Response to "A Child Left to Himself."

       I've been writing this blog for less than 6 months, and yet already I've noticed Lori spends most of her time repeating herself on the same few points over and over and over. I guess that's what happens when you base everything on only 5 verses in the Bible and refuse to look at any others. So anytime she covers a topic to which I haven't yet responded, I jump at the chance. This blog is one such topic: spanking. 

       Lori begins with an attempt to trick us by presenting one of her favorite argumentative fallacies, the false dichotomy: 

There are too many children who are being left to themselves. Their parents aren’t disciplining, nor are they training their children. They have fallen for the “gentle parenting” movement. They refuse to say “no” to their children or tell them what they should do. They want them to have a “free spirit” so when they are biting, hitting, and pulling out other children’s hair, their response is, “They’ll grow out of it.” This is testing God. This is playing Russian roulette with their children. This is disobeying God’s clear instructions in His Word. They are raising rebellious children. Part of loving your children, women, is disciplining and training them.

As we all would be able to guess, Lori is going to spend the rest of the blog insisting that spanking is the only correct method of disciplining our children. Therefore, essentially she is saying here that anyone who chooses to use a method other than spanking must be letting their children run wild and do whatever they want, refusing to say "no" to them ever, and must not love them. 

       I want to get personal for a moment before moving on to the rest of what Lori says, and talk about the history of my own thought regarding spanking. I myself was spanked as a child, but was not traumatized by it as far as I'm able to discern. I always imagined myself spanking my own children when I had them. When I was around age 20, my first girlfriend and I had a disagreement over whether it is best to spank with an item (such as a plastic spoon), or with your hand. I felt it was better to use a spoon, while my girlfriend thought using a hand would be better (not surprisingly, each of us preferred the methods our own parents had used). To settle our disagreement, we asked a mutual friend from church who is a counselor for children. Her answer surprised us both: she simply said she preferred natural consequences rather than spanking.

        That was the first step in changes to my thought that ultimately led to where I am today, with two small children of my own. My wife (not the girlfriend above, whom I did not marry, but for reasons other than her opinion on spanking!) and I thought, talked, and read quite a bit about spanking in order to make the best choice we could. There are numerous studies that have been done analyzing the psychological effects of being spanked, and I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to find them in a Google search, so rather than review any of them here, I'll simply share my personal thoughts on the matter. One of the issues we often have with our children is the older daughter (age 3) being rough with the younger (9 months). She just doesn't yet understand fully how to be gentle, though she's learning. As we discussed how to deal with it, we realized how hypocritical it would be to try to deter her from hitting her sister by hitting her! Either hitting is okay or it isn't. Children model the behavior they see from their parents, and if they see us either handling our frustration or making them bend to our will through violence of any kind, the message it sends them is that that ultimately is how you accomplish those goals. And that was not the message we wanted to be sending. 

       Further, we realized how unrealistic spanking is. It doesn't reflect any sort of real-world consequences that an adult would experience for inappropriate behavior, and ultimately we are to prepare our kids to be adults. Finally, we wanted our kids only ever to be touched in a kind, loving way by us. 

       But, to circle back to Lori's comments above, this does not mean we don't discipline our children. Far from it! It simply means we have found alternative, and seemingly more effective, methods. We do "time-outs" with our daughter most of the time. The idea is that if she doesn't act in an appropriate way around other people, she briefly loses the right to play with those people. This works very effectively. Or, if she does something inappropriate with a specific toy, she is not allowed to play with that toy for a while. In this way we match as closely as possible the consequence to the infraction. 

       One thing we have realized, through experience as well as our reading, is that children ultimately do want to act in a way that pleases us. Too often, people like Lori insist that children are wicked and the only hope is to beat the sinner out of them. Certainly they are sinners, as we all are, but I've noticed that if my daughter is throwing a tantrum, the best approach is simply to get on her level and validate what she's feeling. If I reflect her feelings back to her, she immediately calms down and begins to talk to me about it in a more appropriate way. Children often act out simply because it's so hard for them to make themselves understood, and not always simply because they're trying to rebel. 

       Having said all that, let's get back to what you came for: analysis of Lori's comments. 

“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes” (Proverbs 13:24). I like to use the 1828 Webster Dictionary app for definitions of words in the KJV Bible since it isn’t politically correct. “Chasten” means “To correct by punishment; to punish; to inflict pain for the purpose of reclaiming the offender; as, to chasten a son with a rod.”

This is the classic verse used to support spanking. Apparently Lori thinks whatever is not politically correct must automatically be right. However, once again she makes the mistake of assuming the Bible was written directly to her in 1st century English. As anyone knows who has spent any time reading the Bible, Scripture is full of symbols and metaphors. God often is spoken of as having body parts, such as wings or hands, but we understand these are not literal but mean something like protection or provision. The key to understanding ancient Hebrew is that they did not have words for concepts. God's strength, for example, would have been indicated by referring to God's arm. With this in mind, there simply is no need to take the "rod" referred to in this verse as necessarily an actual rod used to beat a child. It makes perfect sense for the rod to be the symbol of discipline. Solomon, therefore, simply is telling us that it is good to discipline your children, not necessarily the exact method of disciplining them. 

       Furthermore, I have read that when we read about a rod in the Old Testament, often it refers to a shepherd's rod, which was used not to beat the sheep but to gently steer them in the right direction. We can't be sure this is what Solomon had in mind when he wrote the above verse, but this certainly seems like a much better fit than whacking your children with a stick.  

       Lori continues with her specific instructions regarding spanking: 

The main discipline of your children should begin around 18 months to two years and be over by the time they reach five. You shouldn’t have to spank your children after the age of four or five since they will then be taught to obey you and do what is right. I know you have sensitive spirits, mothers, but don’t allow their crying to persuade you to stop spanking them. You are doing this because you love them and you want them to grow up to be adults with self-control who choose to do what is right.

My oldest child is only 3, so I can't speak from experience, but it sounds very strange to me that there would be no need to discipline a child beyond the age of 5. I think the reason this bothers me is that Lori and I have fundamentally different perspectives on the goal of discipline. I believe it is to help a young person mature and develop the self-control and wisdom to make good decisions. Lori, on the other hand, seems to think it's all about blind obedience. Lori thinks she's done her job as long as her kids unquestioningly do whatever she tells them. But what happens when they're on their own? What happens if parents tell them something that is wrong? Of course a child ought to obey his or her parents, but raising children must go beyond simple obedience and actually empower them to make good choices on their own. 

       To me, it seems a child who needs no discipline beyond the age of 5 merely has been so frightened into obedience that they panic whenever a command is given and obey it simply to avoid harsh treatment. This does not lead to true respect for their parents, or true understanding of why one choice is better than another, but merely avoidance of discomfort. It is very telling that Lori doesn't seem to understand the difference. 

“Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Proverbs 22:15). All parents can see that foolishness is bound in the heart of their child. Yes, they can use time outs and other means to correct them, but God commands that they use a rod for clear disobedience. What is a rod? A wooden spoon or a small strap on the bottom or upper thigh are good choices.

Lori almost seems to admit that alternative forms of discipline are fine, but then goes on to imply that we must not deviate from the exact wording in the Bible (the rod). But then, she turns around and defines the rod according to her own assumptions. No, a wooden spoon or small strap is not a rod, if we're going to be literalistic. This is common among fundamentalists: they insist that we all accept the literal interpretation, but they themselves do not! And often they all disagree with each other on what the text "plainly" is saying. 

       We must at least give Lori credit for telling us later in the blog never to spank our children in anger, slap them, spank them in front of others, etc. However, that certainly does not redeem the remainder of her message. Abusers never think of themselves as abusers; to them, their methods are reasonable. But there are major red flags in Lori's approach to discipline. Many in the older generations seem to cling to spanking simply because that's how it's always been done; fortunately, however, it seems more and more are seeing that there are much better methods of discipline. Those who do not believe in spanking do believe in discipline, and the fact that Lori must accuse her opponents of avoiding discipline altogether is nothing more than a sign that she has no good argument to make. 

Link to the original blog: https://thetransformedwife.com/a-child-left-to-himself/