are older—14 to 25—we are seeing the fruit of training them to take the time to ask and receive forgiveness.)

3) You can be right but not righteous. We approached righteousness as a relationship word: being in right relationship with God, people, and things. We learned that a person can be right and yet hurt others with his words. Damage could be done in the name of “being right.” We could not change what was right or wrong, but we could seek to be right in a context of humility and consideration of others.

4) Punishing the guilty brought resolution. There is something cleansing about punishment. Proverbs 20:30 is pretty clear about this: “Blows and wounds cleanse away evil, and beatings purge the inmost being.” When someone offended and no punishment was carried out, the offended one had no sense of justice being done. The guilty person knew that the issue was not resolved because there was no closure. An appropriate punishment coupled with forgiveness brought closure to an offense.

Some suggestions:

Bickering—We separated them for a limited time and gave them individual things to do like reading, playing alone, or practicing piano. We found this more productive than time-out. Before allowing them to come back together, we made sure issues were resolved.

Hurtful words—If sweet things did not come out of their mouths, sweet things were not allowed to go in (no treats or desserts).

Hitting, kicking, harmful play—We simply spanked them and then worked through the forgiveness issues.

In all of the above, we took time to explain, to use scripture, to ask and extend forgiveness.

A balancing truth: My mom was visiting with us once and she shared this bit of wisdom with us, “You don’t have to see everything. Let them work some things out themselves.” After you have trained them, give them room to work things out. Then you become the place of appeal: less hands-on but nearby for counsel.

Ephesians 4:26 encouraged us with this admonition and summarized what we wanted to teach our children: “Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.”

Resolve it now, today, asap!!!