19 August 2007
My First Disciples, Part 1
Biblical Principles For Growing Kids God's Way
David J. Brown

OHH, PARENTING
"There are times when parenthood seems nothing more than feeding the hand that bites you." Peter DeVries

"Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories." J. Wilmot

Imagine a parenting job description!
POSITION : Mom, Mommy, Mama, Ma … Dad, Daddy, Dada, Pa

JOB DESCRIPTION: Long term, team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call. Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in far away cities! Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES: The rest of your life. Must be willing to be hated, at least temporarily, until someone needs R20. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly. Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 120 kph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the back garden are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers. Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility. Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars, and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks. Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, and an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys, and battery operated devices. Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT & PROMOTION: None. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: None required unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION: You pay them! Offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that a varsity education will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left. The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS: While no health or dental insurance, no pension, no tuition reimbursement, no paid holidays and no stock options are offered, this job supplies limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play your cards right.

"It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder, and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge." Phyllis Diller

"In bringing up children, spend on them half as much money and twice as much time." Unknown

INCREASING PROBLEMS
Of today's babies entering primary school in five years, 30% will have a "learning disability"

Doctors and educational experts say only 5% are actual learning problems - the rest are behavioural

Answers over the years have varied from early education to early socialisation to medication

The behavioural disabilities were:

o Attention span of less than 45 seconds
o Hyperactivity
o Inability to play creatively
o Low tolerance for frustration
o Poor social interaction
o Withdrawal (self-constructed protective shell)

In Europe, USA, and Japan, thought was given to governments requiring daily government child-care and education from 12 months old

Parents were seen as a "liability" in a child's development

The de-Christianisation of Europe and the USA has not seen corresponding benefits (SADD website)

Teen suicides, pregnancies and abortions, STDs, and violence are up

Spockian-Freudian psychologies and parenting methods have failed

Authoritarian and permissive extremes of parenting are everywhere

Selfishness builds dysfunctional homes

Too many parents simply don't want to accept their responsibility as parents

It's too hard, or it interferes with their plans and goals (fewer whites)

They expect others to raise their children: schools, church, babysitters, day-care centers, friends, relatives

Many didn't have parents, didn't have good parents, or even a parental role model

Many mimic their parents or react to the polar extreme of their parents

Many have children to fill a personal emotional need - this is a huge problem where moms have babies because their relationship with their husband brings no fulfillment, where having another baby is intended to save the marriage, or where parents who don't like their life want to live their lives vicariously through their children, making them into great scholars or athletes, controlling every part of their lives right up through the wedding!

Men often leave things to mom - God lays the responsibility for the kids with dad - look at Abraham and Eli

WILL YOU BE ABRAHAM OR ELI?
Abraham - Genesis 18:19 - "For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, that they may keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice …"
o God has no grandchildren
o Our faith is only ever one generation from extinction

Eli - 1 Samuel 3:12-14 - "For I have told him that I will judge his house for the iniquity that he knows of, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them ..."
o Final responsibility lies with dad
o We will one day answer to God for how we handled our first disciples

QUESTIONS
o What does the Bible say about parenting?
o Doesn't corporal punishment teach violence?
o What is a proper view of human nature, love, nurturing, correction, mentoring, and chastisement?
o How can I disciple my children?

DISCLAIMER
o We've been parenting for 22 years, and we've been high school teachers
o We don't know all the answers, but we know where the principles are found for good parenting
o We haven't always followed them - "If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example." George Bernard Shaw

PRESUPPOSITIONS - THE NEEDS OF A CHILD
- Identity - who I am and where I am going as a sinner, a believer, and a person with certain gifts and abilities
- Security - to whom I belong, the strength of their commitment and love for me, the culture of my "home"
- Character - the ability to choose right and love others above myself when my impulses lean the other way

PRINCIPLE #1 - START EARLY
- Proverbs 19:18 - Chasten your son while there is hope; do not set your heart on his destruction
- Proverbs 13:24 - He who spares his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly (early with care)

"From 8 months to 3 years is the most vital time in a child's life. As a direct result of what parents do, or don't do, lifetime patterns are set … intellectually it's all over by age 3. Kids can start to lose their potential after their first birthday, and it's hard to turn them around after three." Dr. Burton White, Harvard Preschool Project

"When turned a year old, and some younger, they were taught to fear the rod by which means they escaped an abundance of correction which they might otherwise have had later on." Suzanna Wesley

James Dobson of Focus On The Family, and author of Dare To Discipline, states that parents should avoid corporal punishment until about 1 year old

"Those that ever intend to govern their children should begin it when they are very little, and see to it that they perfectly comply with the will of their parents. Would you have your son obedient to you past childhood? Be sure to establish the authority of a father as soon as he is capable of submission. Would you have him stand in awe of you? Imprint it in his infancy, and as he approaches more to a man, admit him nearer to your familiarity. So you will have him your obedient subject while he is a child, and your affectionate friend when he is a man. "For I think that people alienate and destroy their children who are indulgent and familiar with them when they are little, but severe to them and keep them at a distance when they are grown." John Locke, 17th Century philosopher and tutor

Slide from stern to soft, NOT vice versa. Teachers and parents must start out stern but loving - benevolent and benign dictators

A cute little baby is unpolished, unmolded, and unrefined old nature - self-centered, impatient, and intemperate. Only time will reveal all of the terrible things that person will do

The trauma of early childhood training is the reason God gave us virtually no memory of that era (few can remember anything before age 4)

When do we start? Before age 1

o Letting them cry it out before bedtime
o Give them nothing they cry for (except food and necessities)
o Be consistent and calm
o Do not reason with them (they understand tones but not words)
o With each new ability come new independence (crawling, standing)

CONCLUSION: SO WHAT ABOUT ME?
o Am I a selfish person? Do I love self above God and others?
o Am I so focused on things that I have pushed my kids to the side?
o Do I feel my heart resistant to God's Word when it mentions discipline?
o Is my parenting a reflection of God's Word or a reaction to my past?
o Am I being consistent and calm?
o Am I doting on my child so that he is learning that the world is all about him?
o Can I pass these principles on to someone else who may benefit?
o Will I be an Abraham or an Eli?