How to Raise Your Kids
There was a blog post on Yahoo recently that discussed Madlyn Primoff, a mother who, being thoroughly annoyed with her kids while in the car, pulled over and forced them to get out, leaving them to either catch up to her or find their way home.
First, let me say that I couldn’t disagree more with how she handled it - abandoning your children is never the proper way to discipline them, and there is the potential for emotional wounds to occur. Just because this has been done to people and they've turned out “alright” doesn’t make it acceptable for it to become common practice.
Let me also say that I don’t have any kids of my own. However, I deal with others’ kids daily basis, so I can offer some advice on how to raise your kids.
#1. Get Involved
Kids long for affection and attention from their parents (shoot, we all do). Anyone who has ever heard the words, “Hey, watch this!” knows what I’m talking about. As Moira from the movie Hook told her husband:
“Your children love you. They want to play with you. How long do you think that lasts? Soon [your son] may not even want you to come to his games. We have a few special years with our children, when they’re the ones that want us around. After that you’re going to be running after them for a bit of attention. It’s so fast, Peter. It’s a few years, and it's over. And you are not being careful. And you are missing it.”
I recall G. Craig Lewis talking about how he kept current with his kids: he would go into their room and go through their stuff. They’d walk in and ask, “What are you doing in here?” He’d respond with, “What are YOU doing in here?”
Now, he didn’t do this in a pernicious I’m-sneaking-through-your-stuff-behind-your-back kind of way, but he was very up front about the fact that his actions flowed from a loving interest to be in-the-know about what his kids were involved with, regardless of whether or not they became upset about it.
When you are single, your primary role can be anything you wish it to be. However, once you have children, your primary responsibility is to them above all else, including your career.
#2. DISCIPLINE
In the Bible, God gives a clear mandate on how to handle your children’s discipline:
Chasten your son while there is hope, and let not your soul spare for his crying. (Proverbs 19:18)
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Proverbs 22:15)
He that spares his rod hates his son, but he that loves him chastens him betimes. (Proverbs 13:24)
I recall a story Ray Comfort told about raising his kids:
His son said a bad word to his mother, and Ray went smack-smack-smack on his butt and sent him upstairs to his room crying. After a few minutes, Ray went up there and explained why he spanked him, that he did it because he loved him and wanted the best for him. He had his son pray to God for forgiveness for disrespecting his mother, and gave him a tissue and sent him downstairs to apologize to his mother.
A few minutes later, when Ray was downstairs, his son came up to him with a picture he drew on a piece of paper that said, “I love my Dad.”
As Ray says, it doesn’t make any sense that he just spanked his son, and immediately afterward his son tells him that he loves him. But then again, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise” (1 Corinthians 1:27).
The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings his mother to shame. (Proverbs 29:15)
In the same message, Ray mentions 2 anecdotes:
- He was on a radio show about how to raise your kids, and when he mentioned that he keeps his kids “in line with the belt,” a mother phoned in to voice her disagreement. However, you couldn’t hear her talk because of the disrespectful children in the background who were not quiet while their mother was on the phone.
There was another mother who lived next to Ray who had never disciplined her child. She would give him candy until he went to school. At 6 years old, he would point his fingers at her like a gun and go, “Bang! Bang! Bang! I hate you! I hate you!”
It’s not that beating your kids into submission is the point, but that causing young children a little bit of physical pain does wonders to instill in them that certain behaviors are simply unacceptable. By the time that children are 3 years old, they know whether or not (1) they need to pay attention to their parents’ demands, or (2) their parents need to pay attention to their demands.
Jason Brightwell is a fitness enthusiast and special education teacher from Glen Allen, VA. He attends Commonwealth Chapel and the Far West End Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
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