UNDERSTANDING CHILDREN & MAKING IT EASY FOR THEM TO BE GOOD!--By Maria
Maria #85
7/87
(When discussing some of the strict "Laws of Love for the Demerit System," which some had imposed for the four to eight-year-old children, Mama made the following comments:)
1. IT JUST BREAKS YOUR HEART WHEN YOU FIND THAT CHILDREN ARE BEING ACCUSED UNJUSTIFIABLY OR UNFAIRLY TREATED OR MISUNDERSTOOD. When you make the rules & standard too hard for them to keep & too high for them to reach, you make them look "bad" when they're really not that bad after all. If they fail time after time trying to keep rules they CAN'T keep, they may soon give up & not try at all!
2. IF YOU HAVE A BIG, LONG LIST OF ALL SORTS OF RULES, & well-meaning childcare workers looking over their shoulders every minute & policing their every move, the adults will end up tearing down almost everything the kids do. They'll CONSTANTLY be finding fault in them because they'll be looking at them "critically" to see if they're upholding all the rules.
3. It's so much easier to see the "bad" things than all the good things the kids do. Some of these rules on the Childcare Combo's Demerit List are just too stringent & rigid & impose penalties for things that most kids just do naturally, such as running & distracting others & talking loudly! So surely they're going to be getting corrected for these normal activities all day long!--And end up stifled & afraid to do anything!
4. THE FIRST RULE OF CHILDCARE IN MY BOOK IS: You must always put yourself in the child's place to be able to UNDERSTAND the children & to make it EASY for them to be good! You can't possibly be doing that when punishing them for things that are normal childish behaviour, & even some of the things that the ADULTS themselves do! Too rigid a disciplinary standard may totally destroy the children's confidence & faith in themselves & their abilities. It can do more DAMAGE than good.
5. NOW, ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU CAN'T THROW AWAY THE RULES COMPLETELY OR YOU'LL HAVE CHAOS. No matter how much understanding, attention & sympathy you shower upon children, it will not be enough. You must balance it with the rules & discipline. You need some general rules that everyone's agreed upon that are inviolate & must be kept by all the children--at least most of the time. There must be A FEW BASIC RULES that will PREVENT hurtful behaviour, either to the child himself or to others. This includes important safety rules such as washing hands before eating or not walking barefoot outside or putting dirty fingers in mouth or eyes, all of which can be responsible for various diseases. On the other hand, an occasional forgetfulness in these things shouldn't always merit a punishment. Don't YOU forget things sometimes, too?
6. It's better to be a little stricter at the beginning, than it is to be too soft, then as time goes on & you get to know the kids better, you can ease up a little bit on certain things, once they learn what standard of behaviour you expect of them. But being strict in enforcing the rules does not mean you should have too many or difficult rules, neither does it mean that you should not be lavish with your praise & love & encouragement. Otherwise you're going to have fearful, insecure & unhappy children. They may wonder, "Where is this God of Love that we read about all the time in the MO Letters & the Bible?" Beware of burdening your children with burdens that are too heavy for them to bear! "Children should not have to be involved or burdened with matters which are above their sphere & line of duty or their comprehension or even their capability of bearing these things." "Give discipline in love as a loving parent in the right way--not to the point of total discouragement & despair so that your child gives up & quits trying because he just can't live up to your standards." (MOP 8:8; 9:205) Let's let our kids enjoy life & learn to live & love & enjoy the freedoms & happiness of serving the Lord, like we do!
7. YOU WONDER JUST WHY THOSE ADULTS CONSIDER "UNNECESSARY TALKING" AN OFFENSE THAT RECEIVES A DEMERIT.--Children NEED to talk & it would be quite difficult to distinguish in their minds necessary & unnecessary speech. And in regards to some of the other "crimes" our children commit, such as pushing, shoving, yanking, grabbing, slapping, kicking etc., that we consider so terrible & such a bad sample & impose such serious penalties for, it might help us to have a more positive attitude & be more charitable & forgiving & even happier when we consider the absolutely atrocious behaviour of System children! Think back to what YOU were like, & you'll rejoice at what little angels OUR children are! Every childish incident mentioned above is not a disaster & doesn't necessarily deserve a demerit or instant sentence. It's usually not that big a deal, & could probably be easily handled with a short, but firm reproof to the child, & then it's over! I believe our children know enough from their Word studies & the Family standard to straighten up with only a verbal correction without having to always be sentenced for it. We can get to the point where we're demanding perfection & we're judging them on every single offense throughout the day, & it's just NOT FAIR. It's much more than we expect of OURSELVES!
8. OUR FAMILY STANDARD IS VERY HIGH, MUCH HIGHER THAN THE SYSTEM'S. First of all, we have many more physical & spiritual areas of training, & secondly, we demand superior performance in these areas. We need to be aware that even from the beginning we are expecting much more from OUR children than the System does from theirs & we make heavy demands upon them. But if we give them our support & encouragement, flexibility, mercy & love, they have a wonderful advantage: They are much better equipped to carry the load & deal with these requirements, because they have the strength of the Lord & His power, the happiness & motivation & His Word.
9. DAD'S SAMPLE HAS ALWAYS BEEN ONE OF MERCY & FORGIVENESS & LENIENCY, WHERE POSSIBLE. You feel very loved, secure & confident with Dad, that as long as you're doing your job for the Lord & being generally faithful & obedient, the Lord or Dad are not going to punish you for some human frailty, blunder of the mind or even a BIG mistake.--Because they know that we're just human & we all make mistakes, even on a daily basis. They know our frame, they remember that we are but dust.
10. IF WE LOAD OUR CHILDREN WITH HEAVY BURDENS & DON'T HELP THEM CARRY THEM, IF WE CONSTANTLY FIND FAULT WITH EVERYTHING THEY DO, WE ARE TEACHING THEM A WORKS RELIGION! They will think that they have to be perfect--or else!--When we're supposed to be the greatest promoters of grace & LOVE! They're going to find they can't even WORK hard enough for our love & approval, & that they'll always fail & get "hell" for it, just like the works religions of the System!
11. LET'S FACE IT, WE ADULTS WANT OUR CHILDREN TO BE PERFECT, TO MAKE UP FOR OUR OWN IMPERFECTIONS, OR TO UPHOLD OUR PRIDE, or to prove we're doing our job, or to prove OUR spirituality. But let's not make our children's lives miserable by using them for our own selfish purposes. Let go & let them be human, let them make mistakes, let them be happy! My children have lied, have argued, have daydreamed, have been delinquent in their duties, have been disrespectful to their elders etc., but it wasn't the end of the world! We all learned lessons from these normal weaknesses, & gained victories over them & are stronger than ever for it.
12. WE'VE DEFINITELY GOT TO LAY DOWN CERTAIN RULES OF BEHAVIOUR TO PREVENT CHAOS & SO THAT OUR HOMES & CHILDCARE COMBOS FUNCTION IN AN ORDERLY, DECENT MANNER. But some "offenses" are just personal, human, little faults, & we certainly shouldn't nag & judge & sentence our kids for such little blunders. My goodness, don't children ever get a chance to run & play hard? Can't the kids wear long pants & tennis shoes & then run & play outside on the grass? If they fall down, they're not usually going to HURT themselves, & even if they do, they heal up & they learn from it to be more careful next time. All little kids LOVE to run & play! And we certainly want them to feel free to TALK when they feel like it, as long as they're not disturbing other people at quiet time or during a Word class or whatever. We're just expecting too much all at once of these little children, when the Lord certainly doesn't require that WE get the victory all at once in all of OUR weak areas & follow a great big list of rules!
13. THE DANGER IS, WE CAN TURN OUT "PERFECTLY BEHAVED CHILDREN" WHO ARE REALLY QUITE "SCREWED UP," because of the way they've been treated & raised. Our ultimate goal is not to have "perfect" children, but WELL-ADJUSTED children, & by well-adjusted we mean loving, caring, feeling confident of the Lord's Love & of our love, mature in the spirit & loving the Lord & His Word, & having FAITH in the Lord. But so much depends on how they're treated & raised, especially from a young age. Having too strict & too many rules may result in submission, but not out of the right motivation. "Some parents have really been tough on their young people--hard, cruel & mean--& even if they were right, the kids never felt any real concern, reasoning, rationalisation, explaining or motivation, & so they never learned love, love for God, love for parents, love of others. They just never learned the right motivation. They only did it because they were made to & they would only do as much as they were made to do, whereas love goes much further, even all the way. It'll go to the death & die for someone else, to do the right thing." (From "Dad's Guidelines for Discipline of Kids Young & Old," ML#2066) "The best law is Love, & along with Love comes reasoning, persuasion, explaining, teaching, the Word & all the rest so that the children can make their own decisions, because they'll stick to it far better if they decide to do it themselves because they WANT to do it right. That'll go a lot further than only doing right because you're there to MAKE them!" (MOP 9:193)
14. NAGGING IS SOMETHING I CAN HARDLY STAND--I HATE MYSELF WHEN I NAG! It's so easy to nag at children!--Almost impossible not to! As good as our children are, I can always find little things I'd like them to do better. That's why we made a point to put those good articles in the "How to Love" book (and now "Raise 'em Right"), in order to give our adults practical ways & solutions to AVOID repeated lecturing & nagging! Instead of making big, long, wordy lectures day after day, "You left the door open again! How many times have I told you not to leave that door open? You're letting all the flies in, & I have to tell you this every day!", etc. all you have to do is give a ONE-WORD COMMAND, a reminder, "The DOOR, Techi!" We must make a concerted effort to make necessary reminders LOVING SUGGESTIONS & as far from nagging & criticism as possible. If you have a long list of rules for a group of children who are with one teacher all day long, that one teacher could be nagging literally all day long, just one child after another. But the problem is that the WHOLE GROUP hears it & SUFFERS from it constantly all day long!
15. WE MUST LEARN TO OVERLOOK SOME THINGS, especially little offenses that are not necessarily "evil" or "sin." We must try not to emphasise the negative so much. I slouched until I was 12 years old & I was quite round-shouldered despite my mother's frequent efforts to get me to stand up straight. But when I finally got to 7th grade I became friends with a Baptist girl named Cheryl Stahlman whom I really admired because she had personal convictions & was a bold witness. Her good posture spoke much MORE to me than any of my mother's nagging. Because I wanted to emulate her, in one moment I decided to change. I had an INCENTIVE & a MOTIVATION! I finally changed of my own accord, my own decision, & there was no permanent damage done to my back from all the years I had slouched. In other words, don't worry if they don't want to look nice or be immaculate. If you can just wait a little longer, they'll start making an effort to improve their appearance when they start taking an interest in a certain boy or girl, or wanting to be like someone they admire.--Maybe other motivations, too: Techi, at age eight, noticed she had some blackheads on her nose, & when told she could prevent getting more by keeping her face very clean, she showed a renewed interest in face-washing.
16. SO IF OUR KIDS ARE GOING TO SLOUCH A LITTLE BIT, or leave a mess in the room, or fidget with their hair, well, there are probably a lot more important things that they need to work on first, such as their Word time & concentration & obedience, without us having to nag & correct & scold them & even SENTENCE them for habits which are not going to meanwhile damage them permanently. They need to know of course they shouldn't do these things, & you need to try to help them to get the victory over these kinds of habits or weaknesses through classes in the Word, slogans, signs etc., but as long as they KNOW that they're not supposed to do it, it doesn't help much to nag about it or punish them for it either. These are just not the most important things & you can't correct EVERYTHING all at once! You may have to let some of these less important things go in preference for other pushes. We DO have to be strict on some very IMPORTANT things, but we DON'T have to be so strict on other things that AREN'T so important.
17. WHAT THEY DO AT TEEN CAMPS IS PROMOTE A "GOOD HABITS PUSH WEEK" on some of the Teens' bad habits. You could make a new campaign on some new subject every week, like cleanliness or table manners or etiquette, etc., instead of slapping the kids down with demerits at every little misstep.
18. SOME THINGS YOU JUST DON'T HAVE TO & SHOULDN'T WORRY ABOUT WHILE YOU WORK ON THE MORE IMPORTANT AREAS OF CHILDCARE & TRAINING! It's true, kids SHOULD keep their fingers out of their mouth & eyes because it's a very unhealthy, unhygienic habit that could make them very sick. Now that should be CORRECTED, but I don't know if it has to necessarily be sentenced or punished. But at least while they're learning to keep their fingers out of their mouth & eyes, if they slouch a little bit, you don't have to nag & lecture them about that all the time too. Once you've TOLD them, especially a few times, you shouldn't continually nag about it! We just have to let some things go while we work on other more important things.
19. "We can't emphasise enough how wonderfully you've done. Please, don't let these little suggestions discourage you.--At the beginning you can't be completely perfect. In fact, just resign yourself to the fact that it's going to take awhile.--Would you believe, until Jesus comes!" (ML#22)
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