Tag Archives: Keystone

Hold Your Family Together

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Hold Your Family Together

Posted in The Faith of Us Fathers

The Industrial Revolution took dad away from the home where he traditionally worked with the entire family on the family business. Community Schools and then State funded Compulsory Schooling took the children away from home for longer and longer periods of time each day and for more and more weeks each year. Social pressure, increased mobility and erratic economic opportunities separated the nuclear family from the extended family, especially the grandparents. State subsidised Early Childhood Educational institutions supported by aggressive promotional campaigns drew the little ones out of the home. At last it was Feminism and the pressures of the economy that took even mum away from her home. I was a door to door salesman, wholly dependent on commission sales for an income, for 13 years until 1995. I can tell you honestly that I didn’t bother to start knocking on doors until 3:30pm each day, for prior to that time there simply was no one at home. Our cities have many streets lined with lovely houses — but all of them empty for much of the day.

It is rare to find a family unit where each member draws strength and purpose from being part of that larger entity (the family) perceived by each member to be of more worth than him or her self. The politically correct propaganda of egalitarianism has transformed the definition of “family” in some quarters to a mere ad hoc collection of individuals — such as flatmates even, with no legal or blood ties at all — wherein each demands his or her own rights and autonomy.

Christian families composed of Mum and Dad (who are legally and happily married) and their natural and/or adopted and/or fostered children are becoming increasingly uncommon. Then to find such an entity living in the same town as both sets of grandparents and any other relatives, all of whom are on more than just speaking terms, where the grandparents would never dream of sporting the bumper sticker that reads, “We’re spending our grandchildren’s inheritance”, is most unusual indeed. And should a Christian family actually find itself in such an advantageous position, what is most likely to be its lifestyle? The children are at school and after school activities, and Mum and Dad are run ragged each week with various church and community commitments on top of their regular jobs. Even on Sunday the children are often off to creche, children’s church or Sunday school, or sitting with their friends in the back pews and then off to join the youth outreach. Hands up those who remember seeing an entire family sitting all together for an entire worship service?

Such separation is demonstrably unhealthy for the family unit. Many of us have difficulty seeing exactly why this is so, for we have very little idea of the forceful powerhouse an integrated family unit could be, since few of us have ever seen one in action. I’ve only seen wee glimpses….but enough to whet my desire to see more.

If our family experience is anything to go by, there is a direct relationship between time spent with the family as a whole and family harmony and happiness. My mother is 77 years old. She has lived and travelled extensively on every continent except Antarctica. Yet those 14 months she spent on the road, being recently widowed, with every thing that meant anything to her — us five children and those possessions we could carry in the VW Combi — were the happiest and most carefree of her whole life. We five siblings developed from a pack of squabbling brats who fought each other at every opportunity into a well-organised team who could find directions, secure lodgings and buy groceries in four different languages and tote our own considerable volume of belongings (while holding the 2-year-old’s hand) from vehicle to hotel room in one trip!

Our 9-year-old is a particularly good barometer of family unity. When we are too busy to spend a good amount of focussed time with him, he acts up. Oh, he is great at absorbing the “I’m too busy right now” line without causing a problem, for he understands the pressure of deadlines. But he also knows a fob-off when he gets one, and he then becomes a right royal pain. It is usually then we notice that those daily rituals of all being present at meals, not answering the phone during the devotions, washing dishes together, reading aloud together, having some daily formal and/or informal instruction time, etc., have been either totally abandoned or compromised beyond recognition. Re-establishing them also re-establishes sanity and harmony and security and happiness.

One ritual we established a few years ago was to have devotions after every meal, not just once a day, and to include the singing of Psalms & hymns. This has at times, when I have been sharp enough and with it enough to capitalise on the opportunity, allowed for our family as a unit to discuss eternal truths, debate current events, face and weep over personal shortcomings, evaluate Biblical ways of dealing with conflicts, etc.

Another ritual we took up with great gusto was for me to read to the children in the evenings. Let me tell you, it is very exciting to see a 20 year old daughter and an 18 year old son getting out sewing or model kits in eager preparation for an extended time of listening to their “old man’s” voice. It puts the battle over the “tyranny of the urgent” (“I’ve really got too many deadlines facing me to spend an evening reading”), and over the conflict between “the one and the many” (“I was looking forward to spending some time alone, not entertaining a crowd”) into perspective…..especially now that those two older ones are gone overseas. What happened to all those plans I had of things I was going to do with them but never had time for?

Make time for your children, dads. Cultivate an attitude as in Longfellow’s poem below. Plan in the time, guard it jealously, so that, as it says in Psalm 127:5, you will not be put to shame when you speak with your enemies in the gate, for your children will all be standing shoulder to shoulder there with you.

From Keystone Magazine
May 2001 , Vol. VII No. 3
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

History

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History

Posted in Teaching Tips

One can bring order to the mass of knowledge a student must learn by studying history in chronological order and relating other fields of study to this core material. History is well suited for this role, because history is simply the account of everything humanity has done, thought, invented and dreamed about since the beginning of time. There are two ways to study history: 1) chronologically and 2) interest-directed. And of course these two can be combined.

To study history chronologically is to start in ancient times and work your way through to modern times. One idea is to divide history into four divisions:

Ancients BC 5000 to 400 AD

Medieval/Early Renaissance 400-1600 AD

Late Renaissance/Early Modern 1600-1850 AD

Modern Times 1850-Present Day

Consider spending one year on each division. If you begin to do this in first grade, the student will study all of history three times: in elementary school; in greater depth in middle school; and, finally, by using original sources in the high school years.

Interest-directed study is when people investigate areas of personal interest. This latter approach is probably more in tune with one of the goals of home education, to instill a love of learning into our children so they will be life-long learners on their own. A strict chronological study could well interfere with this process, but not necessarily, especially if the parent’s enthusiasm and interest in the subject is high.

For example, you have planned to spend a couple of months studying the ancient Greeks, then another few months studying Rome. Your boys, however, spend all of their spare time playing cowboys and Indians, while your girls are fascinated by the dresses of medieval princesses. Ancient history looks pretty boring to these children. So grab the teachable moment! Change your plans and investigate the American West of the 1800s, whose political system no longer included Royalty, connecting it with what was happening in NZ at that time, who still retained Royalty, and trace that Royal line back to medieval times, looking at their mode of dress and how different it was from the simple designs of ancient Greece and Rome, whose climates were much warmer. Plotting this all on a timeline adds a new visual dimension. (Many children will take to noting information or cut/draw-and-pasting illustrations on their own timelines as they come accross items of interest.) There: you’ve combined discipline, structure and schedule with sensitivity to the children’s interests and studied a lot more than history while you were at it!

From Keystone Magazine
January 2001 , Vol. VII No. 1
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

The Corporal Correction of Children – Part 2

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The Corporal Correction of Children – Part 2

Posted in In line with Scripture

“A servant will not be corrected by mere words; for though he understands, he will not respond.”

— Proverbs 29:19

Spank Not with Words

Do we really need to spank at all? What’s wrong with a good tongue lashing? Surely we can appeal to the child’s sense of duty, reason, sense of fair play?

Well, no, we cannot. We are talking about children here, little ones up to around 8 or 10. (If spanking is done consistently to drive out the foolishness as explained in Proverbs 22:15, and done along with the training and teaching and example of parents, there should be little if any need to spank beyond this age.) Little ones of this age, and honestly even into teenage years, do not think straight. They simply haven’t got the experience of years to have a sufficiently developed sense of reason and fair play and duty. Besides, we are talking about a child who has just committed some breach of rules, exhibiting a life currently directed by foolishness, not reason. Mere words, you see, do not dislodge the foolishness and sin from the heart, whereas a spanking will (see Proverbs 22:15 & 20:30). While they are in the grip of this outburst of foolishness, they are unable to grasp your words of wisdom anyway. So don’t waste the wise words or your breath at this point. (They will be readily received immediately after the spanking.)

In addition, tongue lashings tend to be character assassinations, going deep, doing much damage. “There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Proverbs 12:18 RSV). And because tongue lashings do no obvious damage, we can more easily give full vent to our (sinful) anger, ranting and raving, getting it off our chests, giving them a piece of our minds. This is a bad example, on top of the damage angry words are doing to the child’s spirit and emotions. The Scriptures are clear: “The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1:20).

Some parents tend to do nothing. Eli the priest failed to restrain his sons, Hophni and Phinehas. They were a disgrace to all Israel, and all Israel knew what swine they were, so much so that it is actually commented on in Scripture that “they would not listen to the voice of their father” (I Samuel 2:25) and that Eli “did not restrain them” (I Samuel 3:13). They were so bad that God determined to wipe them (and their father Eli) off the face of the earth. Their unrestrained lives proved the veracity of Proverbs 29:15: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother” (and his father, too, as well as the whole family and possibly further afield as did these sons of Eli!) Maybe Eli was a non-violent type, and like his sons, had little regard for the Lord’s ways of doing things, preferring his own. Well, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 16:25) This is what it means to live by faith: to order our lives according to God’s word, even though we can’t understand it, don’t like it, and hope our friends don’t read certain passages until after they get saved.

Grounding, giving them “time-out”, making them stand in the corner, forfeiting pocket money, etc. do not deal with the problem of sin in the heart. This sin, this foolishness which just manifested itself in the unacceptable behaviour of the child, must be driven out, separated from the child. Restrictions such as grounding, etc., are hard to police, cause the offence to be remembered for far too long, and can cause resentment to build up alongside of the original foolishness which was not driven out by the rod (spanking) in the first place.

We fostered an 8-year-old boy for a year. Foster parents are not allowed to administer Biblical correction (spankings). The boy’s psychologist suggested we give him a lollie at the end of each day he stayed within the rules. This did not work. If he blew it early in the day, he would be as disobedient and abusive as he liked thereafter, knowing the worst that could happen would be the withholding of a lollie. His lawyer suggested we write down infractions in a wee notebook, like the soccer referees do. This had no effect whatsoever.

Then one day we were assigned guardianship over the lad. I told him that he would now be subject to the same rules as our own children: one spank with the rod across the backside when it was established that he had violated one of the family’s rules. Soon afterwards both he and our youngest son transgressed together at the same time. After questioning, establishing the facts, and explaining the rules again, our son took his spank. The foster boy was next, and like our own, he cried before and after the spank….and was very receptive to further instruction and reassuring cuddles afterwards. His first words to me after the spank and again first thing the next morning were: “Dad, you’re the best!” He also wrote a card of thanks for the spank and put it on my plate at breakfast. He was a totally different boy from that point onwards.

Our words need to follow the same pattern as God’s words: we should use them to teach, reprove, correct, train in righteousness, edify and impart grace (II Timothy. 3:16, Ephesians. 4:29), but not to whip children either as punishment or to enforce obedience.

From Keystone Magazine
July 2000 , Vol. VI No. 4
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

Organization, Motivation and Laziness

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Organization, Motivation and Laziness

Posted in Craigs Keystone articles

What Is an Organizational Problem?

There are some students who have a lot of trouble in their studies because they are disorganized. These kids are said to have organizational problems. There are many different kinds of organizational problems. For example, some impulsive kids do everything too quickly and too carelessly. But there are two other common kinds of organizational problems: one has to do with space, and the other with time.

Students who have spatial organizational problems have a lot of trouble keeping track of things. They keep losing everything. They have trouble finding a pencil, a piece of paper, a place to sit when they want to do their homework. Pages keep falling out of their notebooks, which are a mess. They lose books, assignments, and personal possessions. They just can’t seem to remember where they left things. Plus, their bedrooms often look like dumps! One such school-boy described his school locker as a “black hole.” He said that nothing that’s gone into it has ever again come out!

Other students have trouble organizing time. They get mixed up about sequences and time. They are often late. They can’t remember when an assignment is due. They don’t know how much time to allow themselves to complete an assignment or job. They never are quite sure what to do first, what to do second, and what to do third when they write a report or work on a project. Time is just plain confusing for them. They can’t manage time, and this makes them disorganized.How Can You Fix Organizational Problems?

To fix an organizational problem, you need to understand that the child has the problem, which one it is, and then you need to design all kinds of tricks to help overcome the problem. A spatial problem may be helped by reducing clutter, reducing the number of choices available. You as parent/teacher may have to strictly limit how many projects are on the go at one time, what items are out and available for use on that project, right down to the number of pencils! Help the child keep track of these much fewer number of items by being strict about using them properly and tidying them away properly when finished. This means a much greater degree of supervisory commitment on your part. Hopefully the child will learn how to successfully manage these few things so you can then expand the number of items available giving the child the opportunity to learn to manage a larger number of items.

A similar technique may be used with managing time: strictly training the child to a timetable or some routine, teaching skills such as drawing up one’s own schedule, assigning priorities, estimating how long a project may take, how much time one should spend on this project at one stretch, etc. Now these techniques are not favoured by some for they are pretty much from the behaviourist school of psychology, Pavlov and Skinner, stimulus/response. Some say this approach demeans children, training them in exactly the same way one would train a dog. These techniques, like any techniques, will be limited in their effectiveness according to the nature of the problem. The child may have organic or physical conditions which must be addressed before effective learning can take place. Each child is unique, with a unique set of variables. This is the home educating parents’ challenge: to intently observe and constantly adjust the approach to the child’s makeup. This is also the vast advantage home educating parents have: they are able to observe and adjust, for they are tutoring/mentoring their own child, not a whole classroom filled with other peoples’ kids. This is not to say let the child’s needs dictate…. ultimately the parents are, under God, in charge, and the child must, under God, be subject to his parents. The Scriptures do not seem to give any leeway for organic or physical conditions.

What Do People Mean When They Say That a Child Is Poorly Motivated?

A lot of times when a student has learning disorders, people say he is “poorly motivated.” Often when a teacher or parent says this, he or she means that the student doesn’t try very hard or has given up completely. To be motivated toward something is to want very much to accomplish it or get it. Usually, students are motivated if there is a goal that they like. You might be motivated to learn algebra if you really like mathematics, especially if you think algebra is fun. You might be motivated to get good grades/comments about your home-school work if you enjoy success and if you like having your friends and relatives tell you how smart you are.

While it’s true that almost everybody would love to get good grades or compliments, there’s more to motivation than simply wanting them. You get motivated only if you think you really have a chance of getting what you want (like a finished project that is just the way you wanted it). If you think you have no chance of getting what you want, even if you try, you lose your motivation. Another part of motivation has to do with how hard it would be to get something. If you think that you could possibly do that project the way you envision it but that it would take superhuman effort — too many very hard long hours — you might lose your motivation because all that effort would not be worth it to you.

So a student can lose motivation because he doesn’t like a goal, because he feels he could never get that goal, or because the goal would be much too hard to get. You can see how a student with learning disorders might lose motivation a lot quicker than other students when it comes to getting a desired academic goal. Here is where the creative home schooling parent can help her student formulate goals that are very attractive (motivating) and definitely achievable. Observe your children: find out what motivates them, those things that they love doing, that really get them excited, into which they are willing to pour hours of time and tons of energy without even stopping to think about it. Then look for ways to tie these motivators into their curriculum so that it helps them learn. This can be as a reward for work that needs doing first or even better, incorporated as part of the learning process.

For example, we fostered and home educated an 8-year-old boy for a while who couldn’t sit still or concentrate but loved to show off. Yet he learned the location of every country in South America in two weeks! How? We got him tracing maps of South America, showing only the political boundaries. The maps stayed taped to the windows until he got the job done….he liked the tracing, but couldn’t stick at it for long, so would come and go. He made cards with the names of each country. He liked handling the cards and would match them up with the territory on the blank maps he’d drawn using the original map as a guide. We said he could show off to every visitor to our place once he had a few memorised. We also made a big deal of each one he could remember without reference to the original map. When he found that virtually no one else to whom he handed the cards could correctly match the countries’ name cards to their position on the blank map when he could, a “dumb” 8-year-old, his confidence and eagerness to learn more really grew.

How Do You Know If They’re Lazy?

There is probably no such thing as a lazy child. A child may look lazy if he or she has lost motivation. Some kids look lazy when they really have attentional difficulties that make it extremely hard for them to concentrate. A lot of other kinds of learning problems can make someone look lazy when really he isn’t. For example, a child may seem lazy because he hates getting started on homework. He has to be reminded about six times before he begins to do something like a report. His parents think he’s lazy, but he really has a fine motor problem that makes writing a huge chore, so he just dreads getting started. Once you discover a problem like this, back off. Get them doing writing they can do without it being such a difficult chore. Maybe you have to go back to the crayons and large sheets of paper, making one letter at a time.

(Some of the main ideas are from Keeping a Head in School: A Student’s Guide to Learning Abilities and Learning Disorders by Dr. Mel Levine, ISBN 0-8388-2069-7, Educators Publishing Service, Inc., 1990 31 Smith Place, Cambridge, MA 02138-1000.)

From Keystone Magazine
July 2000 , Vol. VI No. 4
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz

The Corporal Correction of Children – Part 1

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The Corporal Correction of Children – Part 1

Posted in In line with Scripture

“Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction will drive it far from him.”

— Proverbs 22:15

We Need More Grandpas

Junior bit the meter man, and then he hit the cook;

Junior’s anti-social now, according to the book.

Junior smashed the clock and lamp, and then he

hacked the tree.

Destructive trends are treated in chapters two and

three.

Junior threw his milk at mum, and then he screamed

for more;

Notes on self-assertiveness are found in chapter four.

Junior tossed his shoes and socks out into the rain;

Negation this, and chapter six says disregard the

strain.

Junior set dad’s shirt on fire and upset Grandpa’s

plate;

That’s to gain attention as explained in chapter eight.

But Grandpa takes a wooden spoon, pulls junior ‘cross

his knee;

(He’s read nothing but the Bible since 1933!)

What did Grandpa read in the Bible? He would have read a great deal about how to love, train and discipline children. The other book referred to in the poem was also ostensibly about how to love and train children, but instead of disciplining them, it seemed to emphasise understanding them.

We have here two very different world views which give opposing advice regarding the rearing of children. One world view is found in Grandpa’s Bible: that of the Creator God. The other is found in the literature of created humans. In the final analysis, there are only ever these two world views: one from the mind of God, the other from the mind of man (although there certainly is a vast amount of variation in this second one; see also Proverbs 3:5).

Our text says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child”. This is a foundational statement about the nature of the child. Jeremiah 17:9 expands on this: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Children are NOT blank tapes who learn evil from elders, an idea championed by John Locke in the late 1600s. They pick up bad behaviour NOT from the environment, as behaviourists such as B.F. Skinner would advise: it is in their hearts (and in our adult hearts even still) from conception. Children are NOT little bundles of innocence: they are little bundles of depravity (see Psalm 51:5) and can develop into unrestrained agents of evil unless trained and disciplined according to God’s Word. Selfishness, violence, lying, cheating, stealing and other such behaviour are just the child unpacking some of this foolishness from the vast store in his heart. Bad examples such as ungodly parents, siblings, peer groups or television heroes only bring out the worst of the child’s innate foolishness and allow the child an excuse for its own bad behaviour….these things do not cause the bad behaviour. Each child has its own personalised store of foolishness bound up in its heart. Some seem to have vast amounts of the most amazing variety of dirty tricks, rebellion, manipulation and other forms of selfishness, combined with really cunning and creative ways of inflicting them upon you. Others seem so sweet and innocent all the time. Don’t be deceived (which is a weakness of our sinful hearts and minds that takes prominence in situations where we are called upon by our duty to God to rouse ourselves out of the old easy chair and do some unpleasant discipline and training). Visiting us for the first time from the USA 17 years ago, I asked my mum to give her opinion of our child training and discipline practises. She’d observed for some weeks, and we knew we were doing a great job. “You want my true opinion?” she asked ominously. “Well, yes, of course Mom!” “That 3-year- old of yours has you both wrapped around her little finger”!!!! I couldn’t believe it! But my mum went on to name example after example of us being pushed around and manipulated by this sweet little girl who we were sure was obedient and respectful in every way. How wrong we were!

The text further says, “but the rod of correction drives it far from him.” Three things are immediately apparent: First, a rod is to be used. Second, it is to be used as correction. Third, it is to drive the foolishness out.

The “rod” here may have some reference to ancient symbols of authority or guidance, such as a shepherd’s rod or a ruler’s scepter. Both are very applicable to this situation, for a shepherd’s rod, like a good spanking, is to keep one out of future trouble. And parents, like rulers, must exercise over their children the authority delegated to them, or else be found guilty of abdication, neglect, irresponsibility, etc. A rod is probably not a hand in most cases, though exceptions may have to be made at times.

Spankings are to correct the child, not punish the child. Our culture is quite used to the idea of spankings being referred to as “corporal punishment”. This terminology is quite correct in describing the way certain criminals are to be dealt with by the civil government (Deuteronomy 25:1-3). Once public schools came into existence, the teachers, being agents of the civil (secular) government, could not corporeally “correct” to any particular standard (lest they break the secular clause of Section 77), and so simply punished…..usually by caning. It is instructive to note that Section 59 of the New Zealand Crimes Act 1961 (the statute which protects parents from being charged with assault whenever they spank their children) reads as follows:

“59(1) Every parent of a child and, subject to subsection (3) of this section, every person in the place of the parent of a child is justified in using force by way of correction towards the child, if the force used is reasonable in the circumstances.

“(2) The reasonableness of the force used is a question of fact.

“(3) Nothing in subsection (1) of this section justifies the use of force towards a child in contravention of Section 139A of the Education Act 1989.”

It says parents are justified in using reasonable force by way of correction. This is a legal recognition of a parent’s Biblical duty as spelled out in our text. Note: the force used must be reasonable in the circumstances (which appears to include ethnic and familial traditions…see “The Parental Use of Physical Discipline in New Zealand”, Parts 1 & 2, Keystone Vol. V, Nos. 3 & 4, May & July 1999) and used for correction. (Section 139A of the Education Act prohibits anyone from using force “by way of correction or punishment” in any early childhood centre or registered school “unless that person is a guardian of the student or child.”)

Spankings are further meant to drive the foolishness, the sinful manifestations, out of the child’s personality so that they do not become permanent fixtures. If the foolishness and sin are not driven out, but simply left to simmer inside, what do you suppose happens? The child matures in foolishness and grows into a fool. Read through the book of Proverbs for some sober warnings against such a thing. It is so bad that at one point the Scriptures declare: “He who spares his rod hates his son.” (Proverbs 13:24).

The objective behind spanking is to train, to correct, to discipline. It is not retributive, it is not vengeful: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19b). God’s law requires the entire community was to take a hand in stoning capital criminals to death — with the exception of parents if it is they who turn their child over to the civil authorities. (Compare Deut. 17:7 with 21:18-21). Parents DO NOT have life and death powers over their children.

Because we each have this foolishness, we can easily identify with our children and help them see it is something we all must struggle with. Our job as parents is to drive the foolishness out until such time as the child can toss it out himself. It is a problem the child and the parent together can point out, identify and deal with together: often children are very perceptive in spotting parental inconsistencies (foolishness), and parents should be thankful — and repentant — when their children do point these things out. We therefore do not label our children “bad”; they and we see that there is bad in them, but with training they will master it.

From Keystone Magazine
May 2000 , Vol. VI No. 3
P O Box 9064
Palmerston North
Phone: (06) 357-4399
Fax: (06) 357-4389
email: craig@hef.org.nz