Mail Bag - Consistent

Transcription

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Debi Pearl: Pop and I are going to record, so ya'll go ahead and shut the door. [Door shutting]

Girl 1: I have a plan.

Girl 2: What?

Girl 1: Let's make a restaurant and our most prized dish is...

Girl 2: Mud pies.

Girl 1: Yes!

Girl 2: OK.

Girl 1: Do you want to help me make them?

Girl 2: Sure, all the time.

Announcer: This week from the archives we've got a question about consistency. Here the Pearls share their views.

Debi: One more question. I have a spunky, strong willed four‑year‑old little girl. When another kid takes her toy or does something to make her mad, she gets real angry and hits or pinches. I can say I have been 100 percent consistent in spanking her for these offenses. I spank her hard too. Yet, she has not shown improvement in the last year. Am I missing something? I love your books.

Michael Pearl: You have a second child and you said she gets real angry and hits and pinches, and that you have been 100 percent consistent. No, you haven't. There is some place that you haven't been consistent. Now, spanking doesn't mean consistency. You can consistently spank and not be consistently training. There is a lot of difference there.

What other areas does she get angry in? What other areas do you allow her to dominate, to control? Does she see you angry? Does she see the other children dealing with issues of anger? Does she see your husband dealing with issues of anger?

If so, then spanking 100 percent of the time is not being consistent because consistency involves a much broader scope. It involves the example that you are showing her. It involves all the other little issues where she may not blow up but she becomes pushy and dominating. Do you then deny her her indulgence?

If you have a child that is jerking, yanking and pulling at something, they are angry over it, simply take it away from them and explain to them that, if it means that much to them, then they can't have it until they show better attitude.

You're being consistent then. You're not allowing them to get away with controlling others, or with pushing others around through their anger or through their violence. Consistency involves a lot more than just spanking.

I see some parents who wait until they are frustrated and reach the point of spanking, and it gets worse, and worse, and worse. Why? Because you are leaving off the training. Go back and read "No Greater Joy" Volume I and Volume II. Look at all the illustrations and examples we give of consistently training. Deb, do you have something on that?

Debi: Yes. Chances are, when your little girl takes something away from another child or hits another child or pinches another child, you take your little girl away from the situation. She is already angry, upset, emotionally stressed. She is already in a bad state and she can't understand what is going on because she is taken out of the situation. Probably, from the time she's been very young, you should have just taken a little weed‑eater cord and when she took something away from another child, let her hold the object and spat her with the weed‑eater cord.

Of course, now she is four‑years‑old and she's is too big to be getting angry. She is too big to be to be selfish, and she is too big to use a weed‑eater cord on her fingers. But that is what should have been done from the time she was six, seven, or eight months old.

But now, you are going to need to be dealing with this situation like you would an older child. She is four‑years‑old and she's just been a bully. Bully is the word I would use for this child, the way you described the situation. She's just been a bully to another child.

I would keep her right there in front of the other child and spank her. I would set up a scenario where I could make an issue of it one day to where she finally broke in spirit, to where she knew you meant business. I would spank her and tell her to give the toy back to the other child and say you're sorry.

Chances are she's angry. She's got a bully's heart. She's going to possibly give up the toy because she knows you're bigger than she is, but she is going to have a rough time saying, "I'm sorry." She will stand against you and when she does you spank her again, and instruct her to apologize. She will probably stand up against you again.

You take the weed eater cord and spank her legs or you can take a switch and spank her legs four or five times and say, "Say you're sorry." Chances are, if you've raised a four‑year‑old child that still pinches other children, you're going to have a confrontation that will last an hour

She will stand against you, before she finally comes to a point where she says, "I am sorry," and you can tell that her spirit is indeed broken, that she has come to a point where she feels like she has done wrong, that she is in the wrong and she is going to do it right next time.

We had a situation where a child was in our house and a grandfather was trying to discipline the child, trying to get the child to sit still. She was about two‑years‑old, a little bit over two, and he would take her out and spank her and he would pitch a fit and come back in making this noise.

He would take her out and spank her when she would refuse to obey and it went on for maybe there or four times. He could not get a handle on her.

Finally, someone had sent me a whipping stick and it's kind of just a very flexible, small cord that's made out of some kind of plastic, Mike, and it was just very small but when you barely hit the skin it stings. It doesn't ever bruise, but it stings.

I always spank myself before I spank a child. I always hit my own leg to see the level of pain so I can get a better make, be a better judge.

Anyway, somebody handed him the little whipping stick that somebody had sent me in the mail, he walked outside and he gave her about three licks on the leg, and we could, all of us in the room, there was about 20 of us in the room, could hear the difference in her cry.

Her cry went from angry, rebellion, from feeling like, "I am right and you are wrong and nobody is going to tell me what to do," to a cry of genuine, "I need to get my act together." You could tell her heart had changed.

That little spanking stick had done the job and we were all very thrilled that it had made a difference in her life and so I think you need to consider several things in your daughter.

That is, a four‑year‑old should not show signs of being a bully. Somewhere, something has gone wrong for a long time. You should have worked this out when she was still 18 months old. You need to really feel like this is a problem because it is.

Also, you need to ask yourself, have you taken her away from the place of offense to deal with it, to train her? If you have, she's not been trained. You missed out on something. While she had offended that child, you should have dealt with it there.

The third thing, are you using a proper spanking rod? She needs a switch or something tiny that will not leave a bruise and not create a suction but cause a very genuine sting. She needs to know you mean business.

Michael: OK. One area of clarification here. I think you said in your letter that when she is playing with her toys and someone comes in and takes them away from her... Now, as Deb answered, she really was answering in terms of the attitude but as a standard rule, we think that a child should have a right to maintain control of her own toys. In other words, another child should not be allowed to come into your home and take your daughter's toys away from her.

Now, the response your daughter is giving is not acceptable, but I think Deb said take the toy and give it to the other girl or say she is sorry.

She should have a right to retain control of her own toys, but she shouldn't have a right to express herself by biting or hitting.

If you will be fair, if you will be fair by allowing her to keep what's hers, if you'll be fair by walking over to the other child and saying, "That belongs to my little girl, you cannot take it away from her," and take it out of the kid's hands and put it back in your daughter's hands, then you will relieve your daughter of a lot of frustration of feeling like she is being run over by an alien force. That will help somewhat.

But we have an article in No Greater Joy Volume 1, I believe it is, maybe in Volume two also, about equality. Fair is fair, what's the name of that article? The folly of fairness or something, matter fact, but you need to read that to deal with the fair issue.

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

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