As a toddler, my son would often lash out at other kids for no apparent reason, causing incidents at daycare, at home, and within the church nursery. At times, he would even hurt himself in his distress. After greater than a 12 months of attempting to encourage the “right” behavior, I felt like this was greater than age-appropriate tantrums.
We sought an evaluation, and our son received multiple diagnoses that confirmed he’s neurodivergent, a term that commonly encompasses brain-based differences resembling ADHD, autism, learning difficulties, and more.
One approach to consider how my son experiences the world is to think about his brain like a highly sensitive smoke detector. A typical smoke detector in your kitchen ceiling will provide you with a warning to a possible emergency within the room. However, one which is extremely sensitive might provide you with a warning to a neighbor smoking a cigarette as he walks by your window on his approach to the shop.
My son’s nervous system makes him similarly sensitive. He’s hyper-attuned to potential threats on this planet around him, and sometimes probably the most typical on a regular basis interactions can change into extremely distressing for him, even leading to acute anxiety attacks.
As first-time parents, we did our greatest to follow conventional advice about establishing routines and maintaining authority. We disciplined him with consequences, withheld privileges, and rewarded any display of self-control. Any physical discipline only succeeded in making us seem to be a threat and triggering his fight-or-flight response.
Traditional types of discipline weren’t working, and my husband and I knew we wanted to vary the best way we parented. Yet I still wondered if this was compatible with my faith. I couldn’t escape the maxim “Spare the rod, spoil the kid.”
One Sunday, our pastor preached on the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). He encouraged us to place ourselves within the shoes of a first-century Jewish father—to assume being effectively disowned by your child and the emotions of getting them eventually return.
Citing Kenneth E. Bailey’s work, our pastor explained that a first-century son who demanded his inheritance can be ceremoniously rejected, cut off from his heritage and his family. Our pastor described the daddy running to his son to be able to reach him before the community noticed his return and forged him out endlessly. I pictured villagers running after the daddy to see what he would do, stunned that he embraced his wayward, reckless child as an alternative of condemning him and casting him out.
Our pastor asked us to try to understand how unbelievable the forgiveness, grace, and protection the daddy prolonged to his son would appear to the remaining of the village, who would at best despise the son and at worst excommunicate or stone him.
I attempted to understand the tenderness the daddy will need to have felt toward his son to be willing to forgive and discover a recent way forward that integrated his child back into the family and the community, no matter what others thought. I wondered the right way to reconcile the discrepancies between this particular illustration of the love of God the Father and the parenting advice I continued to receive from other Christians to be firm, to shepherd and steward my child, and to let my child know I used to be the authority.
When I used to be encouraged to “shepherd” my children, I might jokingly respond that my lack of agrarian experience left me uncertain the right way to move forward. As I pored over the multitude of sheep and shepherd imagery within the Bible, I didn’t understand how a shepherd could brandish a rod against his sheep and still refresh or comfort them (Ps. 23:3–4).
So I did what many millennial parents might do: I searched the Internet for the right way to herd and are inclined to sheep, specifically on the lookout for references to rods and staffs. I discovered that a rod would likely have been used to fight off wild animals who may come after the sheep—not against the sheep themselves, and that the staff was probably a shepherd’s crook, used to guide sheep and even retrieve them should they find themselves in a precarious situation.
I also learned that “Spare the rod, spoil the kid” isn’t actually what Proverbs 13:24 says. The phrase likely originated from a Seventeenth-century long satirical poem, Hudibras, and Samuel Butler’s words convey an explicitly sexual meaning.
Meanwhile, as we sought out strategies that may be effective for my son, I discovered secular experts who really helpful mindful parenting that focuses on compassionately constructing skills—what’s popularly called “gentle parenting.” I later found quite a lot of Christian experts who encourage an approach to parenting that centers on connection, respect, and gentleness, including Flourishing Homes and Families, Connected Families, and Grace Based Families.
Both Christian and secular critics denigrate it as a very permissive, boundary-free kind of parenting that may have detrimental effects each in childhood and maturity.
At the identical time, proponents of gentle parenting don’t all the time agree on what discipline should seem like. There are similar approaches called positive parenting, responsive parenting, and peaceful discipline, and a few experts have even suggested abandoning the name “gentle parenting” altogether.
The words discipline and disciple each derive their meaning from the Latin word for instruction or teaching. As language has evolved, there continues to be an implication of order and instruction, however the concept of chastising or punishing didn’t change into a part of the word’s meaning until the eleventh or twelfth century, when it became related to military instruction.
Gentle parenting, quite, allows my family to deal with instruction—on discipling our kids in such a way that we model the Father’s love for them, in order that they could grow to trust and know God.
Whatever you select to call this kind of parenting, the common thread is that oldsters are encouraged to be authoritative (often contrasted with authoritarian parenting), to deal with respecting and understanding the kid, to emphasise cooperation between parent and child, and to encourage independence inside appropriate boundaries.
At the tip of the day, all parenting requires wisdom and discernment, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. Gentle parenting offers one set of tools and methods that enable us to model Christ’s love and to equip our kids with the self-control, order, and style required to navigate the fallen world we’re all born into.
My husband and I think that children are a blessing from God (Ps. 127:3), and we parent in a way that focuses on compassionately guiding and empowering our kids (Eph. 6:4). We encourage autonomy, independence, and abiding faith by remembering that adults and children are created within the image of God (Gen. 1:27).
We don’t harshly punish our kids, because we seek to like them because the Father loves us (1 John 3:1), and we endeavor to model discipline, grace, and faith in a way that we hope reflects that love (Prov. 3:11–12; 1 John 4:11–12). At every step, we consider our kids’s development in addition to their needs for support and accommodation.
When we punish our kids, we’re inflicting suffering for his or her past behavior with the hope of adjusting their future behavior. There is not any shortage of the way to show and instruct a baby about wrongdoing—and the right way to prevent it—without causing them to suffer. Forgiveness, mercy, and style aren’t against discipline, good stewardship, and experiencing the actual, felt consequences of our actions.
My husband and I even have each the privilege and responsibility of working together to assist our kids develop skills and to supply support as they navigate the world with increasing independence. We allow our kids to experience the implications of their actions, and we discuss what we could do in another way to realize a distinct consequence. Most importantly, we teach them concerning the incredible grace and mercy that is obtainable to every of us.
We parent the best way we do as a humble reflection of what God is offering to all of us. Throughout his ministry, Jesus went out to people and met them where they were. He didn’t insist on a standardized technique of redemption, and there’s ultimately no checklist we are able to follow. We can only follow him. To put it one other way, Jesus wants us to follow his lead, and we ask the identical of our kids.
And after we inevitably fall short—or our kids do—my hope and prayer is that we’ve cultivated the sort of love and style that may allow a baby to return in humility and trust or a father to sprint through town to greet his child, irrespective of the time apart or the circumstances of that separation.
A couple of months ago, we began to have similar concerns about our daughter’s development, and we sought an evaluation for her as well. As I discussed this with my mother and the psychologist, I spotted that there are lots of similarities between my daughter’s behavior and the way I used to be as a baby. I made a decision to pursue my very own evaluation, and we confirmed that each my daughter and I are also neurodivergent.
A recent CDC report found that almost 1 in 10 children between ages 3 and 17 are diagnosed with a developmental disability, a rise from previous years. If this trend continues, the church might want to develop recent tools to like and support our kids. I imagine this may even include accepting and accommodating types of parenting and types of discipline that, while “recent” to many within the church, are each rooted in Scripture and respectful of our kids.
When the disciples stopped people from bringing children to receive blessing and prayer from Jesus, he admonished them (Matt. 19:13–14). We don’t have any reason to consider that the youngsters who got here before Jesus were without disabilities. Throughout the Gospels, people got here to Jesus for healing and prayer for themselves, their children, and their family members.
I deeply desire for adults to recollect this before asking a seemingly disruptive child to depart a service or to refrain from participating in a church activity that may allow them to experience the love of Christ. “Do not hinder them,” our Savior says, “for the dominion of heaven belongs to resembling these” (v. 14).
Sunita Theiss is a author, communications consultant, and homeschool parent based in Georgia.
