Alabama Seminar Chapter 5

Episode Transcription

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Voiceover: As Mike continues his keys to parenting, hear a fun hunting story involving a very small Gabriel Pearl. And then, listen for a surefire way to turn around your kids’ behavior, if you are sincere.

Michael Pearl: Okay. But love is essential. We have talked about that enough; I do not need to elaborate on it anymore.

The second thing is commitment. Now, we have talked about that. When I take my children fishing, I could not just go fishing by myself, I had to take my kids. Could not go hunting anymore by myself, I had to take my kids. I remember one time, I was rabbit hunting with Gabriel, and he was about four years old. I shot this rabbit. I wounded it, at least I thought I wounded it, and it ran into a patch of honeysuckle. It was not a very big patch, not much bigger than that big piano there. So I walked over. I leaned over and I looked in there, and I could see that rabbit sitting in there. Perfectly healthy, big brown eyes just looking at me.

Now you think the next thing is, I lost heart. Not me, I could taste that rabbit. It doesn’t get to me at all. Big brown eyes, just looking at me like that, ears twitching. I had an idea. I said, "Gabriel, come over here and look."
Now I knew that I had to run him out of there and the patch was too big for me to shoot over, so I had to get around on the other side for the rabbit to be running in my direction for me to shoot him. I did not have any beagle dogs with me that day and I was going to use Gabriel for a beagle. So I said, "Gabriel, do you see that rabbit?" There was this hole there, and I said, "If you would jump straight down into that hole, you could grab that rabbit, and I would not have to shoot it and get any lead in it."

I could see him doing this, and I said, "I am going to get around on the other side, and when I do, don't rattle the bush first. You have got to jump up and do a jackknife and go straight in on top of that rabbit and come down and grab him, just like that."

Now I figured he couldn’t do it, but I thought it would be fun to try. So I got on the other side of the patch like this, and I said, "Okay, Gabriel . . . jump!" I saw him do the prettiest jackknife, man. He goes straight up, folds like this, then his feet go up and he goes in headfirst down in the honeysuckle patch.

And then I could hear that rabbit—they make a [sounds] noise like that—he starts. Gabriel's screaming, "I've got him! I've got him!" Have you ever had a wild rabbit? They kick crazy, man. They'll kick your face off if you're not careful. I was screaming, "Hang on, Gabe! Hang on!"

He was, "I've got him, Daddy. I've got him!" I said, "Hang on!" I was rooting like this, and that honeysuckle patch is getting torn apart like this, man. A leg would come up and then some fur would come out like that. And then an arm would come up and he'd go back down. They were rolling in it.

Pretty soon he came up holding that rabbit by the neck and the back legs kicking like this. "I got him, Daddy! I got him!" I grabbed that rabbit by the neck, popped his head off like that, handed it back to him. I said, "Boy, you've got your first rabbit." I said, "Let's go home and cook it."

We went home. I said, "Mama, make some biscuits and gravy and we're going to cook this rabbit." Went out and skinned that rabbit. Now, that's called commitment.

It's easier to hunt without them. It's easier to go fishing. It's easier to go to work without them. It's easier to go down in the shop and not have them there. But when I'm down in the shop, I'd stop and hand a tape measure to a three-year-old. I'd say, "How wide's that board?"

"I don't know." Gabriel couldn't talk until he was three. I'd say, "Now, you mark it and I'll let you cut it," when they're four, five, six years old. I'd put them up on the radial arm saw and I'd put their hand up there. They'd think they were doing the cutting, see? [power saw noises] I was holding the thing with him. We'd cut it and I'd say, "Now you can nail this board together. You cut it in half." They'd nail it together. It would take them half a day. Have 15, 20 old bent nails like this. It looked like some kind of modern art.

Every day they'd progress a little in their skills and my joy of them, my appreciation, their thankfulness and joy to be part of this program that's going on here, and all that is child training. That's commitment. You've got to be committed.

You say, "Well, I have to work out every day." Well, I've been in homes where, I'd be having a seminar and be staying there and about 5 o' clock I'd be talking with the kids. I didn't hear anything. They'd all jump up. They'd go running to the door. The door would fly open and they'd go running outside. In a minute here'd come the man in, a kid on each foot like this, and one on his back, and one on his shoulder like this.

He's walking in with them, and Mama greets him. He sits down like this, and the little one sticks a book in his lap. Now he's doing something during his evening hours that's making a difference all day long. See that?

So if you can't spend time with them during the day, make sure you've got some time to spend four or five hours at least every evening. People talk about this quality time. What they need is quantity time, because every page in that book—you know what a day planner is? Where you've got 9:00, 9:15, 9:30, 9:45, 10:00? That kids got a daily planner. The time that you spend in that planner is how much input you're getting in that kid's life.

The less time you put and the more time somebody else, or something else, or Hollywood, or videos is putting, the more like the video they're going to be. I guarantee you, these geeks—I've got to use the right word since this is video. There's not many right words that I can use on a video—these guys that they have on TV today, I wouldn't want for daughters much less sons. I wouldn't want my dog playing with them. I see kids in churches with expressions on their faces just like those people on TV.

All right, the third principle in child training is acceptance. By this I don't mean that children are unconditionally approved. But it means that whether we approve or disapprove of the child's activities, that the child never feels dismissed, the child never feels like you have cut him off and cast him aside. The child always feels that you have an unswerving, unbroken commitment to see him through in this matter, and that your commitment is not for selfish reasons but for his good.

If he feels that then he'll respond in kind. There's got to be a sense of acceptance, because once a human being feels totally rejected, they will build a wall and shut that person who rejects them out.

I want to tell you most Christian families, their kids have walls built and their parents have walls built that are like the Berlin Wall. Everybody is shut off from everybody else.

Why? Basically none of us are very likeable. It's amazing a man and woman can live together as long as my wife and I have. There was one old couple that had been together some 60 years. I remember eating with them. They were about 84 years old at that time. They invited me in to eat. The old lady, she's got the food. She's carrying it to the table. I thought maybe she was aerating the green beans. Just like this [motions]. She barely could walk. I was wanting to jump up and help her or do something.

The old man, he just sits there talking. His old jaw is sagging down. She lays it, and he brags about what a fine woman she is. I'm looking at her and wondering if she's even alive still. Then she walks back to the kitchen like this. She picks up another thing, and . . . everything was getting cold. She was bringing it to the table like this. She'd set something else on the table. One of the finest experiences of my life, sitting there in that home and seeing that old couple after being together 60 years and their love for one another.

Their son lived right close by. He still loved his papa. The son was already 60 years old, 65. It's a wonder two people can live together that long. And when you got kids that are different personalities, and you've got parents that are different personalities, everybody is selfish. We all are, you know? You throw them together. Most everybody's got walls up, don't they?

Very seldom in life do the walls come down to where a man and a woman are one. And seldom it is in a family where there are no walls, where there's complete trust. Boy, you've got to work at it. You've got to work at it, and you've got to be sorry. You've got to forgive. You've got to try again. Because they just keep coming back up. Some of these things we can say can be offensive, can't they? So many wrong things we can say.

Mama can say the wrong, and Daddy can say . . . they say the wrong things to each other. The children retreat. The children get bit at, and the children bite at each other. Then they bite back at the parents. And everybody goes off to their own respective corner, like combatants ready to come off and square up at the line and start over again the next day. Only there are no winners. Everybody's a loser in that kind of game. It's an all-out fight.

There's got to be acceptance and then respect. If a child is to respect himself and others, he must be shown respect. A human being that loses all sense of self-respect is worse than an animal.

I go to prisons every week. I preach in prisons every week, sometimes at least twice a week. I've got prisoners who've done everything there is to do. Life sentence, some of them will never get out. They come out and they study the Bible every week. I hear them talking. I hear them tell their stories. I've listened to them. I've gone to maximum security where you've just got a little hole about big enough to slip a plate through, and you have to look in through that hole and talk to them on the inside. Just one of them is inside there. He's locked up 23 hours every day. He's let out one hour in a wire cage to exercise, and that's all, and to take a shower. Otherwise he's locked up inside there 23 hours a day.

I've met some of these people that have no respect for themselves. They have no respect for anyone else. And they don't have respect for human life. They don't have respect for sexuality. They don't have respect for motherhood. They don't have respect for children. When a person gets like that, they ought to be executed. When a person gets like that, they're already in hell. They're already in hell. They're unreachable; they’re what the Bible calls reprobate.

I see children three years old with no self-respect. They don't respect themselves. They don't respect their mother. What's going to happen between two and eighteen that's going to give him respect for his mother, respect for human life, respect for human feelings, respect for his own self? How did he get to be two years old and have none of it?
Because that mother raised that kid, doubtless, on TV, on videos, on junk food, and indifference. She raised him on giving over to his whims when he was three weeks old and six months old, on pacifying his whims, and finally on blowing up and beating him half to death whenever her patience just ran out, instead of patiently, as a loving, intelligent human being in control of herself, training him.

Now folks, you know that they're capable of it. A child has to have respect. An 18‑year‑old has to have respect. A 13‑year‑old has to have respect. You have to respect that person.

You see, when you go to your next door neighbor to rebuke them for something, or someone in the church, you don't just go up haughty and say "Look," with this kind of tension in your neck and say, "Let me tell you something." What do you do?

You go and you say, "Look, there's something I've been meaning to talk to you about. It's hard for me to do. Personally, I've got a lot of problems in my own life and I've had to work through some things. I noticed something that seems to be bothering you. We've had a bad relationship here. I don't want that bad relationship to continue. I want to know what I can do to make this thing right.

"Tell me, you talked really bad to me and your daddy last night. I want to know, is it something we're doing that we could change that would keep you from being so angry?" Now if you're not sincere, don't try that. But if you're sincere, that'll work.

Two parents came to me one time and had a child that was just really in bad shape and said, "What can I do"? I said, "Go to your child and hand her a tablet or a piece of paper and say, 'Write down the five things you want Daddy and I to change in our life that'll make you happier'." This was a kid 16, 17 years old, a daughter. Tell your daughter, "Write down five things you want changed in this home or in me that will make you happier."

Would you do that for your kid? Would you be willing to accept that judgment? I'll tell you, it's going to be right. It's going to be dead right. You say, "No, you don't know my daughter." I know a lot of daughters. I know more daughters than you do, let me put it that way. Talked to more of them than you have. I want to tell you something—it'll work.

Now, probably they won't want to write it down. You know why? Because what you're saying is, "Stick your hand out and I'll cut it off." You say, "Go ahead, reveal your feelings and let me chop at them. Be honest with me so I can mistreat you again." That's what they think you're saying. They think you're just going to say, "Oh, you stupid little wench, you. Now, how dare you say that about Daddy?" Now, if that's your heart and if that's your feeling, forget it. You’ve already lost the kid. Just let her watch TV all the time. It'll do better than being with you, okay?

But if your heart is right with God and right with your child, then be open and be humble. Say, "Write down there . . . " The first thing . . . I've done this. I've put out censuses in church, bigger churches than this. You know what’s the first thing they're going to say?

They're going to say, "I want you and Daddy to stop fighting." That's the first thing they're going to write down. "I want you and Daddy to stop talking bad about each other and to each other and insulting each other." That's what your daughter is going to tell you. That’s the first thing.

The second thing will be something like this. I may not have the words but they’ll say, "I want you to respect me. I want you to listen to me. I want you to pay attention to what I say. I want you to care who I am and what I think and what I feel."

It's going to be a list of about five things. It's going to go in that vein. You're going to have to sit down with that, go back and read it, and say, "You're right, and I don't think I can get all this straightened out. I'm a mess. Your daddy is a mess. We're not making it too good, and I'm sorry that we have made you have pain like you are. I want to do better. Could you help me? Would you pray with me? Would you let me ask God to help me?"

Can you see how that would work? Even when they're twelve years old, it’s too late for the power plays. That's for the six‑month‑old, the two‑year‑old. By the time they get eight or nine, they're beginning to think about life. They're beginning to form values. They're beginning to prefer righteousness over sin, good over evil, patience and kindness over bitterness. They're beginning to have personal identity with a knowledge of good and evil. By then, they have a personal frame of reference...

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