The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.
- Nelson Mandela
Jim and Lynne Jackson offer unique insight and assistance to families in a variety of ways. Connected Families is a wonderful resource, particularly for households experiencing turmoil.
Their home page puts it simply enough: "Do you feel overwhelmed and dissatisfied with your parenting? And perhaps you even feel disconnected from your children? Reverse the trend starting today. It is possible to parent peacefully, and connect with your children even in the midst of discipline. Our team provides biblically-based live and virtual mentoring that brings hope to your family."
There is no question that parenting yields some of life’s most rewarding experiences. Even so, by its very nature, having children is an ongoing battle on a variety of fronts. Raising a family means being responsible for the finances and relationships, housing and healthcare, education and religious training, transportation and entertainment of not only oneself but a spouse and children. And not only for just the present, but the foreseeable future. If not eternity.
When dealing with the challenges of raising willful children, the historic and/or Biblical models might be codified into the three predominate styles of Breaking, Bending and Redirecting. For more information on Scripture's handling of these three methods see GB's article Raising Children.
In regards to Redirecting, there may be no more insightfully simple and graciously gentle resource than Connected Families. Particularly for parent’s deciding not to spank or the equivalent thereof (such as pinching…), creative ways to channel children’s natural proclivities (good and bad) into healthy outlets, in hopes of creating wise and well adjusted adults, are all the more crucial.
Most expensive across the board in time, energy and money such a philosophy is best suited for pro-active parents happily investing their resources to research and develop a plan capable of meeting the traditional challenges of childhood. As well as a long list of growing modern concerns.
Here again, a good game plan should address both immediate, long term and even eternal issues and behavior. The development and use of well thought out words of kindhearted instruction help reflect a parent’s true goals even in the face of flagrant disobedience. Consider the following example from and interview with Jim and Lynne Jackson from Connected Families hosted by To Love, Honor and Vacuum:
“Imagine your child has just left another mess on the dinner table in spite of your clear instruction to clean it up. A behavior-focused statement might be something to this effect, “You left a mess again. Why are you so messy? Now clean it up or you’ll get a consequence!” The parent will firmly follow through and either the mess will get cleaned or the consequence administered.
Sounds good right? When parents focus on behavior they tend to evaluate effectiveness based on immediate results. If the child complied, then the discipline “worked.” But there is always more to surface behavior than meets the eye. Behavior grows out of a belief system. So it’s helpful to ask, “What is my child believing about themselves?” when it’s time to discipline.
Under the surface of behavior-focused interactions, kids are learning far less about right from wrong than they are about what mom or dad thinks about that child. And this is REALLY important because our children look to what we think about them to help them figure out for themselves who they are. They form their identity, their beliefs about who they are around their perceptions of what we think and say.
So let’s look at this behavior-focused approach to see what kids might be learning to believe about themselves. Consider the first phrase the child hears from the behavior-focused statement. “You left a mess again.” Implicit in this statement are subtle messages.
1. First, the word “you” suggests the problem isn’t the mess, but the child.
2. The word “again” implies this has happened before.
3. So right at the outset the identity message a child likely perceives is “I am a frequent problem.”
If this is the normal sort of approach then the child forms self-identity according to the messages. In an identity-focused approach parents learn to take great care of their language and perceived meaning. The statement might be addressed more like this, “I see you haven’t gotten to that mess just yet. What is your plan about that?”
1. In this approach the statement is about the mess, not about the child.
2. The question enlists the child’s problem solving ability, thus communicating the message, “You can do this, you are capable of solving this,” while keeping the child accountable for the cleaning.
3. This also communicates an important message, “You are responsible.”
Now, knowing that you, the parent reading this, are madly in love with your kids (even if there is frustration about challenging behaviors), we invite you to consider what identity messages your kids get when you discipline them?”
Note: For more excellent parenting tips please visit ConnectedFamilies.org. GB suggests downloading their free introductory offer: "4 Messages Every Child Longs To Hear." Along with a myriad of helpful resources, we highly recommend Jim and Lynne Jackson’s book Discipline That Connects With Your Child’s Heart (available in audio book read by authors, as well as Kindle and Audible formats).
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