Comments on: Organize and Manage

By: M

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 13:37:03 +0000

Am I the only l person reading this and thinking that the mistake is entirely the parent’s? This is a very young child- why not hold her hand, have her on reins or in a pushchair? The solution to all things on this site seems to be- let them run free then hit them when they don’t stop. Why not try some proper, thoughtful parenting, of the sort that keeps children safe, rather than the sort that seeks to harm them?

By: Diana

Diana — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:45:33 +0000

As a child I was spanked for disobediance. I’m 28 and married and my husband and I will raise our children the same way. Being spanked as a child didn’t traumatize me or rob be of my sense of self. It established right and wrong. By the way, I have a better relationship with my parents than my “non-disciplined” peers…

By: shannon

shannon — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 04:09:29 +0000

I love this article. Back when I started having children (they range in age now from 11 years all the way down to 12 months), I read “To Train Up A Child.” I immediately saw the wisdom in what Michael and Debi Pearl teach. It made sense to my husband and me so we put into action the training that we had read about. There were skeptics immediately who told us that ‘you cannot train a child under 2.’ (Oh good grief! really?) By the time our oldest were 2 and 1, that person was eating their words. At 7 months old my daughter would sit in her high chair with the dish of food on her tray, within hand’s reach of her, with her little hands up in the air (I’m not sure why she held them up like that, but it made feeding time quite easy) while I fed her from a spoon that she never attempted to grab; not from me, not from anyone who fed her. The same has happened with all my babies. They also come when I call them, which is actually quite precious to see! A little one, not even able to walk yet, clammoring and giggling over to mama. It is important that you train them to your spoken voice. Start with the small commands (that maybe don’t seem so important at the time) and start young. There may be a time when your child will be saved when about to dash into traffic after a ball, but upon hearing “stop” from mom or dad, they immediately obey without question. It is definitely worthwhile to take the time and train.

By: Tiffani

Tiffani — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 21:02:40 +0000

I really enjoyed the methods presented by the Pearls. I have 3 homeschooled children who are active in the community. Their ages are 7, 5 and 2 and I am complimented daily on their great behavior, kindness, and great personalities. They are not perfect, but I love them and will spank them whenever they are being willfully disobediant. In addition to the compliments, I am asked for advice. I find many non-spanking mothers at the end of their rope because they are waiting for little Johnny to grow out of his awful behavior. It is so sad to me that no one wants to be around these children, even their own mother. I am thankful for the work of the Pearls, and I am happy to use them as a reference to help others bring up well trained children that bring joy to those around them. Keep up the great work!

By: Sara

Sara — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:46:50 +0000

I wasn’t spanked as a child. And I would have rather been then deal with my parents’ erratic discipline (totally overexaggerated one day and ignored the next), yelling, borderline verbal abuse and emotionally manipulative methods. Among my friends who were not spanked, this was the usual experience because there was no quick, immediate, negative consequence to bad behavior- it was drug out. Many of the non-spanking methods I have researched rely on emotional manipulation of a child to get them to obey- and they have no consequences if a child chooses to continue to disobey.

First time obedience does not mean a child who cannot question. The assumption that a child must disobey at least some of the time in order to be able to think and learn shows how much logical thinking has gone down in this society.

By: NGJ Staff

NGJ Staff — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:07:32 +0000

@bint alshamsa – From extensive observation, your outcome is the extreme exception to the rule. You state that you can find just as many non-spanked children that have turned out well as spanked children. Considering that 90% of American children have been spanked with the majority of them having positive results, this is statistically impossible. Also, recent head to head studies of the outcomes of teenagers that were spanked versus non-spanked as children (age 6 and younger) are showing the spanked children to have more positive outcomes and fewer negative outcomes than their non-spanked peers. Your own experience does not discount the evidence of the success of countless others.

By: NGJ Staff

NGJ Staff — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 19:02:33 +0000

@RHarden – You are correct about us deleting the link. Why should we continue the perpetuation of misinformation? Fortunately we live in a country where you are free to express your opinions even if they are contrary to the facts.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 19:51:30 +0000

I think one of the issues I have with pretty much every total-obedience based parenting model I have come across (and there are many) is that there is a fine line in training between parental control, and parents seeking to instill self-control. Human nature is such that parents will often stray into the former error (which is destructive) even if the teaching they are reading is aimed at the latter. In the end, everything will depend on the nature of the relationship the parents have with the Lord and the nature of the relationship their children are developing with the Lord.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:41:12 +0000

I never seem to see anything about the role of the Holy Spirit in parenting on this website. Instead, there are formulae which if followed produce XYZ result. Which is exactly what most people want: a formula, a rule, a guideline to follow that will keep them safe. I appreciate the emphasis on loving relationship elsewhere on the site, though.

By: bint alshamsa

bint alshamsa — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 04:52:34 +0000

My daughter has ADHD. She was the kind of child that many would consider “a handful” when she was young. It would have been very easy to just spank her when she was disobedient. That would have been the lazy route to take. Instead, I chose to use what separates humans from the rest of animal-kind. I reasoned with her. If you believe that even children who are very young (e.g. toddlers) are smart enough to know how to be obedient, then you are also admitting that they are smart enough for a parent not to need to spank them in order to show them why they need to be obedient.

My husband and I preferred to explain and discuss matters with our child, instead of teaching her to see us as givers of pain. It has worked so well that we never needed to put her on the ADD medications that many other parents (including other Christian families who did spank) felt forced to use. We taught her how to be a polite, well-mannered girl who has made us nothing but proud of the young lady that she has become.

She loves the Lord. She was accepted into the top high school in our state. She speaks several languages. She does not date or do drugs. She prefers reading and playing soccer. She spends her Saturday nights at church, when other kids are out engaging in all sorts of behavior that their parents probably don’t approve of.

We are always getting compliments from her teachers and the parents of her friends who praise her helpfulness and compassion toward everyone around her. Since I became disabled with cancer and lupus, she certainly had lots of opportunities where she could have rebelled and I would have had very little that I could have done to physically stop her. However, she has always accepted the limitations and boundaries we’ve set for her, even when she didn’t think they were necessary.

We have the kind of child that every parent wishes that they could say they raised. Yet, we didn’t have to slap, spank, switch, or cane her to do it. We just had to decide not to be lazy and substitute corporal punishment for what could be accomplished with patience and reasoning from the scriptures.

Those who think it’s necessary to spank are simply trying to justify the choice they made. We can find just as many children who grew up to be fine, upstanding citizens and Christians without being spanked as there are those who were subjected to various instruments of pain throughout their childhood.