21: Santa Misgivings

Question: We were wondering about whether it was possible / feasible /necessary to separate the secular parts of Christmas (Santa) from the true meaning of Christmas. We have a 15 month old and neither my husband nor I think highly of Santa. We are not doing Santa this year which has been hard for both of our extended families. (They think we are weird.) We have luckily made this decision before she has gotten any older. We are substituting the tradition of Santa with many other traditions to really keep the true magic of Christmas in our family.

Our question is: how do you handle this part of Christmas and if there is a way to keep kids from obsessing over the commercialism that comes with Santa?

Response: You know, Santa “knows if you’ve been naughty,” and if he catches wind of this e-mail I wouldn’t expect a very pleasant visit from him this year. :-)

There do tend to be a lot of blurred messages in our holiday traditions. Hope (9) wondered this year why it was that if Thanksgiving was supposed to be about being grateful for what we have, then why did we have to go out and get more stuff. I told her to be quiet and mind her own business…just kidding of course. Instead I told her that Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving were totally different days, and that technically I was therefore justified in buying a new laptop. Kidding again. I actually said something like, “Good point honey,” and went back to setting up the new laptop. Why is it that the culmination of the day of gratitude we have the busiest shopping day of the year? We are strange people indeed!

Anyway, back to Santa…

We personally don’t make much of a deal out of Santa. We tell the kids that he’s not real, but it can be fun to pretend that he is, but then we don’t do much in terms of having him visit, or leaving out cookies for him or anything. I guess what bothers me the most about the Santa thing is the deception of telling kids that he’s real and then the chance that you could lose some of their trust when they find out he is not.

(I do pretend that the tooth fairy is real, but we tease a lot as a family, and by the time the kids are old enough to lose teeth, they are also old enough to know (or at least suspect that) I am teasing).

You said you’ve substituted the traditions of Santa with other traditions. That sounds like a great way to refocus the holiday. You probably already have some great ideas. Here are a few ideas you may want to consider as well:
- Volunteer at a soup kitchen, Salvation Army, Operation Christmas Child, or a similar charity.
- Invite a friend or acquaintance over for the holidays, so that you can serve them instead of just being inward focused
- Read the Christmas story (Luke 2:1-21) before opening presents
- Sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus – cake, candle, and all!
- Play a game where you and your kids try to stump each other with Christmas Bible questions.
- Go caroling. (Not my cup of tea, but it might be yours!)
- Take cookies to your neighbors.
- Cut back on gifts or try to make more of the gifts meaningful and not just toys. If the kids get hundreds of dollars worth of toys each year, regardless of what other traditions you emphasize, they are probably going to focus on that as the significant part of Christmas.
- Before opening new gifts give away some of your old toys.
- Give to a family in need. Most churches get approached by people in need at Christmas.
- Leave Christmas tracts at restaurants along with a generous tip.
- Celebrate communion before opening gifts. Christmas isn’t really about gift giving as much as it is about our need for a Savior, and Christ coming to the Earth for that purpose.
- Play Christmas music with meaningful words (vs. Grandma got Ran over by a Reindeer)
- Have your kids put on their own Christmas play before opening presents.
- Buy some gifts for other kids from a gift tree at the mall. You could even have your kids help pick those out, or even help pay for those.

Anyway, we don’t do all those things. Some are just ideas, and we actually do some of them. You may want to pick and choose what you think will work well with your family.

You may also want to read article # 12- Halloween and the Store Clerk from premeditatedparenting.blogspot.com. It deals with holiday traditions as well.



Have a great Christmas!

20: Premeditated Parenting

Parenting is a funny thing. Unlike many of life’s other decisions, parenting is often entered into without a whole lot of forethought. When we think about what career we want we give it a lot of consideration. We think about how a particular career will fit with our gifts and talents, we think through what kind of income we will need, and we think about what type of school or training we will have to go through. When we get married we often plan for months and go to marriage counseling and try to prepare ourselves for the difficult transition.

There may not be a single event in your life that affects you more than having kids. For most of us, it requires a total change in our level of self-sacrifice. It puts demands on our patience, sleep, marriage, and finances. When you become a mom or dad, for the first time someone completely and totally becomes dependent on you, and will be greatly affected by your choices. You can’t just run off into the mountains and escape from the pressures of life any more. That option comes at too high of a cost now. You’re stuck here for eighteen years.

That’s pretty serious! You’d think you’d need a license for that, or at least a permit. Shouldn’t you have to take six weeks of preparenting classes like you do with marriage, or maybe several classes at the community college?

For many of us, parenting was more of a byproduct of a relationship than it was something we consciously thought through. Or perhaps we knew that we wanted children, but we really had no idea of the demands it would have on our lives.

I guess what got us to this point is somewhat irrelevant. We are at this point. God has given us the charge of raising His little ones, and we need to carry out that charge faithfully. We need to take careful inventory of our lives. Where are we? Where do we want to be? And how do we get there?

It’s premeditated parenting. I’m not talking about thinking through whether or not to have children. I’m talking about parenting. Pregnancy might be something that just happens to us, but parenting requires thoughtful and strategic planning.

I often worry that people raise children much like they do pets. Just keep them fed and watered and don’t let them irritate the neighbors too much. Keep their messes to a minimum, and train them enough to keep them somewhat enjoyable. A pat on the head hear and there mixed in with a good scolding now and then…that about sums it up for many parents.

That may create an 18-year-old, but that is unlikely to produce a godly man or woman of God, a champion, a good citizen, a leader, or even a good follower. Raising a child to physical maturity is fairly straightforward (if not nerve-wracking), but raising an 18-year-old world-changer is quite another matter.

With God’s help we need to rise to the challenge and take seriously the charge with which we’ve been entrusted.

1 Corinthians 4:2 Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful. NIV

19: How We Lose Our Kids

A small boy played quietly by the stream, watched silently by several men who hid in the cover of the dense jungle. As a leaf floated down the stream he bombarded it with rocks of all sizes, some nearly too large for him to lift. Occasionally the water splashed back on his dark skin making him squeal with laughter. After several minutes he saw a shiny object on the ground. He had never seen anything quite so colorful and after a minute he peeled of the bright red wrapper. Inside the wrapper was a hard ball shaped object. Intrigued, he rolled it in his fingers. It was much harder than a berry, which it reminded him of. He held it to his nose, but didn’t perceive much of a smell. He touched his tongue to it and as he contemplated the taste, he noticed that his fingers were becoming sticky. His eyes grew big and round as he tasted it again. It was sweet and wonderful—unlike anything he had ever tasted in his life. Once again, he squealed with laughter.

As he plopped it in his mouth he started to scan the ground for more of these wonderful berries. Just then a man stepped out from the jungle. He had a young smiling face and a kind look about him, although he was ghastly pale. The boy would have normally run away, but the man’s outstretched hand held out to him many more of the strangely wonderful berries. The man spoke softly and kindly as he befriended the boy.

Soon the other men also stepped out from the jungle. They seemed to be friends with the first man. They all seemed to be nice enough and invited the boy back to their ship. He really didn’t think much about going with them. It was all too easy.

As all this happened, the boy’s father stood and watched. He wasn’t quite sure what was happening and didn’t want to interfere in the boy’s life.

The boy was taken to a neighboring island. There he was taught different customs, a different religion, and a different language.

Although the father knew where the boy went, he did not bother to rescue him. He was very busy and wasn’t sure what to do. Other men in his village were also losing their sons and daughters, so this wasn’t shocking or out of the ordinary; it was just what happened sometimes. Sure, on occasion they would talk about how they missed their children, and how they wish they could do something, but what could they do?

This story seems implausible, because what parent could possibly sit by idly while losing his or her child to invaders. Yet, a similar scene is played out in America every day. Children are pulled away from their parents. They are given immoral values, sexy clothes, false religion, crude language, and a general distaste of all that is good. They learn to love leisure and endless forms of entertainment, while disdaining hard work and honorable living. Sex becomes acceptable in any form, and marriage seems like an old-fashioned ceremony that serves no purpose, but to pose an opportunity to play dress up.

Parents lose their children every day, but not to slavery as we know it. Parents lose their kids to a different slavery. A man is a slave to whatever has mastered him, and our children are becoming slaves to the world around them.

The process is so gradual that can go undetected. The amusingly defiant “No!” of the two-year-old becomes the abrasive “get out of my face” of the thirteen-year-old. The defiant thirteen-year-old becomes the detached sixteen-year-old who won’t talk to her parents, follow their advice, or perhaps even come home at night.

We are losing our children—in the United States, and in the church. We cannot stand to lose our children any longer. God forbid that we should just stand by and watch it happen to us.

We must fight. We must study the tactics of our enemy and the vulnerabilities of our children. Even our own values and beliefs must be challenged. We must be willing to be different. It would be insane for us to keep doing the same thing as everyone else and to expect a different result. Our own pride must be challenged. Are we willing to go to any extreme, even if it makes us look odd to our friends and families?

It is one thing to lose our kids, but it is quite another to lose them while silently watching from the bank of the river. We must realize the gravity of the state of our youth and take action.

18: Is Spanking Abuse?

I once heard a pastor addressing the issue of discipline and in a very strong tone he said something to the effect of, “Every night I pull down my son’s pants and I hurt him on the bottom.” A heavy silence fell on the room as we all wrestled with his statement in our minds. Even though he was a trusted friend and mentor I must admit that the doubts and questions started to race through my mind as well. Does he really do that EVERY night? What if his son doesn’t need discipline? Does he do it anyway? Why did he use the word “hurt”? Sure, spankings are painful, but the intent is not to hurt…well, at least that’s not the chief goal. Finally he interrupted our thoughts with the words, “My son is diabetic, and I give him a shot of insulin.”

I will never forget that illustration. I guess it taught me two things. First of all, I (like many of us) can be quick to judge and to assume the worst about other people. Secondly, while introducing pain into someone’s life might seem mean and cruel, there are times when it is necessary to do so for a greater good.

We don’t think twice about giving a shot on the bottom. I think most of us would prefer a spank to a shot, so I’d think they are at least somewhat comparable. Yet, we can tend to cringe at the idea of spanking. Why is that? Aren’t both done for the wellbeing of the child?

What constitutes abuse?

I saw a woman take a knife and split open another woman with a knife. The ensuing wound was at least a foot long. Blood was everywhere. One woman was having a C-section and the other was her doctor. Is that abuse?

There was a man that I saw force other men to manual labor until they were throwing up. Even then, he kept making them work. I saw this happen in the movie The Miracle which chronicled the achievements of the 1980 U.S. hockey team. The manual labor was when the coach made the team skate back and forth until it almost seemed as if they would die. Is that abuse?

Clearly abuse can not be simply defined by causing pain to another person. The intent of the action is a far greater indicator of what constitutes abuse. If you stick live electrical wires on someone because you think it is funny, that is a totally different thing than if you are using shock paddles to jumpstart someone’s heart. In fact, doctors and nurses have done all sorts of weird things to me that I’d rather not mention, but they do those things for my long term benefit. If anyone else did those things for any other reason, I’d probably sue. All summer long I hurt my kids by poking them with needles and knife blades, but I was not doing it to be mean, I was just trying to take splinters out. It’s better to face a little pain now than a lot of pain later. This is an important principle to understand when it comes to discipline!

Personally, I think most doctors, coaches, and parents have their patients’, athletes’, and children’s best interest in mind when they introduce pain into their lives. Certainly some are abusive. A few years ago I read an article about a doctor who carved his initials into his patient’s stomach. Such an action is clearly abusive and he should pay dearly for abusing the authority that was entrusted to him. But most surgeons are not abusive, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend forbidding surgery. In the same way, I’d say that abuse against children is an atrocity, and parents that are abusive should be held accountable to an extreme level. However, to equate spanking with abuse is an error. Spanking is a loving form of discipline that helps a child turn from harmful behaviors.

Proverbs 13:24 He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him. NIV

17: Does Spanking Breed Violence?

Question: If I spank will it make my child hit other children and/or be more violent?

Response: That’s a really good question, because it is one of the most common objections people have against spanking. In fact, I think almost all articles you read that are opposed to spanking will mention this concern, almost as if it is a well documented fact of science that spanking breeds violence.

There are some studies that link spanking with violence (as well as some that don’t), but as we all know such studies can be seriously flawed. Here are some questions that should be asked of studies on spanking. Do they separate spanking from beating? Do they consider age appropriateness and separate out teens and infants from the study? What is considered violence? A child who is spanked is probably more likely to spank as a parent, right? Does that automatically put that parent in the violent category, thus proving that spanking breads violence? I had a teacher who said he was hit with a hammer as a child. Does he fall in the same statistical category as a child who is spanked with a wooden spoon? Do the researchers have agendas that might skew their approach to their research?

Since we usually don’t know the answers to these questions when we hear different studies quoted, let’s consider a few common sense approaches to this question.

First of all, what is your experience? It is harder to capture what is really going on in a home on a survey than it is for an observer to discern. Are there some families you know that use spanking as a form of discipline and that do it in a way that is loving and healthy? If so, what are their kids like? Are they the playground bullies? Do they hit other children? My own observation is this: children that are lovingly disciplined and spanked are far less violent than their non-spanked counterparts. Of course I’d say abused kids are the most violent. My kids have been spanked a lot, and yet it is extremely rare for them to act violently. In my personal experience, there is just plain no connection between spanking and violence. None.

A second consideration is societal trends. Spanking is looked upon with more and more disfavor in our society. It is certainly less popular now than it was in the days of our grandparents. A question to consider is whether society is getting more or less violent. If spanking greatly contributes to violence, and if in our society the frequency of spanking is greatly reduced, then it stands to reason that as a society the level of violence should be dropping as well. I realize that many other factors may play a part in societal violence, and that I am not providing you with any hard data. However, I still think it is a valid point to consider in a society that seems to be spinning more and more out of control—particularly when it comes to teen violence and rebellion. Certainly spanking cannot be the evil atrocity that society says it is. Perhaps our grandparents were a little wiser and more civilized than we give them credit for.

A third consideration is to reevaluate the initial premise. The basic idea is that spanking is violent, and therefore will breed violence. While at face value this may seem reasonable, let’s think through another scenario using the same logic. Let’s take kissing for example. Will kissing your children make them sexually promiscuous later in life? Perhaps it will make them incestuous, or maybe they will become pedophiles. I’m sure you see the fallacy in those ridiculous assertions. Obviously there is healthy kissing that promotes love and warmth in the relationship, and there is sexual kissing, which would obviously be harmful for a child. To equate the two and to attribute the outcome of one form to another would be a serious flaw in logic. The same is true of discipline. There are healthy forms of corporal punishment and there are unhealthy forms. No one will argue that physical abuse will harm children in numerous ways, including making them more prone to being abusive. However, biblical spanking is not physical abuse, it causes no injury, it is not done in rage, and is an act of love, not violence. To put spanking on the same level as violence is simply not a fair comparison.

A final consideration is that the Bible teaches it. Did God in His infinite wisdom somehow miss the harms of spanking that our modern day researchers have now discovered? Of course not. God knows what is best and what is best for our kids. It would be wise to trust Him over our modern day "experts". Regardless of all arguments for and against it, God’s direction on the topic should be enough.