while reading I came across this quote:
"In His dealings with us as His children, God does nothing like reaching down and spanking us each time we disobey. Sin has natural consequences, but God bears them with us, redeems them, and works in the secret places of our hearts transforming our beliefs and understanding about Him. Greater obedience results. His graciousness is not permissive, but it is very patient—training yet not demanding." - That Mom
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| [photo by Danny] |
*Sorry that I've been MIA... I'm now 27 weeks along with Harmon #3 and sick as ever (seems that I have re-entered the first trimester puking). I'm hoping to find some energy somewhere and let you all know the thoughts that have been floating around in my head all these months. Honestly, though, it just feels overwhelming. At night I mentally write blog posts when I can't sleep... they're really good, trust me, sorry that they never actually make it this far.*
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3 comments:
I love the picture of the girls! You've given me some food for thought. I'm still trying to gather my toughts on everything. I don't feel emotionaly damaged for the times I was spanked as a child. Maybe another form of training and discipline would have worked better or as well. I have been thinking about and reading the links you gave me. How do you and Danny go about training your girls? Miss you!!
Katie- it's a process. I've always been a pretty strong disciplinarian (with spanking and other consequences)... but after we had The Mar I started to feel as though I was squashing her beautiful little spirit. Sati always just did whatever we asked, and if she got in trouble she quickly changed whatever she was doing.
The thing is I started to feel like I was manipulating my children into obeying. If they did something wrong and there was a consequence than maybe they would stop, but they would most likely try it somewhere else to see if they could get away with it. I don't want to teach them to be sneaky I want to teach them how to make good decisions, not how to follow something blindly. I think in the end that can lead to abuse (as in them being abused by people because they only know how to obey and not how to think).
I agree, though, I don't think I have any damage from being spanked, and I don't even think it was inappropriate to get spankings. I just don't feel like that's the kind of Father that we have, and I want to reflect the Love of Christ to my kids in a much bigger way than just teaching "right" and "wrong".
We are still in the thick of it, finding our way. I have much less patience in pregnancy, so I find myself frustrated at their actions and my reactions. Right now we're just surviving, so I don't think any profound parenting is really happening at the moment. I'm hoping to gently change from punishment to a gentle guiding, but I know that takes a lot more energy (I don't have that right now).
And I can't say that Danny agrees with any of this. He defiantly wants his kids to obey and be well behaved... that is what you get when you follow the "traditional" rod teachings of the Purls and Ted Tripp.
I just feel like the big picture is much less about being well behaved, but making choices. In fact we don't get much done when we just try to please people, and I've been crawling out of that mindset my whole life (not that I'm even a people pleaser by nature).
I'm still largely undecided about parenting in general, but it's on the brain, and I like the teachings that Attachment Parent's give to their children. Though I know I would never be a 100% attachment parent, because I believe that parenting is only part of my calling (for another discussion... ha).
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