What are we teaching our children today? Kids damage church.

[MariaRegina]

Little boys caused $1000s in damages at Loudon Co. church | wbir.com

Two little boys ... used the children's toys and art supplies to damage the sanctuary, fellowship hall, and Sunday school rooms. They also smeared food for needy families and their own feces and urine on walls and floors.

Sick and sicker

 

[KatherineS]

Sad, but minor compared to the unholy act at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

Sarbat da Bhala -- "May Everyone be Blessed"

 

[athenken]

Little boys caused $1000s in damages at Loudon Co. church | wbir.com



Sick and sicker

A bigger question is: where were any adults that should have been watching these kids that would have prevented this kind of vandalism?

 

[xenia]

Little boys, left to themselves for too long, will do this sort of thing. Where were the parents?

 

[Knee V]

Little boys, left to themselves for too long, will do this sort of thing. Where were the parents?

I concur.

 

[Blonde]

I'm more inclined to think they're just not being taught. Words mean very little.

 

[The Unorthodox Orthodox]

I do not know if these children did it on purpose.
If they didn't then it's fine...Though I still hate the fact that food for needing families was spoiled and that the chirch was defiled.
If they did, then congratulations! Our cynicism and hatred has ruined two more human beings that will end up a burden to the sociaty (or worse).

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

Sad, but minor compared to the unholy act at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin.

Okay?

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

This OP makes me think of the part in St. Augustine's confessions where he discusses how he and his buddies, in his youth, would plunder and shake these fruit trees in a farmer's orchard and only eat 1 or 2 of them. He said they shook the trees for pure spite and to hurt the farmer. Sad result of the Fall.

Our lovely parish Church has withstood vandalism. Father told me that teenage kids took pellet guns and beebee guns and shot at the dome and blew out windows in it. Sad and pathetic....

 

[SharonL]

I have a friend who is a teacher - she is not going back to teaching next year, says she can't stand it. Children are disrespectful, they are not allowed to dicipline them, parents are not interested in coming in for meetings to see how they can help the children. They curse her out, don't mind, don't do homework and her hands are tied with all the rules in teaching. A new generation.

 

[Dreamer8]

Ya idk sometimes I think it's just personality

I know parents who are great and tried everything for their kids and their kids struggle

And I know parents who are alcoholics and abusive whose kids are graduating as doctors.

Either way Ive always like puppies more

 

[ArmyMatt]

Lord have mercy

 

[MariaRegina]

Lord have mercy

Yes, Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us sinners.

 

[Crawdad]

Kids can be jerks. Sometimes kids have to be jerks to understand what a jerk is so that they can learn to stop being a jerk.

I was a bit of a hell raiser as a kid. Now I got weird stomach butterflies when I know other people stole gum from the grocery store.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Spanking comes immediately to mind..

 

[Brooklyn Knight]

Spanking comes immediately to mind..

Some people would label you a terrorist.

I'm being serious.

 

[Dorothea]

I too wonder where the parents were during this. Lord, have mercy, indeed.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Some people would label you a terrorist.

I'm being serious.

That'd mean much of the Black community would be "terrorist" also if physical discipline as a means of correction is an issue. Working with at-risks youths and seeing a myriad of bad teens/kids, there are a lot of things that never happened in the lives of others that happened in more rough kids because of a lack of discipline. Sadly, nowadays, it's all labeled child abuse...

 

[The Unorthodox Orthodox]

That'd mean much of the Black community would be "terrorist" also if physical discipline as a means of correction is an issue. Working with at-risks youths and seeing a myriad of bad teens/kids, there are a lot of things that never happened in the lives of others that happened in more rough kids because of a lack of discipline. Sadly, nowadays, it's all labeled child abuse...

I believe it IS child abuse.

And these teens you are talking about turned out rotten not because their parents didn't beat them, but because they didn't pass any time with them and didn't bother to teach them any moral values.

In any case there are other ways to teach them respect and discipline than that!
You can't expect to teach them to do the right thing just because you will punish them if they don't! Why?
Because you will not always be around to punish them. And when you are gone what's stopping them?

Fear will eventually backfire, for fear is not the way of the Christ.

You have to teach them that it feels good to do the right thing and NOT that you will make them suffer if they do the wrong thing!

 

[Gxg (G²)]

I believe it IS child abuse.

And these teens you are talking about turned out rotten not because their parents didn't beat them, but because they didn't pass any time with them and didn't bother to teach them any moral values.

Moral values and failure to teach are not necessarily seperate from physical discipline, IMHO. It certainly wasn't within the early church and before when that was apart of instruction. Anything can turn into abuse when boundaries are not in place---just as parents are often labeled "abusive" because they raise their voices at their children/scream at them. Sadly, however, anything involving correction of children is quickly being labeled by the secular world as "child abuse" because children were allowed to get their way.

In any case there are other ways to teach them respect and discipline than that!

Of course. No one said otherwise, however. What was said is that physical discipline via spanking a child or a teen is one way of addressing that and has been in many communities for ages...others noting how they experienced it/never saw it as abuse (as there was no bruising or pain that happens in abuse cases) and they were better for it.

Because you will not always be around to punish them. And when you are gone what's stopping them?

Nothing really different than numerous other families whose parents are long gone and yet they learned right vs wrong/respecting authority from their younger years (with spanking included) and it stayed with them their entire lives. The same with myself as well.

You can't expect to teach them to do the right thing just because you will punish them if they don't! Why?

IMHO, Plenty of families learn to do the right thing because there were consequences for not doing so. Telling a child not to play with knives was followed up by physical punishment when they chose to do so in rebellion and they didn't do so again since it was established early on---and then they later grew into understanding how the world they go into has consequences for not behaving accordingly.

Perhaps it's different in the Black Community than it is for others...as some things my cousins and I alongside numerous others went through were not a negative when it came to spanking. We didn't trash churches because we were taught to respect the House of the Lord and what would happen if we didn't. We didn't curse out ministers of the Gospel when they corrected us because to do so was unthinkable. S

I've shared more about my own view of parenting elsewhere ( here )--and if you've ever heard of Sinbad the Comedian, he did a special on that which was HILARIOUS...but real (as I saw the same ) whenever it came to "Wait till Daddy comes home". One can go here for more, as well as here:

Sinbad​

Though humorous, he was always real in where he was coming from---as many in differing communities will often look back/make humor on what seemed to be rough experiencing as a child. The OT was far more extreme according to the Lord:​

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

A Rebellious Son
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Saw that when I was younger...and thought, "I least I get to survive if I'm acting up...as I would not have made it back then." But on the same token, punishments were harsh for the PARENTS as well on a host of issues. I'm always amazed to see how coporate punishment was taken to another level with examples like Achan in Joshua 7...as they stoned him and ALL OF HIS KIDS as well. Some of them may have been shocked---as they may not have even been aware of what their father did--and yet they suffered for it.

Fear will eventually backfire, for fear is not the way of the Christ.

Fear apart from love always backfires.....and it's one of the reasons, IMHO, so many parents wonder why their children don't want to be like them or respect them. For all they had growing up was parents just yelling at the kids or showing fear/making the kids afraid to be around them.

Fear in any kind of relationship has to be accompanied with Love....and without fear, it can be dangerous.....just as it is with believers who refuse to learn what it means to fear the Lord because they always grew up thinking it meant the Lord was never angry/full of wrath for those who disobey without repentance and they ended up denying Him. Correction many times has a degree of fear inherent in it...as cops don't tell criminals they want them to do the right thing when they break the law. There's a level of punishment necessary to establish order. Anaias and Sapphria were some of the most striking examples of this in the NT when they lied to the Holy Spirit---and once punishment fell upon them, fear fell on the church and they respected the Apostles as well as what the Holy Spirit asked:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts 5&version=NIV

AActs 5:7-11
About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

The men who were punished for trying to abuse the name of Christ led to fear being present in the church and change happening as well:

Acts 19:6
Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.” 14 Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. 15 One day the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” 16 Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

17 When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. 18 Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. 19 A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas.[c] 20 In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.

It does seem that fear was often a means of spreading the Gospel...

You have to teach them that it feels good t
o do the right thing and NOT that you will make them suffer if they do the wrong thing!

Teaching children that doing good feels good is the reason spanking was done in younger years and they learned the reality that will be magnified in the world when they realize that doing the wrong thing brings punishment. Talking to children alone does not work in all situations, as every family is different.

Others may view it differently...and that's fine...but in far too many cases, parents work harder at being their their child’s best friend than they do at actually raising the child to be a responsible and intelligent member of society. Many parents love their children, but don’t care about them enough to do the uncomfortable work necessary to prepare that child for adulthood. Instead, they think that spoiling their kids and giving them whatever they want is the best way of showing love.