This question seems like something as futile as trying to bail out the Titanic with wooden buckets while it’s sinking. Toddlers are developed enough to have the ability sit perfectly still during an entire church service!

For well over a year we’ve been running a second Answering ‘Preparing To Be A Help Meet’ on Sundays, filled with questions by young ladies trying to get ready for marriage. Since we’ve run through many of the questions on their site it’s time to shift Sundays to something else, like perhaps examining the cornucopia of probably fake emails and questions that Michael and Debi Pearl of No Greater Joy post on their website and the possibly poisonous answers they give.

Original Question and Answer Here – Sitting Still in Church

The letter:

Can you please help us? I realize you are very busy and may not have time to answer this, but after reading several of your books and a great number of your articles, I am unable to find any specific advice on how to get a young child (ours is 18 months) to sit still in church. We would so like to have him in the service with us instead of the nursery, but that is completely unrealistic right now. You wouldn’t advocate spanking him right in the middle of church, would you? He is otherwise a fairly well-behaved, happy little boy who has responded well to your training techniques.

And the answer (and yes, it involves hitting the child):

Please don’t do that! Don’t disrupt the entire church to spank your child. When you train at home you will not have to train in public.
Train at Home
Go home and train. Set up a training session each day, duplicating as closely as possible the church service. Sit in uncomfortable chairs and play some hymns on the stereo. Then play teaching or preaching tapes while the family sits quietly and listens. Or you can sit beside him and read the Bible in a monotone voice. Better yet, if you don’t have the electronic media and you are able to induce your spouse to assist you, let your husband pretend he is the preacher and carry on for a little while, saying nothing interesting. [Mike wrote the above line, not me.] Keep your switch handy, but not visible during this session. Speak in a whisper or use sign language as you would in church. If the child offends at a level that would be inappropriate in church, then swat him while making your sign language or while whispering your correction.
He needs to know you are not mad at him; you are helping him learn to do a new thing. The first day, he may feel very mistreated and be unhappy. For that reason, you may want to keep your first sessions rather short, and build up to one hour. As the days progress, he will slowly figure out what is required of him and he will get more content. If you can’t get him to sit still at home during these sessions, then don’t take him in public where you will upset others.

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