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I’m not sure just everybody should give parenting advice, though many of us are tempted. The amazing mélange of experience, revelation, inspiration and providence that makes up a parent-child relationship is hard to turn into a science or technique. As I listen to the struggles of younger parents I hear familiar strains of our own days with a houseful of kids, but also I hear unique challenges that grow out of the unique traits of individual parents and children. Although any wise parent will approach his own role with a good deal of godly humility, those who would advise parents should have a double portion.
In my own generation I give credit to two such advisors who impacted my work as a father more than any other professional advisors—James Dobson and Bill Gothard. Gothard has been in the news recently amid allegations of sexual harassment of his co-workers. That’s unfortunate regardless of what’s true, but in the 1970s his teaching was used of God to help me understand my relationship with my parents and others placed in legitimate authority over me. That carried over to my kids though they may not know Bill Gothard’s name. James Dobson has been a blessing to thousands of families with his books “Dare to Discipline” and “The Strong-Willed Child” and of course with the various resources provided by Focus on the Family. Dobson lent many parents the confidence to displease their kids with godly intent.
But … some of what Bill Gothard taught seemed to go beyond the authority of Scripture without finding refuge in observable truth. I rejected (and still do) his teaching on music and contraception, to name only two matters. And James Dobson sometimes ventures into political commentary beyond what he knows or at least beyond what I accept. No problem, really—a peach has delicious flesh and a less delicious pit. I eat the peach and spit out the pit. It’s that way with the teaching of men. I’m grateful for any number of men who are wrong on a couple of important things. The point is that I’m often enriched and less often choked.
OK, an article crossed my desk this week on Michael and Debi Pearl and their successful parenting guide “To Train Up a Child.” The book has sold nearly 700,000 copies and has become notorious in some quarters because a few disturbed families have begun with the Pearls’ teaching on discipline and moved far beyond into monstrous brutality, even murder of their own children. Because the idea of corporal punishment does not on its own give me vapors, I’m not quick to blame the Pearls for the crimes of others—they do clearly warn against discipline in anger or excess. Some hate them because they homeschool and others because they teach complementarianism. I disregard those criticisms as being off subject. But except for agreement with the use of carefully administered corporal punishment as a tool in parenting, I wouldn’t turn to the Pearls for advice.
Those who know them say they have been successful in raising happy and independent kids of their own but there is something Pavlovian, formulaic, about their approach to parental training. I prefer Dobson’s approach. He maintains, like the Pearls, that parents must win their battles of the wills with the small people they are raising, but his approach seems to be more adaptable to the diversity of families and individuals. It also seems to more effectively convey grace and mercy alongside the need for order in the family. Granted, Dobson’s books were a lifeline for parents of my generation; the Pearls’ book is more an academic thing to me.
That leads to my final point of this meandering piece: Be discerning in the sources you turn to and the way that you implement the counsel of experts. There are all manner of helps for parents today and none of them is perfect. If you are going online to find out why your toddler is slobbering, fussy and feverish you may be told that he is teething. But you’d check things more completely before medicating. With the millions of resources on all subjects available to parents today, you are likely in the habit of getting a second opinion when you find a solution in a book or online. Great, don’t buy much advice you get uncritically (except from the grandparents, of course), and this is perhaps even more crucial when it comes to discipling and disciplining your children. Buying wholesale into the approach of another, and someone unknown to you at that, is unnecessary and often foolish. This is a place where Titus 2:3-4 comes into play. Are the younger mothers in your church learning from the older women “to love their husbands and children”? Does your church do anything to provide for this kind of interaction? In a day when many young parents don’t have good parental role models to call on, it’s more crucial than ever.
If you’ve successfully (so far) negotiated parenthood, you can no doubt call the names of several brothers and sisters who lent a timely hand. Consider families in your church to whom you might in this stage of your life offer the same kind of encouragement.
