There appears to be a growing trend in some Christian homeschooling circles away from corporal punishment. The term generally used instead is \u201cgentle discipline,\u201d and it sounds in many ways quite similar to what I call \u201cpositive parenting.\u201d I hesitate to make the critique I\u2019m about to make, because I truly am glad that these parents are deciding not to spank.<\/p>\n
The thing is, when I read blog posts by mothers into gentle discipline, I am sometimes afraid that they have simply exchanged one formula for another. It\u2019s as though the corporal punishment\/immediate obedience parenting method is a recipe designed to create carrot cake, and the gentle discipline parents still want to end up with carrot cake\u2014or at the very least cake\u2014and are simply trying a different recipe. Still the discussions about parenting are all about how you can turn out a child who shares your same religious and political beliefs.<\/p>\n
The thing is, children don\u2019t work that way. When it comes to children, there\u2019s no perfect formula where you input given ingredients and end up with some specific result. Sometimes you don\u2019t end up with cake at all, sometimes you end up with pie, or biscuits, or tarts, or bread. And if you spend your time expecting cake, and thinking you\u2019re entitled to end up with cake because of the recipe you\u2019re using, you risk grave disappointment.<\/p>\n
To be perfectly honest, I stopped formula parenting some time after<\/em> I adopted positive parenting. Because as I see it, formula parenting isn\u2019t about the specific formula used, it\u2019s about the expectation of a specific result, a result that can be reached if you just follow XYZ method. And for a time, I still had specific expectations. For a time, I still thought I could control the final product. Today, I don\u2019t practice positive parenting because I want some specific result at the end,<\/em> I practice positive parenting because it\u2019s the right thing to do.<\/em>\u00a0To bring back the recipe example, I\u2019m not trying to end up with cake, or pie, or tarts. Instead of trying to follow a recipe and end up with a specific result, I\u2019m simply ensuring that the ingredients I put in are healthy\u2014I figure that\u2019s all I can really do. I think I\u2019ve probably stretched this analogy enough now, but you get the point.<\/p>\n I understand why these gentle parenting mothers do this, I really do. When you\u2019re a devout Christian\u2014when Jesus is the center of your life\u2014ensuring that your children also turn out to be Christians becomes more important than just about anything else. But if I could speak directly to these mothers, as a woman who grew up in devout Christian home and is now an atheist, I would ask them what they\u2019ll do if a grown son or daughter comes to them and says \u201cI don\u2019t know about that whole Jesus thing\u201d or \u201cI just can\u2019t believe in God anymore.\u201d Because like it or not, these mothers\u2019 expectations\u2014the results of their formula parenting\u2014will<\/em> come between them and any of their children who may choose different paths. These formulas and expectations have the potential to threaten and even destroy<\/em> their relationships with these children.<\/p>\n One theme I\u2019ve seen in Christian gentle discipline circles is that love<\/em> will fix everything. Just focus on loving<\/em> your kids, and they\u2019ll turn out fine, and even if they don\u2019t your relationship with them will turn out fine. But to be perfectly honest, sometimes it\u2019s the love that is the worst. If I didn\u2019t know, intensely, how much my mother loves me, it wouldn\u2019t be so hard to live every day knowing that I have gravely disappointed her.<\/p>\n One response I\u2019ve heard from the sort of Christians who practice gentle discipline is that they would tell their \u201cwayward\u201d children \u201cI still love you.\u201d Still<\/em>. Still? Therein rests the problem. I don\u2019t think parents realize how much those words can hurt. I don\u2019t think they think about what that one word\u2014still<\/em>\u2014implies. Part of that may be that many Christians have this idea that it\u2019s a wonderful thing that God \u201cstill\u201d loves us even though we\u2019re \u201clost sinners,\u201d and they don\u2019t realize the problems that stem from viewing children who have simply made different life choices through this lens\u2014as lost sinners who should be eternally\u00a0grateful\u00a0that their parents \u201cstill\u201d love them in spite of their \u201csinful lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n And so I suppose I would simply appeal to these mothers: Please, drop the last trappings of formula parenting, stop seeing their children as something you can program, something you can wind up and set running, and start seeing them as independent individuals who will make their own choices whatever they may be\u00a0and that\u2019s okay<\/em>. If your children grow up to make different choices and you respond by draping your relationship with the disappointment of unmet expectations, those children will distance themselves from you. They\u2019ll have to. It will hurt too much otherwise. But if you can start seeing them as individuals early and drop the expectations, if you can instead just focus on being loving and kind parents because that\u2019s what\u2019s right, not because you\u2019re trying to get some specific result, your children\u2014and your relationships with them\u2014will be better for it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There appears to be a growing trend in some Christian homeschooling circles away from corporal punishment. The term generally used instead is “gentle discipline,” and it sounds in many ways quite similar to what I call “positive parenting.” I hesitate to make the critique I’m about to make, because I truly am glad that these parents are deciding not to spank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,108],"tags":[24,143],"class_list":["post-15297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism","category-parenting","tag-children","tag-positive-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\n