The next wrong choice
Dear Radio Produces of WBGL,
As I was driving one of my children to work, I had your radio station on and happened to catch the most recent spot by Kendra Smiley. Normally, Ms. Smiley is just fine, and I wasn't expecting anything different this time. I listened as she introduced a letter from a frustrated father about how his son didn't seem to listen to him when he was being disciplined. This frustrated father then went on to ask if his two [emphasis mine] year old was capable of understanding and what he [the father] should do.
I admit, that once I heard the age of the child in question, I chuckled softly to myself (having raised quite of few children past this age), thinking that the response would be to take a deep breath, let the child mature a bit, practice redirection, and not to worry about it. I mean, the child is two... little more than a baby, and still very new to everything.
Since that was my expectation, it is little wonder that I was gripping the steering wheel with frustration and, yes, anger over the response from the "expert" which was given. His answer was that yes, indeed the two year old could understand, and not only that, the implication was that he could also act on that understanding. This poor father was told he needed to get his strong willed two year old under control now. The tacit threat being that if he didn't get this poor toddler under control, then he could just write off the rest of his life, and it would be the father's fault because he had lost control.
I'm pretty sure this is not the parenting advice you want to share with your listeners. First, it's wrong. Second it's harmful. And third, it's not even Christian. Let me explain why.
Now, I will be the first in line to say that thirteen years ago, when I had just five children, I would have been cheering the "expert's" advice. It would have been advice I had given, and if you look back on my blog, you will probably find evidence of that advice. (I am not proud of it, and if I ever get a chance, I will go back and put disclaimers not to take my advice on every misguided post.) I was pretty sure I had it figured out and had the obedient children to prove it.
Well, God has a way of showing you where you are wrong, and depending on how stubborn one is, this process can be more than a little painful. I won't go into the details here, but suffice it to say, God brought a child into my life that shook my little, well-ordered world, and after many painful years, I had to admit I didn't have everything all worked out. I deeply grieve the damage my hubris caused.
Over the course of the past thirteen years, I've learned (the hard way), that my children are not an enemy to be bent to my will; to teach them to obey is not my parenting goal. If you look at Scripture, I dare you to find an instance of God parenting us the way this "expert" told the frustrated father to parent his baby. While God most certainly does allow natural consequences, He does not punish us for every little lapse of obedience to His law. Can you even begin to imagine? How would any of us survive? We are just not capable of doing such a thing, but God comes alongside us anyway and offers us grace and love even while we are stewing in a mess of our own making. He doesn't need to punish us, we do that well enough on our own.
That little two year old, while he might have some understanding of his father's (probably many) words, just does not have the intellectual capacity or the executive function abilities to be completely obedient all the time. Instead, two year olds are just learning about the world, just building their language capabilities, just learning how to interact with people, in short, they are just learning. They need consistent love that they understand. They need time and ways to explore their world. They need redirection... loving redirection... when those explorations get them into difficulties. They get tired and hungry easily and need adults to understand that sometimes bad behavior is just a hungry and tired baby who does not yet have words or understanding to say what's wrong. They need care and love, not lectures and "discipline". (I'm pretty sure that it was the negative meaning of discipline that was being used and not the positive guidance-related meaning.)
By airing such supposed "expert" advice, you are essentially telling parents to ignore the actual needs of their child and instead focus on their external behavior. It is just so backwards. Behavior is a child's way of screaming (sometimes actually screaming) that there is a need they need met. Behavior is communication if you choose to listen to it and not just worry about shutting it down for fear of "losing control". Needs that are not met at an early age will magnify to even bigger needs as the child gets older. Instead of avoiding future problems as was implied, the parent would merely be exacerbating them.
We have completely changed our parenting model to one that puts us and our children on the same team instead of on opposing sides where one side wins and one side loses. I'll let you in on a secret. When that is your parenting model, no matter how many "Christian experts" tell you that this is the "right" way to parent, both the parent and the child are going to lose. There is little to no grace in this style of parenting. It's almost as if they "experts" believe that children are exempt from being offered grace; that we can parent out the sin from our children. And even if they were to deny that, their advice as to how to treat children belies that. This is parenting out of fear. Fear of not doing things right. Fear of wrecking your child. Fear of not parenting the "right Christian way". Fear of looking bad (or worse, soft) in the eyes of other Christian parents. Fear of spoiling the child.
Doing anything out of fear is never good, and parenting is no exception. We do not have to fear because God loves our child more than we possibly could. God calls us to love and guide our children, not to anger them or cause them to fear us. Please, reconsider airing this spot on your station.
As I was driving one of my children to work, I had your radio station on and happened to catch the most recent spot by Kendra Smiley. Normally, Ms. Smiley is just fine, and I wasn't expecting anything different this time. I listened as she introduced a letter from a frustrated father about how his son didn't seem to listen to him when he was being disciplined. This frustrated father then went on to ask if his two [emphasis mine] year old was capable of understanding and what he [the father] should do.
I admit, that once I heard the age of the child in question, I chuckled softly to myself (having raised quite of few children past this age), thinking that the response would be to take a deep breath, let the child mature a bit, practice redirection, and not to worry about it. I mean, the child is two... little more than a baby, and still very new to everything.
Since that was my expectation, it is little wonder that I was gripping the steering wheel with frustration and, yes, anger over the response from the "expert" which was given. His answer was that yes, indeed the two year old could understand, and not only that, the implication was that he could also act on that understanding. This poor father was told he needed to get his strong willed two year old under control now. The tacit threat being that if he didn't get this poor toddler under control, then he could just write off the rest of his life, and it would be the father's fault because he had lost control.
I'm pretty sure this is not the parenting advice you want to share with your listeners. First, it's wrong. Second it's harmful. And third, it's not even Christian. Let me explain why.
Now, I will be the first in line to say that thirteen years ago, when I had just five children, I would have been cheering the "expert's" advice. It would have been advice I had given, and if you look back on my blog, you will probably find evidence of that advice. (I am not proud of it, and if I ever get a chance, I will go back and put disclaimers not to take my advice on every misguided post.) I was pretty sure I had it figured out and had the obedient children to prove it.
Well, God has a way of showing you where you are wrong, and depending on how stubborn one is, this process can be more than a little painful. I won't go into the details here, but suffice it to say, God brought a child into my life that shook my little, well-ordered world, and after many painful years, I had to admit I didn't have everything all worked out. I deeply grieve the damage my hubris caused.
Over the course of the past thirteen years, I've learned (the hard way), that my children are not an enemy to be bent to my will; to teach them to obey is not my parenting goal. If you look at Scripture, I dare you to find an instance of God parenting us the way this "expert" told the frustrated father to parent his baby. While God most certainly does allow natural consequences, He does not punish us for every little lapse of obedience to His law. Can you even begin to imagine? How would any of us survive? We are just not capable of doing such a thing, but God comes alongside us anyway and offers us grace and love even while we are stewing in a mess of our own making. He doesn't need to punish us, we do that well enough on our own.
That little two year old, while he might have some understanding of his father's (probably many) words, just does not have the intellectual capacity or the executive function abilities to be completely obedient all the time. Instead, two year olds are just learning about the world, just building their language capabilities, just learning how to interact with people, in short, they are just learning. They need consistent love that they understand. They need time and ways to explore their world. They need redirection... loving redirection... when those explorations get them into difficulties. They get tired and hungry easily and need adults to understand that sometimes bad behavior is just a hungry and tired baby who does not yet have words or understanding to say what's wrong. They need care and love, not lectures and "discipline". (I'm pretty sure that it was the negative meaning of discipline that was being used and not the positive guidance-related meaning.)
By airing such supposed "expert" advice, you are essentially telling parents to ignore the actual needs of their child and instead focus on their external behavior. It is just so backwards. Behavior is a child's way of screaming (sometimes actually screaming) that there is a need they need met. Behavior is communication if you choose to listen to it and not just worry about shutting it down for fear of "losing control". Needs that are not met at an early age will magnify to even bigger needs as the child gets older. Instead of avoiding future problems as was implied, the parent would merely be exacerbating them.
We have completely changed our parenting model to one that puts us and our children on the same team instead of on opposing sides where one side wins and one side loses. I'll let you in on a secret. When that is your parenting model, no matter how many "Christian experts" tell you that this is the "right" way to parent, both the parent and the child are going to lose. There is little to no grace in this style of parenting. It's almost as if they "experts" believe that children are exempt from being offered grace; that we can parent out the sin from our children. And even if they were to deny that, their advice as to how to treat children belies that. This is parenting out of fear. Fear of not doing things right. Fear of wrecking your child. Fear of not parenting the "right Christian way". Fear of looking bad (or worse, soft) in the eyes of other Christian parents. Fear of spoiling the child.
Doing anything out of fear is never good, and parenting is no exception. We do not have to fear because God loves our child more than we possibly could. God calls us to love and guide our children, not to anger them or cause them to fear us. Please, reconsider airing this spot on your station.
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