Homeschool Chat: How did you decide to homeschool?
41 and perimenopause. I was going to write about something...
but I can't remember. I was talking to Jeff over a wonderful dinner. Maybe that was it- I took all the overripe stuff that was going bad in the garden, chopped it up and put it over some tortilla chips, leftover rice, a bit of leftover lentils and quinoa, and then poured a New Mexican style chile sauce over it and sprinkled well with Monterrey Jack cheese. It was so absolutely delicious that I ate 3 servings. And I was drinking this new thing I found at Costco, Frisk Prickly Reisling. GET IT. OMG Get It.
So we were talking over this wonderful wine and dinner- maybe it was the fact that I had 11 kids all weekend all by myself? But I was a happy mama. And we were talking, and suddenly I said, "I should blog that!"
So I came to the kitchen, and before I could get to the computer, I saw the Compassion Children's folders had come in the mail and had to read that to the kids... and then gave everyone a job to do- you take care of extraneous dishes, you put away food, you wash the pots, and you feed the cats and wash their water dish....
Then I finally got the mail off my laptop and sat down, and Facebook was open, so I commented on a couple things...
And DH said, "Did you get your blog post written?"
And I realized, I have no idea what I thought would make such a good blog post.
So there you have it. 41 and perimenopause. Or just 11 kids and Frisk Prickly Reisling?
I am reading two books right now-- Pride and Predjudice and Havah (speculative fiction about Eve) plus a bunch of nonfiction, so I'm going to go read and relax now that I do not have 11 children in my house- just 6.
My oldest will be home in a week. I miss him.
So we were talking over this wonderful wine and dinner- maybe it was the fact that I had 11 kids all weekend all by myself? But I was a happy mama. And we were talking, and suddenly I said, "I should blog that!"
So I came to the kitchen, and before I could get to the computer, I saw the Compassion Children's folders had come in the mail and had to read that to the kids... and then gave everyone a job to do- you take care of extraneous dishes, you put away food, you wash the pots, and you feed the cats and wash their water dish....
Then I finally got the mail off my laptop and sat down, and Facebook was open, so I commented on a couple things...
And DH said, "Did you get your blog post written?"
And I realized, I have no idea what I thought would make such a good blog post.
So there you have it. 41 and perimenopause. Or just 11 kids and Frisk Prickly Reisling?
I am reading two books right now-- Pride and Predjudice and Havah (speculative fiction about Eve) plus a bunch of nonfiction, so I'm going to go read and relax now that I do not have 11 children in my house- just 6.
My oldest will be home in a week. I miss him.
Religiously Inspired Modesty- and what is gospel modesty?
When I was recently reading Give Them Grace, I paused my review posts to take time to write out my thoughts on what the author said about teaching your daughters to dress Modest. I admit, I am really bothered by the modesty imposed on females due to religious belief.
Any of you who knew me 10 years ago may be surprised since I was one of them. Yes, in 1997, I listened to teachings by Bible Church pastors, who seemed earnest and reasonable and had verses, and I went to my closet and did a purge.
Any of you who knew me 10 years ago may be surprised since I was one of them. Yes, in 1997, I listened to teachings by Bible Church pastors, who seemed earnest and reasonable and had verses, and I went to my closet and did a purge.
Seven Kids: 7 Tips for Surviving Littles
These are some Top-7 Tips for making time for your soul, when you think managing a home full of small children will suck you dry.
Spank or Spank Not, but don't use euphemisms
(edited and revised from the original post)
From Elyse Fitzpatrick, Give Them Grace,
But then she turns around in Chapter 6 and says:
That, to me, would be gospel punishment. That, as far as I can see, teaches my child in a concrete way the gospel of Jesus taking our punishment upon himself.
But as I said before, apparently Elyse doesn't know what to do with the "Spanking Verses" in the Bible- saying no child has the capacity to obey (p.17) and then, "We need to be sure our children understand what we are saying and that they are capable of obeying" (p.102). Her only examples of using "physical correction" involve toddlers and preschoolers, and she says indeed the same things Tripp teaches:
Did you notice this example 600 word lecture she suggests giving before a spanking is to punish a little boy whose "sin" is to fail to "put away your toys and get ready for supper." And it's really just sickening for me to read, honestly. Mostly it's sickening to me because I did this to my first three boys when they were toddlers and preschoolers, because I believed that horrible teaching of so many Bible churches.
This lecture is so horrible, it continues:
One last quote from Elyse:
Plain old spiritual abuse.
Chapter 7 is about sheltering and is fine, with the admonishment not to shelter your kids too much because A) they will grow up and eventually be on their own, and B) evil originates inside of us, not from without, so sheltering doesn't mean eradicating evil. Finally, the gospel calls us to minister, and we can't minister to those we alienate ourselves from. Same old stuff I always say. Kudos to Chapter 7. Except the part about modesty. And I have something scheduled to appear next week on that paragraph.
To see the entire series of blog posts concerning the book, Give Them Grace, click here.
From Elyse Fitzpatrick, Give Them Grace,
Over the previous four chapters we have bombarded you with one message: Give your children grace. ...Dazzle them with the message of Christ's love and welcome...and drench them with it again. ...We remind you of this because every human heart is ...drawn to law.... Factories of human legislation..... Does grace negate the necessity for law? Should we simply ignore our children's behavior and only speak of God's love? Is that what real grace looks like? (Chapter 5)Of course, a loving parent is not going to just ignore a child's bad behavior. A parent gives a child the framework for making his way in the world. You train your infant to trust you, your toddler to follow and adore you, your preschooler to discover and start questioning wisely. You can't even begin to find answers if you don't know how to ask questions wisely! I'm concerned, though, with the tone Elyse takes where it seems she only thinks the preschooler who can't be reasoned with can only be trained like a dog. She says in chapters 1-5 that no one- kids included- can obey laws perfectly, that laws are there to show us our need for a savior.
But then she turns around in Chapter 6 and says:
For the most part, the Proverbs were written by Solomon...and although they are true and wise words, not even Solomon was able to employ them in such a way that his own son wasn't foolish. Nevertheless, the proverbs were written to instill skill in the art of godly living....One thing we have to understand, parents, is that God didn't "succeed" in controlling Adam and Eve and preventing them disobeying in the garden. Solomon's own son was foolish- so why would you follow the Proverbs as a list of rules and promises for your own children?
...if we approach Proverbs believing that the entire Bible 'whispers his name,' if we come with open eyes, looking for our Savior, we'll easily identify him there as the Wise Son. Yes, the Proverbs do tell us how to live godly lives, but they also tell us about him. ...the plain words of Proverbs are for our good...if we neglect to see Jesus there, too, we will wrongly assume that we will be able to automatically accomplish something that not even Solomon could accomplish: produce wise children.I would like to point out that to understand Proverbs you have to understand the literary genre. Our book of Proverbs is a collection of thoughts, maxims, written in poetic form. It's not thought to be written all by one person, but many, although chiefly Solomon. (source) I know that one of the hallmarks of the Monergists is a strict literal interpretation of all parts of the Bible jointly and severally. If you are not a person who follows such a strict interpretation you may find yourself even more frustrated than I by the author's self-contradiction in her spanking hermeneutics:
In addition, because the Proverbs are so clear-cut and seem like promises, we'll believe that our performance will guarantee success... (but) Because a devout Jew could employ Proverbs in the same way, this isn't a Christian paradigm. Parenting methods that assume or ignore the gospel are not Christian. Proverbs enjoins ...the use of physical force, or spanking....BAM. She just doesn't know what to do with something that's been taught in Christian churches for a generation, taught so passionately that it is nearly impossible for any earnest person to withstand. She continues with these grace-filled, positive, and truly gospel statements:
If we encourage children to ask for forgiveness when their hearts haven't been stricken by the rod of the Holy Spirit's conviction, we are training them to be hypocritical. We are inadvertently teaching them that false professions of sorrow will satisfy God.(p.104)
Remembering that genuine love for God and others will only grow in the environment of his initiating love for us will help us when we are fearful and are tempted to demand some show of repentence....(p.105)
[quoting Martin Luther] "Grace frees us from having to earn God's acceptance by meeting others' expectations, and it also frees us from the unholy pride and prejudice of determining others' acceptance by God on the basis of our own wisdom."(p.105)She even has a section on "Donkeys, Carrots and Sticks" that says "everyone struggles with obedience, no matter how old they are." Elyse points out that behavior modification is not gospel- my margin notes say, Is it gospel for me to demand I get what I want from my children? Elyse says:
Because both parents and children obstinately refuse to pull the cart of God's glory down the road, the Father broke the stick of punishment on his obedient Son's back. Rather than trying to entice us by dangling an unattainable carrot of perfect welcome and forgiveness incessantly in front of our faces, God the Father freely feeds the carrot to us, his enemies. He simply moves outside all our categories for reward and punishment... gives us all the reward and takes upon himself all the punishment. (p. 108)So in light of this grace filled gospel understanding, I should say (if I were a Christian who did believe that I must spank my child to obey God as - quoted from Tripp's book, Shepherding a Child's Heart, in a comment the other day) then, "in Jesus," I'll accept my child's punishment on my own back, facing God one day if necessary for that punishment in his place, and lavish rewards of fellowship and family upon my child, and say, "You are my dearly beloved son; please remember who you already are and act like it." (p.107)
That, to me, would be gospel punishment. That, as far as I can see, teaches my child in a concrete way the gospel of Jesus taking our punishment upon himself.
But as I said before, apparently Elyse doesn't know what to do with the "Spanking Verses" in the Bible- saying no child has the capacity to obey (p.17) and then, "We need to be sure our children understand what we are saying and that they are capable of obeying" (p.102). Her only examples of using "physical correction" involve toddlers and preschoolers, and she says indeed the same things Tripp teaches:
Correction or punishment must come in the context of the Wise Son who took the blows meant for fools. Here's how a conversation before or after a time of discipline might sound: "Child, I am grieved that you decided to disobey me when I clearly told you to put away your toys and get ready for dinner. ...now I have to discipline you...If I fail to discipline you now, I will be disobeying him. I am sad that I have to cause you pain." (p.100-101)
This lecture is so horrible, it continues:
"He stood in your place and felt the rod of correction too, so that we would never have to experience God's wrath. But I have to discipline you now because your disobedience shows me that you have forgotten how wonderful his love is."Damn, that's just plain old spiritual abuse. Especially because it continues, to this presumably preschool child:
"I am going to pray for you now and then later, if the Holy Spirit is moving in your heart to make you truly sorry for disobeying me, I promise I'll forgive you if you ask."Because yeah, you don't ever want to coerce a child into asking forgiveness if they don't truly feel sorrow, because then you're teaching them to be hypocrites.... but it's OK to make your forgiveness of him conditional on whether the Holy Spirit moves in his heart to make him truly sorry. :puke:
One last quote from Elyse:
Sometimes we may feel that we are in a season in which we are doing nothing but spanks and that when we share the gospel with our kids they act as though they are deaf.Remember, she's speaking from Monergism, believing that it's the work of the Holy Spirit to give a person "ears to hear."
When it's wintertime in their souls, that is the time we need to continue to obey in faith, believing that the Lord will use our efforts to bless our children, reciting the gospel over and over to ourselves [not our children?] and waiting and praying for the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit.So yeah, now the preschool, pre-Age-of-Accountability time in our children's lives is the "winter in their souls." And we recite the gospel to ourselves, waiting for the work of the Holy Sprit in their lives. And while we recite the gospel that no one can obey without the Holy Spirit helping, and that Jesus bore our punishment, we tell our precious little ones that HE died for them so they won't be punished but we have to spank them or we'll be disobeying Him.
Plain old spiritual abuse.
Chapter 7 is about sheltering and is fine, with the admonishment not to shelter your kids too much because A) they will grow up and eventually be on their own, and B) evil originates inside of us, not from without, so sheltering doesn't mean eradicating evil. Finally, the gospel calls us to minister, and we can't minister to those we alienate ourselves from. Same old stuff I always say. Kudos to Chapter 7. Except the part about modesty. And I have something scheduled to appear next week on that paragraph.
To see the entire series of blog posts concerning the book, Give Them Grace, click here.
Obedience and Grace
Today I will post my take-aways from Part 1: Foundations for Grace
God created the world, and mankind, and declared it good. In chapter 2, Elyse equates moralism with wanting to prove that we are, in fact, good and worthy to be given the benediction, You're good:
Chapter 4 is called Jesus Loves all his Little Prodigals and Pharisees. It is framed around the story of the Prodigal Son. The take-away I got from this chapter is remember to pray while I'm going about the day with the kids, "Please help me to see, and to overcome my desire to be left alone....Help me be wise and know what to say right now. Help me not to give into my own unbelief, works-righteousness, and idolatry'...Then once again, the gospel came rushing in on a tidal wave of grace." She also points out the danger of looking at the rebel kid as the "bad kid" and the compliant son as "the good kid." Looking at the "good kid" and saying 'Why can't you be more like that?,' she says, "obliterates the gospel message."
About Proverbs 22:6 (Train up a child in the way he should go....) Elyse insists, "Proverbs are not conditional promises; they are wise maxims. When we fail to understand this form of literature and build our lives on them as a guarantee, we end up with a philosophy akin to that of Job's comforters. They had a very simple formula...they believed if one lack's God's visible blessing, it must be because he is not doing what God wants him to do. They thought that faithful obedience always obligates God to respond in the way one desires. They were wrong."
Critique: More bashing Mormons, "We won't get results we want from the law. We'll get shallow self-righteousness or blazing rebellion...We'll get moralistic kids who ...could easily become Mormons." A few 200 word examples of talking to preschoolers puncuated by the euphemism, "followed by a time of discipline."
As God usually does in my life, He has brought to me resources and teachers and sermons and videos and such on an issue that He is working on in me. You know the adage, it always comes in threes? Last week I pointed to a blog where a new book is mentioned, Give them Grace. I immediately ordered it on Amazon; it arrived and I set to reading it.
The next few blog posts will be a Study, and Critique, of Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus. This is post 3.To find all the blog posts on the topic of the book Give Them Grace, click here.
Pure, unadulterated, consistent love for God and pure, unadulterated, consistent love for others is the summation of all the law God has given us in both the Old and New Testaments. ...the problem is..we always love ourselves more than we love God or others...Even though our children cannot and will not obey God's law, we need to teach it to them again and again. And when they tell us that they can't love God or others in this way...we are to agree with them and tell them of their need for a Savior. (Chapter 1)Gospel and law are mutually exclusive- she says it twice, "Everything that isn't gospel is law." You cannot draw a Venn diagram of this, gospel and law in two bubbles with a common part where they overlap. For most of my early parenting, like Elyse admits, I used the Bible as a rule book for our family. My love for the gospel changed the way I parent, though-- I could no longer ignore the gospel in my parenting. It wasn't about how I wanted the kids to act so I'd look good and they'd be more convenient! It was about how I am showing them the nature of God and leading them to Jesus. Elyse outlines four categories of obedience- initial, social, civic and religious- Frankly, I'm not getting what the point of that was, she states that they are all areas of obedience that every parent, Christian or no, should work to teach their children. Initial to keep them safe, social so they'll make friends and influence people, civic so they are useful members of communities, and religious? Well that seemed to be about not talking during prayer and other practices of your faith- "but is not the fruit of a saving faith." I was perturbed by another 200 word paragraph to talk to your preschooler about wiggling during prayer time, "I understand your heart isn't drawn to God during prayer yet...but...we require you to sit quietly during prayer time...I am reminding you that your continued distraction will result in discipline...." Really? Because taking your preschooler and acknowledging that he's not connecting to God that way is not discipline? She's alluding to spanking again, since she says, "We'll talk more about discipline in Chapter 6" and Chapter 6, I'm afraid, is all about and only about spanking.
God created the world, and mankind, and declared it good. In chapter 2, Elyse equates moralism with wanting to prove that we are, in fact, good and worthy to be given the benediction, You're good:
Every word we say to them during the day will be shaped by our view of their ability to be good and how to get them there. Every responsible parent wants obedient children. But if we're confused about their ability to be good, we'll end up lying to them about their desperate lostness outside of Christ...Tell your children every day what God requires from them, and when they groan under the weight of it, give them this invitation: "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the [boy or girl] who takes refuge in him!" (Ps. 34:8) Keep displaying his goodness to them. Do it over and over and over again. ...Make them thankful for Christ's perfect keeping of [the law] in their place. ...When they fail to obey, they can thank God that their relationship with him isn't predicated upon their obedience but upon Jesus' obedience. ...When we put our faith in him, he bestows the benediction upon us: "These are my beloved children, with whom I am well pleased." (Chapter 2)Does this sound familiar? "But I worked so hard and tried to do everything right! What happened?" In Chapter 3, Elyse tackles idolatry and its role in the demise of moralistic parenting:
We all struggle with idolatry... idolatry is frequently the worship of some good. ...Idolatry is always subject to the law of diminishing returns...Johnnie's obedience today is never quite good enough for tomorrow. ...if you've ever wondered why you're so demanding, perhaps idolatry is the answer. ...Our idolatry is a symptom of a deeper problem: Unbelief. ...Yes, we're to be faithful and diligent. But even so, we're not guaranteed that our parenting will produce godly children." ...live by faith in the Son of God, who loves you and gave himself for you, not by your own efforts. ...Sure, giving them grace instead of law is scary. The law seems so reassuring, but it is a false assurance. It is only his grace that is sufficient to sustain and transform us. (Chapter 3)
Chapter 4 is called Jesus Loves all his Little Prodigals and Pharisees. It is framed around the story of the Prodigal Son. The take-away I got from this chapter is remember to pray while I'm going about the day with the kids, "Please help me to see, and to overcome my desire to be left alone....Help me be wise and know what to say right now. Help me not to give into my own unbelief, works-righteousness, and idolatry'...Then once again, the gospel came rushing in on a tidal wave of grace." She also points out the danger of looking at the rebel kid as the "bad kid" and the compliant son as "the good kid." Looking at the "good kid" and saying 'Why can't you be more like that?,' she says, "obliterates the gospel message."
Mercy trumps law. ...Has that gratitude for grace made it all the way down into the way we raise our children? ...How can we teach them..God's joy in being merciful to sinners? ...Consistent, transparent and specific confession of sin will help children see how their parents struggle with sin in the same ways that they do. This dynamic is especially important... [About the Mark 10:13-16, "Let the little children come to me", the little children, Elyse says,] "had nothing to offer, nothing to give him. All they had was responsive, humble, messy love. They loved him because he had loved them. And his love was all they needed... Jesus was indignant with his disciples because they had tried to hinder the children from coming to him. How could we hinder these children from coming to the Lord? We get a clue when we look at the context of this story sandwiched as it is between two others. The first one is about the Pharisee and the tax collector who both went up to pray....the story that follows is about a rich, young ruler....we hinder our children...when we tell them that their religious activity and obedience elevates them out of the category of sinner in need of mercy. ..We hinder them when we inadvertently teach them that the good news is for good people. ... When we consistently and unashamedly throw ourselves on God's mercy, we will help our children place their hope in him too. (Chapter 4)
About Proverbs 22:6 (Train up a child in the way he should go....) Elyse insists, "Proverbs are not conditional promises; they are wise maxims. When we fail to understand this form of literature and build our lives on them as a guarantee, we end up with a philosophy akin to that of Job's comforters. They had a very simple formula...they believed if one lack's God's visible blessing, it must be because he is not doing what God wants him to do. They thought that faithful obedience always obligates God to respond in the way one desires. They were wrong."
Critique: More bashing Mormons, "We won't get results we want from the law. We'll get shallow self-righteousness or blazing rebellion...We'll get moralistic kids who ...could easily become Mormons." A few 200 word examples of talking to preschoolers puncuated by the euphemism, "followed by a time of discipline."
As God usually does in my life, He has brought to me resources and teachers and sermons and videos and such on an issue that He is working on in me. You know the adage, it always comes in threes? Last week I pointed to a blog where a new book is mentioned, Give them Grace. I immediately ordered it on Amazon; it arrived and I set to reading it.
The next few blog posts will be a Study, and Critique, of Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus. This is post 3.To find all the blog posts on the topic of the book Give Them Grace, click here.
Dazzled, yourself?
Are you a Christian parent? What makes your parenting really look different from someone who does not profess Christ? Should your parenting look different? This question is raised right away in the Introduction of Give them Grace. The opening two paragraphs are a universal experience-- the vignette that the author mentions in every interview, of the children fighting and the older saying "I just can't love my brother!" This is something we all relate to. But how do we respond to our kids when they do this?
Comes in Threes, and Love love, love is all you need
As God usually does in my life, He has brought to me resources and teachers and sermons and videos and such on an issue that He is working on in me. You know the adage, it always comes in threes? Last week I pointed to a blog where a new book is mentioned, Give them Grace. I immediately ordered it on Amazon; it arrived and I set to reading it.
The next few blog posts will be a Study, and Critique, of Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus. To find all the blog posts on the topic of the book Give Them Grace, click here.
The next few blog posts will be a Study, and Critique, of Give Them Grace: Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus. To find all the blog posts on the topic of the book Give Them Grace, click here.
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