Mail Bag - Other Kids

Transcription

[intro music]

Debi Pearl:  Papa and I are going to read chords, so you all go ahead and shut the door. [door closes]

[birds chirping]

[laughter]

Announcer:  Thank you for joining us this week. Let's listen in on how Mike and Debi answered some tough questions from our vintage collection. I'm sure we'll hear that is still applies today.

Michael Pearl:  All right Deb, what's the first letter?

Debi:  The first letter we're going to deal with talks about bringing extra children in the home and how it affects the rest of the household. I'm just going to read it. We'll go from there. "Dear Michael and Deb, we are writing to ask for advice on how to handle a serious problem that causes a lot of turmoil within our family. This problem's been around for many years and only seems to grow worse as the children grow older, and their attitudes and vocabulary grow with them."

"Before we begin to describe the problems, we'd like to say thank you for your book, 'To Train Up A Child.' We have seen many problems addressed that are between siblings in the home, but we don't ever recall anything that deals with problems caused by other children that come into the home."

"We would like to describe a recent event that took place. This happened in our home. Several relatives were invited together at our home. They, in turn, invited several of their relatives who brought with them their children who we did not know."

"In truth, we have enough trouble dealing with the relatives' own children. The other children just added to the chaos. In the course of a few hours, there was profanity, disrespect for us and our children. In fact, they never even acknowledged us or our children."

"They had no interest at all in the rules we had established for our home or our pond, and they were happy to have a good time and swim, as long as they didn't have to listen to any instruction. In fact, our presence seems to be only a nuisance to be disregarded as they fill their afternoon with fun."

"One child, about eight or nine, felt the need to instruct his mother on how to fix dinner. When the mother asked why he was doing this, he replied, 'You're so stupid. You're an idiot.' I wanted to see what would happen next and the mother responded in a whiny voice, 'Oh, sweetheart.' Then, she turned to me and said, 'I just really love this child.'"

"We next listened to a younger cousin give a detailed story about having a cat and an aunt who died, and when the mother pointed out that the child was lying, she defended her story and added detail. Much laughter followed and the child was greatly encouraged in her storytelling."

"A child used profanity and also seemed to have the effect of causing the surrounding adults to laugh until tears came in their eyes. These are only a couple of incidents that happened. We will not take the time to mention the dozen other things that took place within the short period of time."

"Basically, our home was invaded with disobedient, self‑indulgent children. We had no control over what was taking place in the home and it was all done in the presence of these children's parents or guardians as we helplessly stood by and watched it unfold."

"Here are the questions. Can we have control over what takes place in our home when others come to visit? Can we impose our rules or standards on them when they are not used to such things elsewhere?"

"Will seeing this kind of behavior and disrespect have an effect on our own children? If so, how much exposure can they tolerate before it does affect them? Is it wise to spend a weekend camping with these other families?"

"We do not want to create the impression that our children are perfect, but they are still in training. On one hand, we can ask if these things will have an effect on our children. If they are raised well at home, then they should be able to withstand some of this exposure. How much is too much?"

"As we stated before, this problem has been around a long time and it's not going to go away. We would appreciate any counsel you can give us."

Michael:  All right, I really don't think the woman is asking questions because she needs an answer. I think she's looking for confirmation for her own feelings. That's a problem we never really had. I don't want to be rude, but it seems to me that what this woman needs is some backbone. What she needs is some guts. She knows what she ought to do and she knows what's best for her children. She just apparently doesn't have the courage to do it.

Sometimes, these problems are complex because it may be that the mother and the father are in a difference of agreement as to how to handle a situation like that. It may be that the father is comfortable with that and would be offended if the wife tried to take charge.

In that case, it's an entirely different situation. But assuming that the husband and wife would be in agreement on this, your home is your sanctuary. If you don't have a sanctuary at home, then where do you have a sanctuary? Your home is your environment where you raise your children, and you have a right to dictate every detail of that home.
I just wouldn't be embarrassed at all to ask people to leave. I wouldn't be embarrassed at all to say, "This is my home. This is where we live, and we don't act that way. If you're not willing to live with our rules, then you can leave." What would you do Deb in a situation like that?

Debi Pearl:  Well, the whole idea of the get‑together was having a good time and enjoying each other and enjoying the fellowship that you have with your family. When you start having a bunch of disobedient, rowdy, godless children there, it stops being a good time and stops being a time of fellowship, and I wouldn't put up with it. I would simply say when you're inviting the family, "It's family only. This is a problem we had last year and we don't intend to have it this year, so don't bring any extra children."

When a situation does come up with a family's children, I would just simply say, "We don't do that around here. If you all want to have the meeting in a park next year, we'll be glad to come and that way we can leave when we get ready." But I just wouldn't tolerate it in my own home.

Michael:  No, even if it's your own relatives. Where you have relatives that don't have the kind of convictions that you do and you feel like you couldn't mix your children or your family with them without being influenced, then you have a duty to your children to withdraw from that family. Now, like you said, if your children are raised well and they're trained well, they can stand a little bit of adversity in a situation like that and, if you feel like they can, that's fine. If you feel like your children can be a witness to these other children, or that by their exposure to these other children they're able to, in contrast, see how you're raising them and appreciate their own environment better, then it won't be harmful.

But if you see that it is harmful, if you see that your children are being influenced or that they are being taught disrespect or that, by seeing you disrespected you feel like it may create a situation whereby they might be disrespectful in the future, then you have a duty to your children, to yourself, to your family to withdraw yourself or to take whatever measures necessary to bring control in your own home.

Debi:  When you get a lot of children together like that in an open area, you're taking that chance on your children being exposed to things that you'll bitterly regret and they will bitterly regret for their whole life, and so I would take that into consideration too. In eternity hurting a few people's feelings is not going to make a lot of difference but in eternity not dealing with a situation will make a whole lot of difference.

Michael:  OK, was there anything else in that that we might need to address?

Debi:  How much exposure they could take in camping together and situations like that.

Michael:  Under no circumstances would I allow my smaller children, say up to eight or nine years old, to be alone even five minutes with unsafe children. I just wouldn't allow them to be where they can be told something I don't want them to hear or where they could experience even being handled or lewd remarks. I wouldn't allow my children the fellowship with other children that I didn't have a high degree of confidence in. Even then, we want to keep them in sight. We don't want them to be able to go behind the barn or behind the office or up in the tree house alone or back into the garage or in the house in the bedroom while we're outside having hamburgers.

It's your duty to guard your children carefully and make sure they're not exposed to something you don't want them to be exposed to.

Debi:  We've always made it a principle of never allowing our children to spend the night over with their friends or with the relatives. The only exception we make is when someone comes in from out of town that has to have a place to stay, and then we give them the bedroom and we move our children to another location. Because it's better safe than sorry.

Announcer:  Well that wraps up this week's archives. We hope you found it as encouraging as we did. Don't forget to check out the specials at King Creek corner.