Spare the rod and spoil the child?

by Marilyn 40 Replies latest jw friends

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  safe4kids

  Sadie,

  I said they can't eat an adult's portion in literal food, why should we expect them to eat a full portion of spiritual food?

  What a great way of putting it! And that's it in a nutshell, isn't it? The expectations for EVERYONE, from adult to child, were (are) completely unrealistic.

  But to be completely honest, I have to admit that I did have one elder's wife (The PO's wife, no less!) tell me that there was nothing wrong with letting my kids go to sleep during the meeting and/or letting them draw or read! Hehehe, which are all things I was already letting my toddlers do, but still it was nice, altho surprising, to have it validated. Of course the flip side of that was the PREVIOUS PO's wife, who told me that spanking my baby boy at 6 months of age wasn't "too young...he needs to learn early at the meetings to be quiet"...happily, I treated that advice with the contempt it deserved.

  Dana
• 

  littleangrypolishgirl

  I have been hit, punched, choked, kicked in the stomach(when I was 18 and thought I was pregnant)have had hot coffee thrown in my face, thrown into furniture and walls, the list goes on and on, all by my father ,an elder. I think his favorite thing to do was to backhand me across the face right before walking into the kh after making it known I didn''t want to be there. My sisters and i eventually became so numb we would laugh at him, telling him he wasn't practicing the fruitages of the spirit. This would fuel his fire and make him beat us harder but we didn't care . I always wondered where the holy spirit was, allowing this man to beat us and sheperd the flock.
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  alamb

  I actually had an elder pull me in the backroom for giving my 2 year old Cheerios out of my pocket! I was a regular pioneer/elder's wife who was rebellious enough to take the kids out on the grass and let them wiggle or put a blanket in the hallway at the conventions and let them be kids. They are very well-behaved as I disciplined through reason and patience and now see the same kids who got the beatings are now the ones doing the sneaking. I always laughed when the parent would say, "don't let me catch you doing whatever." That was the plan...don't get caught next time.

  BTW, after I told the "loving brother" that the 2 year old had low blood sugar and was underweight for her age and was not to go without food for extended periods her backed off but he had come with a whole briefcase full of bound volumes with bookmarks ready to use.

  I'm glad I am/was a bad mommy. Wish my mom had been. I went to the wooden spoon party too often and was told by her not to tell anyone of the bruises.
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  Incense_and_Peppermints

  Incense: you know, before i went to China, I totally agreed with your viewpoint about spanking. My parents spanked me waaaaay too much. And I still agree with your viewpoint to an extent. I changed this b/c there are exceptions to the rule. As you (and a couple of other posters) know thru email but others on this board don't, that I have a 12-year old (he turns 13 this September)stepson, who thankfully doesn't live with me anymore. This kid will not respond to lectures, discussions, feedback, depirval of priviledges, etc. And he will attack you if let your gaurd down. For those who don't know, he tried to ram a pair of chopsticks up my ear b/c I would let him play on the computer. This was in response to his pissing on the floor 8 days straight b/c his mom wouldn't buy him a Gameboy. When I realized he was going to ram the chopsticks up my ear, I had to fight back. i feel guilty/bad for this, but I figure if a then-almost-12 year old is going try to kill you.... If I had known he was going to be like this, I defintiely wouldn't have married his mother

  dustrabbit: this child's problems don't fall within the normal realm of parental discipline. he sounds severely disturbed (i'll even say psychotic). all the disipline/spankings in the world aren't going to help this child. he needs medical attention. dustrabbit, you do realize you could have been killed if he had been successful in his 'chopstick ramming' endeavor, don't you? aw sweetie i worry about you. get home safely and then get your wife to obtain treatment for him as soon as possible.
• 

  dustrabbit

  Marilyn : Believe it or not, much of mainland Chinese cooking uses a lot of fried food...this is partially due to the lack of ovens, so you have fry everything. And a lot of people use pig fat.

  The reason why I tie pollution into the BC rate is b/c much of HK's food comes from Guangdong which is getting choked out by pollution. You have to figure the soot/toxins from the air gets into the food somewhere along the line.

  Actually, the two times I've been to Shenzhen, it looks pretty nice compared to guangzhou...less people, less smog...

  Edited by - dustrabbit on 10 July 2002 13:52:51
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  dustrabbit

  Incense: Oh yeah, he's screwed up...and yes, I realized that I could've been killed by those chopsticks. That's why I fought back.
  
  Sure, spankings don't really work this kind of kid. However, if you don't stand your ground with this kid, when he attacks and you don't try some sort of physical reprisal, he keeps coming at you even more fiercely than before. Yeah, I realize that he needs a shrink and possible medication, but that's the problem. *I* realize it. My wife, on the other hand, doesn't.

  As I stated in a post to Marilyn, I've noticed that Chinese families would rather deny that a child has a problem, b/c it's seen as a loss of face or a failure in raising the child successful...plus, mental problems are seen as a loss of face. So my wife would rather place the blame me -- tell me I have problem in accepting the boy b/c he's not my son or that I "provoked" the boy into doing it or something ("Oh, he's the child of a divorced couple"..Yeah, so? I don't think too many kids piss on the floor at his age just b/c their parents are divorced)....it's always something on my part, no responsibilty is placed on the boy.

  the dustrabbit
• 

  SpiceItUp

  ((((((dustrabbit))))))

  I hope that child gets help. I take referrals for children like that (among those with other disabilities) and yes the Asian and the Indian parents are the ones who don't like to acknowledge that their children have problems. More often we see those kids referred because the parents say they have a "speech" concern and then it turns out that the child is autistic etc.

  On to the question of rods and beatings and whatnot..I have few memories of my childhood and the ones that stick out is my father beating me and my sister with a drier belt (them rubber suckers with ridges). The worst was when we weren't getting ready for a meeting quick enough and he caught us naked out of the shower and wet. I'll never forget that...it wasnt even soo much of the physical but the degradement that went along with no clothes. To this day I don't have a very good relationship with my father. Its something I work very hard on. I have forgiven him but its the forgetting that is the hardest (just a point...my father would have done this w/o the dubs- he was raised a strict Catholic but I think the dubs and this spare the rod just gave him the permission to do it)

  I think it depends on the child...but to use your own strengh against those that are weaker is something that will scar forever.

  Spice
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  willy_think

  Willy and DakotaI suppose you don't take litterally when the bible admonishes parents, 'if you beat him, he will not die'? I suppose that you don't accept the they were litteral stones with which the parents whose children were out of control were supposed to kill them?

  
  SaintSatan
  
  I do believe the rod and the stones are literal, maybe I was too vague with my comment, let's see if I can't confuse my meaning some more.

  Literal is a funny word Jesus is literally the lamb of God, however that doesn't make Jesus literally a lamb. people instructed about the lamb don't make the mistake of thinking Jesus was a lamb.

  The "rod" however has come to mean a beating stick or a whip or even a heavy hand. that, I believe, is a mistaken understanding. Shepherds would not think of there rods as beating sticks, they would hook, prod, push and on occasion hit with it. they would not beat the living daylights out of there charges. It was a tool for guiding and protecting and it has become a license to abuse.

  they were literal stones also, but Christians have never stoned there children to death because the "stones" like the "rod" are OT references and must be understood in the light of the NT. As Christians we believe Jesus when he said "let he who is without sin......." so we lay down not only our literal stones but also our harsh condemnations for we believe the sin takes place in the heart.

  In the same way we believe Jesus when he said "what you do to the least........" so when we, under the law of love and working "towards our salvation in fear and trembling" hold "the rod" what are we to make of it? I say, never a weapon of control over our family, that could not be a use the lord would approve of.

  we believe the person we are guiding to be not only the brother of both Christ and ourselves but part of the body of Christ and must be treated as such. These children are not ours, they belong to another, we are to care for them and discipline them with and in love, that is not to say never use corporal punishment but to use appropriate forms of correction.

  The bible doesn't condemn corporal punishment but it does condom the abuse of another. I think perhaps the word I chose "hitting" was not strong enough to express my meaning.
• 

  Satanus

  Willy

  Ok.

  SS
• 

  teejay

  >> What is it about very religious people and beating their kids?

  Marilyn,

  I think the answer is pretty simple. It isn't so much "religious people as it is orthodox Christians who take the scriptures literally. God says beat your kids so... they beat their kids. (He allowed the beating of slaves, too. - Ex. 21:21).

  Folks who beat their kids are just trying real hard to be like god.