One of the things I find the most disturbing about Above Rubies Nancy Campbell is her ability to say two very contradictory things at once and her expectations that you will accomplish them. Here Nancy says that your house is to be a happy and peaceful place. Then she follows that with a pile of warnings on creating entitled children that blow money.

What does that even look like?

Have a happy house, but do not allow the children anything that makes them happy?

When we continually give into our children to give them anything they want when they want it may make them happy for the moment. But it produces children with an entitlement mentality. It produces children who easily get into a mood or have a fit because they don’t get what they want. I am sure you never allow pouting or moods in your household!

Oh for goodness sake! Everyone has ‘moods’ sometimes. It’s part of the human experience and is not determination of anything spiritual. Teaching people to deny their own emotions like this is incredibly damaging.

I don’t believe children should expect something every time they go to the supermarket or you are out shopping. What does this do? It teaches them that they can have whatever fancies them. This becomes a habit. This produces adults who are impulse buyers who buy things because they see them but don’t really need them. They don’t learn to conserve. They don’t learn discipline. It does not prepare them for marriage and on day managing a home with frugality.

I’ll tell you what that does. It ensures you a peaceful, quiet, no drama shopping time if your children know that at the conclusion of a shopping trip you’ll allow a treat. It does not teach your kids to spend willy-nilly. It is a much easier way to teach self control and discipline than any number of licks you might give the kid with a plastic plumbing line.

Sometimes we discipline our children for disobedience and other times we can’t be bothered. We are not consistent, so our children don’t think it is important. But if we don’t train them to obey us and they only obey when we shout and yell after the thirteenth time of telling them, we are vacating our responsibility as a parent. And making a chaotic atmosphere in our homes.

Nancy never comes out and says ‘Beat the tar out of the kids,’ but we know that’s what she’s talking about here. The fundamentalist belief that if you are not raining blows down on your kids for some pretty slight infractions all of the time they will run amok.

Does this really sound very loving to you? Nancy and pals believe no child should have any autonomy, should obey automatically, is not allowed to have human emotions or express them. Sounds like the perfect recipe for future damaged adults.

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