How do you keep from going crazy?!?

annaapple · Aug 29, 2007

You might want to check out http://aolff.com/?page_id=9 and some of the other pages on that Christian website for an alternative interpretation of the 'rod' scriptures. She does it much better than i could, because she is a qualified, trained, Christian minister.

God is the God of all grace, we are called to be like Him, so I prefer to show my children grace as best i can (relying on hid grace to do so), rather than using punishment (which God does not do to us either, no matter how much we deserve it! well, me at least ) I wrote about this in my blog recently, if you are interested.

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 29, 2007

Also keep in mind that they did not say to hit them hard. As a matter of fact, that is the reason why people use a "switch" is that they do not have to hit as hard because just a little force gives a slight stinging sensation. They prefer it over using their hand or a wooden paddle.
People hear switch and they think of it as something so much worse than it really is. It is a thin piece of hollow rubber tube or to some a thin branch from a tree. It is not like they are busting out a horse whip on a baby.
I have a friend that has a two year old and was asking how I got my kids to mind (I have a two year old too) because she could not get her two year old to listen to her. I told her that I spanked them when needed. She was not willing to do that and last I knew she was still having problems with her two year old.

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 29, 2007

As I write this with a sleeping baby on my lap .

Ok here is an update as to children and stress.

Things have been great for the past couple of months! There have been a couple of moments that I got stressed but 99 percent of the time things have been stressfree. So to all of the other truthful mothers out there that have been stressed by their children....I am living hope that everything can change for the better!

Leanna · Aug 29, 2007

Wow.... I feel my house and family are in order and I have done so without beating them. Neither did my parents have to beat me. I always came home by my curfew! Clearly there are other ways to gain respect and an understanding for authority.

Leanna · Aug 29, 2007

BlessingsROnMe said:
Also keep in mind that they did not say to hit them hard. As a matter of fact, that is the reason why people use a "switch" is that they do not have to hit as hard because just a little force gives a slight stinging sensation. They prefer it over using their hand or a wooden paddle.
People hear switch and they think of it as something so much worse than it really is. It is a thin piece of hollow rubber tube or to some a thin branch from a tree. It is not like they are busting out a horse whip on a baby.
I have a friend that has a two year old and was asking how I got my kids to mind (I have a two year old too) because she could not get her two year old to listen to her. I told her that I spanked them when needed. She was not willing to do that and last I knew she was still having problems with her two year old.

Its pretty sick the way you're trying to justify it. "Its no big deal, we're just smacking our babies with a hallow rubber tube"

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 29, 2007

annaapple said:
You might want to check out http://aolff.com/?page_id=9 and some of the other pages on that Christian website for an alternative interpretation of the 'rod' scriptures. She does it much better than i could, because she is a qualified, trained, Christian minister.

God is the God of all grace, we are called to be like Him, so I prefer to show my children grace as best i can (relying on hid grace to do so), rather than using punishment (which God does not do to us either, no matter how much we deserve it! well, me at least ) I wrote about this in my blog recently, if you are interested.

I appreciate the link. It was an interesting read, but I can not say that I completely agree with everything she has to say. I do like that she says the hebrew words and meanings, although I do not like that she assumes that something does or does not mean somthing. But thank you again for that link.
And I do agree that God is gracious and merciful but I do not believe that he intends for us not to correct our children. And sometimes correction is more than just talking. Look in the Bible, God sometimes uses more than just words to correct.....Look at Paul(or should I say Saul) in Acts 22, he was temporarily blinded! And look at Zacharias, he was made dumb!
Luke 1:20
And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
These are prime examples of God disciplining when his children did something wrong.

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 29, 2007

illinoismommy said:
Wow.... I feel my house and family are in order and I have done so without beating them. Neither did my parents have to beat me. I always came home by my curfew! Clearly there are other ways to gain respect and an understanding for authority.

spanking is far from beating

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 29, 2007

I am done debating with you, it is a waist of my time. If you do not want to spank you kids, great, good for you. I will if my kids need it. I feel that is how the Bible says for it to be done. I guess when we get to Heaven we will see what was truly the right and wrong way to raise kids. But my advice to you in the mean time, would be for you not to sin by judging people that do spank. That is not your job, it is Gods.

Have a good day.

Leanna · Aug 29, 2007

BlessingsROnMe said:
I am done debating with you, it is a waist of my time. If you do not want to spank you kids, great, good for you. I will if my kids need it. I feel that is how the Bible says for it to be done. I guess when we get to Heaven we will see what was truly the right and wrong way to raise kids. But my advice to you in the mean time, would be for you not to sin by judging people that do spank. That is not your job, it is Gods.

Have a good day.

I am not judging people who spank. I am letting you know the Pearls do not spank, they beat, and they set their children up for failure by doing things like pushing those who can't swim into the deep end of the pool so that they "learn" .... did you read Thankful4Him's post? That's what they advocate. Not spanking. They literally tell you what kinds of piping to use so that you don't leave marks and your children can't be taken away from you. There is a reason why there has to be a Pearl subculture set away from the rest of the world.... their following is cult-like and it is not normal.

annaapple · Aug 29, 2007

BlessingsROnMe said:
I appreciate the link. It was an interesting read, but I can not say that I completely agree with everything she has to say. I do like that she says the hebrew words and meanings, although I do not like that she assumes that something does or does not mean somthing. But thank you again for that link.
And I do agree that God is gracious and merciful but I do not believe that he intends for us not to correct our children. And sometimes correction is more than just talking. Look in the Bible, God sometimes uses more than just words to correct.....Look at Paul(or should I say Saul) in Acts 22, he was temporarily blinded! And look at Zacharias, he was made dumb!
Luke 1:20
And, behold, thou shalt be dumb, and not able to speak, until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.
These are prime examples of God disciplining when his children did something wrong.

I trust what she says because she is a Messianic Jew so I believe her when she gives Hebrew meanings. And I agree, that bit is really interesting.

I also believe that God intended for us to correct our children, and to lead them along the right paths and to teach them the wisdom to find and choose those paths for themselves. I do not believe spanking is necessary to achieve that end though. We talk, but we also use logical and natural consequences. Gentle discipline (or grace-based discipline) is not soft or permissive, it just uses different means to get to the same end.

You might also like the sticky on non-punitive households in this parenting forum and the website of Gentle Christian Mothers, which can explain all this much better than I can.

I wouldn't ever spank, but I'm not going to judge another parent for choosing punitive parenting methods. I don't believe that spanking is the best way to get the long term results that we all want as parents though. I guess the rarer it is, the more the message you're trying to convey will hit home (pardon the pun).

I'm happy you took the time to look at the other sites. I guess all we can do as parents is make the most well informed decisions we can in relation to our children, that any choices we make are deliberate and not knee-jerk reactions and that we believe in those choices.

I'm glad things have been so much calmer for you these last few months. I hope it stays like that, and that spankings aren't necessary!

annaapple · Aug 29, 2007

PS I take the point about Saul and Zakarias - but I would counter that they were 2 extreme and exceptional examples, and not a model for our parenting. Because they are exceptions. Looking at the bog picture of God that Jesus revealed, I see a very different model of parenting. When interpreting the Bible it is very important that any interpretation of an individual passage or example is interpreted consistently with the big picture, because God is not inconsistent.

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 29, 2007

annaapple said:
I trust what she says because she is a Messianic Jew so I believe her when she gives Hebrew meanings. And I agree, that bit is really interesting.

I also believe that God intended for us to correct our children, and to lead them along the right paths and to teach them the wisdom to find and choose those paths for themselves. I do not believe spanking is necessary to achieve that end though. We talk, but we also use logical and natural consequences. Gentle discipline (or grace-based discipline) is not soft or permissive, it just uses different means to get to the same end.

You might also like the sticky on non-punitive households in this parenting forum and the website of Gentle Christian Mothers, which can explain all this much better than I can.

I wouldn't ever spank, but I'm not going to judge another parent for choosing punitive parenting methods. I don't believe that spanking is the best way to get the long term results that we all want as parents though. I guess the rarer it is, the more the message you're trying to convey will hit home (pardon the pun).

I'm happy you took the time to look at the other sites. I guess all we can do as parents is make the most well informed decisions we can in relation to our children, that any choices we make are deliberate and not knee-jerk reactions and that we believe in those choices.

I'm glad things have been so much calmer for you these last few months. I hope it stays like that, and that spankings aren't necessary!

I am not saying her interpretations of Hebrew words are not correct, I am saying that I do not like that she assumes that things are/are not meant a certain way.
I do not like it when people take the Word and try to fit it to their lifestyle, instead of taking their lifestyle and fitting it to the Word. To me if God wanted the Bible to say "do not spank your kids", then he would have said that and definitely would not have put words like "beat" and "rod" in there. And yes, I know the Bible has been translated, but if they messed up there, then who is to say that they did not mess up other places? I would say that the transcriptors of that time knew what they were doing and could interpret things correctly. If that was not the case, then I am pretty sure that God would have somehow got that fixed over time or would have not allowed it to happen in the first place considering that the Bible is his written word. I know if I said something and it was interpreted wrong, I would definitely do something about it...especially if I was an all powerful God and what they interpreted affected people forever.

Thank you for your love.....

Leanna · Aug 30, 2007

http://www.kjsl.com/~lindav/notrain.htm

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 30, 2007

Mat 15:3But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
Mat 15:4For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.Mat 15:5But ye say, Whosoever shall say to [his] father or [his] mother, [It is] a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;
Mat 15:6And honour not his father or his mother, [he shall be free]. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.Mat 15:7[Ye] hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying,Mat 15:8This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with [their] lips; but their heart is far from me.Mat 15:9But in vain they do worship me, teaching [for] doctrines the commandments of men.

that is new testament

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 30, 2007

all these people that are looking up words in the hebrew and are saying that "child" does not refer to small children but supposedly teens. I do not believe that. The definitions that were given for child are defined as a young person, it does not say an age. If you look up youth in the current dictionary, it just says "the condition of being young". It does not say age. So many people interpret "youth" as being a teen (probably because of the man given term "youth group" which is directed towards teens). But youth is just being young, so a 1 year old is just as much "youth" as a 17 year old.

BlessingsROnMe · Aug 30, 2007

annaapple said:
I wouldn't ever spank, but I'm not going to judge another parent for choosing punitive parenting methods. I don't believe that spanking is the best way to get the long term results that we all want as parents though. I guess the rarer it is, the more the message you're trying to convey will hit home (pardon the pun).

On the contrary.....the Pearl's kids who are know grown and are working on familys of their own turned out good. They do not despise how their parents brought them up, as a matter of fact I would almost guarantee that they will go about the same things with their children. They are thankful and happy with how they were brought up.
If I remember correctly I believe one of their children wrote a book about it and it was not talking bad about her life and the methods that her parents used,but praising that way. I have not seen or read it the book, I was told that by a friend, so I can only ASSUME that what she said is correct.Please forgive me if that is not the case. But I do know that I have read other books from the Pearls and it shows pictures of there kids and testimonies of them being happy. And remember they are the "victims of abuse" as some would say and they are not against how they were raised. If they were raised in an unexceptable manner then I am pretty sure that they would have realize it by adulthood and definitely would not advocate it and raise their children happily in that manner.

Just some food for thought.....
If the "victims" do not feel like victims then why are you trying to protect them as though they are?

peteos · Sep 5, 2007

Conversations like this always degrade into anecdotal evidence.

"Well such and such do (or do not spank) and their children are wonderful (or terrible)" etc etc.

I think the point of those proverb versus is about discipline in general, something that is often overlooked in these debates.

And yet, it is undeniable it refers to some sort of spanking so to claim any sort of spanking is wrong or abusive would go against God's word. And yet having said that I find no reason to think that time outs are somehow unbiblical. Most families I know begin to transfer out of spanking and move to more age appropriate discipline when their children get older. People don't seem to think this goes against God's word (unless they continue to spank their 17 year old daughter, and maybe they do).

There are many forms of discipline, and some kids respond better to some then others. My family has two young kids, 3 and 5, and we use a combination of spanking, time outs, removal of privileges or items, rewards for good behavior etc. I have never been convinced that there is any one perfect method that results in perfect obedience. I think what is most effective is just consistency and persistence in love (especially love), correction, getting on their level, control, discipline, communication, and love... day in and day out.

My own antedotal evidence to myself is that I have seen a variety of different parenting styles with a variety of different results usually correlated more to differing personalities then method. Some body has an easy baby who is rather obedient and all of a sudden they think they are an expert on parenting whether they spank, don't spank, eat only vegetables grown in October, etc.

PiddlePuss · Nov 8, 2007

When ever my rugrats are driving me a little crazy I like to take a moment to think about the good things. Sometimes a nice website helps.

Try this one. It's hilarious

http://www.meatspin.com

SweetPatty · Nov 8, 2007

I just send the littl e guyz our doors for an hour, they half such great emagninations

How do you keep from going crazy?!?

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