The first time I met someone who trained their child like Michael and Debi Pearl recommend my first child was around 6 to 9 months old. This older mother invited me to her house for a "Moms' group". We would sit for a couple of hours in her living room and, while we talked or listened to a tape on discipline, the children were to sit perfectly still and not talk unless they had quietly tapped Mama & gotten her attention. The first time I wasn't sure I liked what was going on. Smacking babies' thighs seemed harsh and it made me cry the first time I trained him to sit still. At home, though, my mobile baby had been, well, acting his age, and it was very frustrating at times, and these moms seemed to have such happy quiet kids. I went back. The Pearls hadn't actually written their book yet at this point, but when they did, this friend gave me a copy.
I hated the Pearls the first time I read their book, I found their methods harsh, to say the least. This woman really liked them, though, and I saw that her son was a mature & cheerful child, so I figured she knew what worked. Besides, the book offers such hope of perfection! After reading their newsletter they didn't come off so strict . They actually teach a lot of things about connecting w/ your kids, making your joy be their strength, & letting boys be boys, etc. which made me feel good about them at the time.
That was how I got hooked. Keep in mind that, because of my childhood background (religious, but abusive) it was very easy to buy into the pain=love mentality, and especially since I was "disciplining in love" rather than anger.
About 7 years later my theology began to change! I began to learn about & understand for the first time what God's Grace toward me really means! I felt so free! All the shackles of legalism and fear began to fall off! Unfortunately it took me 3 more years to realize it also applies to my children!!!
One day I followed a link someone sent me to Gentle Christian Mothers and looked around. "Oh cool!" I thought, "Christian AP Moms!" (I had considered myself AP despite the use of punitive discipline). I was, however, very turned off by what some of the mothers where saying about Michael & Debi Pearl. I held the Pearls in extremely high regard. I envisioned a bunch of Christian homes with horrible monster kids that controlled everything with their whining and their tempers . One article bugged me the most. I'm sure it was Jeri that wrote it and it was about one day when she was in a doctor's office & got a compliment on her children's behavior & about how non-punitive doesn't mean permissive. I couldn' t believe how that could be. I mean, if I don't spank my kids, won't they end up being reprobates???
I didn't come back for a couple of months. But during that time my husband & I began to feel that our 6yo really needed a different approach . He has been our out of the box boy and he wasn't "getting" the training I was using. Instead of repenting and having his conscience cleansed through use of the rod, he was developing this despair & self-loathing. I came back to GCM and applied for membership at the message board so I could ask some questions. I absorbed everything on the Gentle Discipline forum & the articles about the rod. During that time God 's spirit was speaking to my heart that this was all true and right. By the time I was approved to post I vowed never to spank again. In addition, I began to see that so much of the non-violent methods that the Pearls advocate are very disrespectful toward children. My husband wasn't convinced as quickly as I was, but after reading Biblical Parenting by Crystal Lutton he said he didn't ever want to hit his kids again!
So, we made the change, but yes there is that messy little thing that I call "The Paradigm Shift Zone"! So things DID get about as bad as they could! My 3year old was totally out of control with his emotional responses for a long time. It is very hard to change from a punitive mindset! I struggle with it everyday. Punishment and condemnation are second nature to me, even without the rod! But I know that God doesn't treat me that way, and I want so much to show my children the Love, Patience, and Gentleness that He has shown me again & again & again without fail. And yes, my children ARE responding to the effort in gentleness that I have been making.
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This is my personal account of my
experiences with following the advice of Micheal Pearl, author of
To Train Up A Child
I had many fears and apprehensions about parenting even before my
first child was born. Many of them had to do with
discipline. I was all too aware of what would be expected
from me as a parent/disciplinarian and what types of behavior
would be expected from my children by friends, family
members, church and school figures, etc. As I waded
nervously past the 6-month mark with my first son, I experienced
the challenge of setting boundaries for a very mobile and
emotionally intense little boy. I began to try out
different approaches--relying heavily on the religious and
cultural common knowledge of my society, and following the
advice of authors/teachers who were endorsed by the circles in
which I moved.
Some of the books I read, such as Dobson's widely-heralded Dare
To Discipline, left me feeling confused and powerless. He
recommends spanking as the response to most misbehaviors, but
prohibits it for children under 18 months of age. He speaks
of showing grace toward childish, age-appropriate behavior, but
paints children themselves as wicked, rebellious creatures who
are bent on mounting a willful--even malicious--challenge to
parental authority. He provides very few solid,
specific suggestions for dealing with normal developmental
behaviors (other than encouraging parents to require absolute
obedience). He pulls his readers into an adversarial stance
toward children with stories of "little tyrants"
whose unchecked behavior holds their trembling, pathetic parents
hostage. Parents are repeatedly drilled on the necessity of
utterly defeating the enemy--their children.
Pearl was different. Although many of the basic premises he
taught matched up with what I had heard and believed my entire
life, Pearl offered something that was missing from the
other books I had read--something very significant to me as a
young and totally inexperienced mother. He offered
detail. Pearl straight-forwardly addressed all the common
baby and toddler issues that were cropping up with my young
son. He gave example after example of behaviors that I was
seeing first-hand in my everyday life. He offered a simple
and all-encompassing solution to each and every one of
them--"training." He pre-emptively diffused my concerns
about age-appropriateness and my questions about my son's level
of understanding by (initially) adopting the theme of
"training--not punishment." His extremely behavoristic
approach and the wide age range over which he applied it did
cause me some consternation and hesitation. It set off
some warning flags in the heart of this mother who had thus
far sought to listen, respond to, and nourish the entire being of
her child.
Pearl had made provisions for these types of reservations as
well. His writings are laced with reprovals for
tender-hearted mothers. He preys upon the natural concern that
many parents already have over raising children, whipping it into
a frenzied anxiety with predictions of hellfire and destruction
for any child not raised according to his parenting gospel. He
desparages the character of anyone who feels incapable of
administering his brand of discipline and he assigns lack
of spirituality to those who cannot "overcome"
their own abusive pasts enough to implement his regimen of
pain-based negative conditioning.
Uhealthy teachings nearly always include elements of
truth--sound, palatable, commendable concepts that lend
credibility to both the character of the teacher and the
philosophy as a whole. Pearl is no exception. He
communicates with an air of good ole country common sense and
next-door neighbor friendliness, and his intentions seem
honorable and sincere to many first-time readers. He urges
parents to tie "heart strings" with their
children and warns against undue harshness. Many of the
statements he makes in this (comparatively short) section of his
first book are ones with which I still whole-heartedly agree.
Unfortunately, he expands on those relationship-centered thoughts
by exhorting parents to exact merciless control over their
children's behaviors and attitudes.
In retrospect, I can identify some things that made me
susceptible to his message. First, I had no experience
whatsoever with babies or children and felt tremendously
unqualified to relate to my own child in matters of
discipline. Second, I came from a rather legalistic church
background, and was drawn to a system that followed a
formula--defining for me exactly how to deal with
infractions. Third, I was already indoctrinated into the
paradigm of controlling children's behaviors via
punishment. I viewed discipline as practically synonymous
with punishment/spanking, and believed that corporeal punishment
was Biblically ordained and mandated. It was not a far
reach to extend that pre-existing belief (spanking is the correct
parental response to disobedience or defiance) into a similar but
subtly different approach (spanking is an appropriate and
acceptable way for parents to pre-emptively condition young
children to display desirable behaviors).
I spent several weeks pouring over Pearl's books, debating
sections that concerned me, questioning whether my discomfort
really was due to spiritual weakness or ineptitude (as Pearl
implies), reading excerpts to my husband. I tentatively
tested bits of the method. I reviewed other perspectives
for comparison, but dismissed any that did not endorse
spanking--believing them to be unbiblical at the core. The
mainstream Christian resources I considered presented ideas or
methods (or both) which seemed like watered-down versions of the
same doctrine Pearl taught. After a couple of false
starts--due mostly to my struggling with strong instincts against
the method--we finally started "training" our son in
earnest. I followed Pearl's advice faithfully and
consistently over a significant period of time.
The results were disastrous, damaging, and nothing at all like
the peaceful, orderly family life Pearl describes. He asserts
that most children, especially young ones, can be brought into
"joyful submission" after 3 days of consistent
training, and that the need for spankings will diminish once the
parent establishes her authority. This did not prove true
for us. Weeks and months went by. My not-quite-2-year-old
son became increasingly combative, jumpy, and fearful. He
seemed to have developed a "fight or flight" response
to me--poising himself to run away at the drop of the hat,
covering his bottom when he thought I might disapprove of what he
was doing, or bracing himself for battle when he sensed that he
was "in trouble" and there was no where to
go. He physically battled and verbally protested every
spanking and fought back fiercely against every hint of perceived
injustice. Even though he could not yet verbalize with
words, he expressed his confusion, fear, fury, indignation, and
emotional pain with every resource available to him at the
time.
Pearl--and other authors who embrace the same ideals--would have
me interpret these reactions as rebellion, defiance... a
sinful "bad attitude" to be purged by means of more
punishment. He advises parents to persist at all
costs, to have no mercy, to use whatever physical force is
necessary to subdue the will of a child who fights back.
(In a similar sense, though with fewer descriptive examples,
Dobson instills the mantra of "winning the war"
against our children--using spanking as the primary weapon)
Pearl urges parents to sit on a struggling child, if necessary,
in order to administer this Biblically mandated act that he
claims is a vital element to cleanse their souls, clear
their consciences, communicate spiritual principles, and restore
a loving, connected relationship. He insists that the
parent must not relent or back away from continuing to spank
until the child has utterly submitted to the parent's desire in
both attitude and action--no matter how many sequential and
increasingly intense spankings are required to do so.
When the basic training approach delivered less than 100%
compliance and, indeed, actually inflamed my son's negative
behaviors, I found myself faced with following the escalation
procedure. Spank more.. harder.. with a larger
implement... don't relent until they obey. I am
grieved to say I started down this path for a time. There came a
point of "critical mass" where every part of me
cried out against what was happening... where I could no longer
accept that this was the only right way to parent... where
the doubts and questions and frustrations in my heart refused to
be silenced for a moment longer. I began to question my
long-held belief that spanking was a special,
"God-ordained" type of striking (as opposed to
"real" hitting)--not a form of "real"
violence. I struggled to define for myself the difference
between a Christian parent who hits in obedience to what they
think the Bible says, and an unbelieving parent who hits simply
to control. I tried to discern the distinction between
repetitive striking that was godly and repetitive striking that
was simply abusive. I was forced to admit to myself that I
could not identify exactly what the difference was--other than
the intentions and beliefs of the person doing the hitting.
That scared me. I knew in my heart that each day I followed
this punitive, formula-centered advice was another day I walked
the slippery slope of mistreating my child in the name of God. I
stopped--not yet having any idea what to do instead.
The journey that began in my life at that point has been truly
amazing. God has taught me, matured me, uplifted me,
convicted me, humbled me, and led me to a path of parenting I
never knew existed. I am still at the bottom of the learning
curve for grace-centered, spirit-filled parenting. I
struggle and fail daily. The poor choices I made and the
bad advice I followed early have left their marks on my children
as individual people, on our family unit as a whole, and
definitely on me. Having trained myself to vigilantly
punish every instance of disobedience, I now struggle to let go
of that critical, fault-finding outlook. It requires
purposeful effort for me now to *see* the positive
things my kids do, to relate to them in the light of who they are
instead of whether they are doing right or wrong.
I want my children to see Christ in me, not to see me as their
god. I want them to understand the grace and mercy and love
that God shows to us because they've experienced it in
relationship with their parents. I want them to learn to live by
the Spirit and not the letter of the law--knowing that godliness
is so much deeper than a set of outward behaviors and that our
spiritual sinfulness cannot be paid for simply by our enduring a
physical punishment. In fact, restitution for our sins has
already been made--praise God! I pray that my parenting,
above all, will reflect the gospel of Christ.
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The Pearls Are Wrong and My Pearls Experience by Anne Basso
What About What's Good, What's True? by Nutmeggmama
Perfectionism by Anne V.
Do you have a testimony? Send it to me at HermanaLindaV@Gmail.com and I'll probably post it here.
Why Not Train a Child? *****
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