A Picture Is Worth . . . .

A few recent photos from the camera phone:

We are the parents who take their kids to Ikea to let them play on the furniture:

Lucy hugging some plant-thing at Target:

Storm water overflowing the curbs in our neighborhood, while I was on the way home from the bus stop. My shoes took a week to dry out.

Sunrise, October 17th, Glen Rose, Texas:

Jaxon, Keara, and Lucy sharing some reading time during Children's Church:

I Can't Decide

1) If I should be ashamed that we eat at Kincaid's too often,

2) Or if I should be offended that even though we eat at Kincaids too often, the lady at the counter still can't remember my name.

Do As I Shout, Not As I Spank?

I read the New York Times for many reasons. Here are eight, in no particular order:

1) For whatever reason, it seems the site is devoted to news, rather than entertainment. I cannot say the same for any other news outlets' website.
2) Occasionally the Times publishes well researched, well written pieces on interesting subjects.
3) Nicolai Ouroussoff 's architecture reviews.
4) Travel stories on cool places.
5) The liberal op-ed pieces challenge my thinking.
6) I just like to learn about the fascinating City of New York.
7) I like to roll my eyes at the insufferable Maureen Dowd.
8) On the other hand, Gail Collins seems like a nice lady.

Tonight I ran across an article on shouting at your children. I quote it at length:

JACKIE KLEIN is a devoted mother of two little boys in the suburbs of Portland, Ore. She spends hours ferrying them to soccer and Cub Scouts. She reads child-development books. She can emulate one of those pitch-perfect calm maternal tones to warn, “You’re making bad choices” when, say, someone doesn’t want to brush his teeth

That is 90 percent of the time. Then there is the other 10 percent, when, she admits, “I have become totally frustrated and lost control of myself.”

It can happen during weeks and weeks and weeks of no camp in the summer, or at the end of a long day at home — just as adult peace is within her grasp — when the 7- or 9-year-old won’t go to sleep.

And then she yells.

“This is ridiculous! I’ve been doing things all day for you!”

Many in today’s pregnancy-flaunting, soccer-cheering, organic-snack-proffering generation of parents would never spank their children. We congratulate our toddlers for blowing their nose (“Good job!”), we friend our teenagers (literally and virtually), we spend hours teaching our elementary-school offspring how to understand their feelings. But, incongruously and with regularity, this is a generation that yells.

“I’ve worked with thousands of parents and I can tell you, without question, that screaming is the new spanking,” said Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, which teaches parenting skills in classes, individual coaching sessions and an online course. “This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it’s not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don’t work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again.”


Did you see that? "...in the absence of tools that really work..."

Poor Ms. Klein. I would offer that it is at least a mild form of insanity to jettison any particular discipline technique because it is "not socially acceptable," especially if you choose to resort to another technique that is proven to be ineffective.

If yelling doesn't work, and time out doesn't work, and counting 1-2-3 doesn't work, and nagging doesn't work, then what is a parent do to? I guess for those who are socially acceptable, like Ms. Klein, they are simply out of options.

As for me, I'll follow the advice of the Proverbs:

"The rod and reproof give wisdom, But a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother."

"Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him."

"He who withholds his rod hates his son, But he who loves him disciplines him diligently."

To be sure, Stephanie and I are not too far along in our journey as parents, and we are certainly still learning, and surely make mistakes, and in fact we have surely erred at times in applying the rod to our children's backsides, but we dare not ignore these Scriptural warnings. I would rather do the hard work (and it's not easy) of finding the right way to correct our children with the rod, rather than throwing spanking out the window just because psychologists say it's not couth.

Interestingly, the NYT article also says this:

"Professor Rohner noted that while spanking is considered taboo by the major medical and psychological associations, there are still some religious and conservative groups who support it as an effective disciplinary tool, believing that the Bible explicitly allows it."

I would say the choice of the word "allow" in that sentence is not entirely accurate. While it is certainly true that the Bible allows spanking based on the verses above, I would say those verses go farther than that, and expects spanking as the correct manner of discipline for a child.

There are more than a few well-written books that can elucidate these Scriptural ideas of discipline far better than I can. I am simply befuddled that, according the the NYT, seemingly an entire culture has abandoned a tried-and-true (and Biblical) method of discipline for other methods that simply don't work.

Or perhaps the key to this mystery is fairly simple enough. Ms. Klein should just put down the child-development books and pick up a Bible. Why not get clues on rearing kids from the One Who created them?

Bono or Bonehead?

The New York Times continues to give column inches to celebrity musician/humanitarian Bono. And I quote:

"...the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change."

Naturally I cannot consider myself within the group of people Bono calls "the world," for I am within the group of people called "America." So I can neither say with certainty if "the world" really does think that America holds the keys to solving the three "threats" that Bono lists.

All I can say, as an American, to the world: Prepare yourselves for disappointment.

America cannot even solve the problems within its own borders, much less come close to solving any other nations' problems.

Bono also offered this bit of foolishness:

"The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again."

Again, let none of us be so stupid to "believe" in America. I'm not even certain what that means, but I am certain that anyone who "believes" in America will be sorely frustrated.

Perhaps phrases like this make sense within U2's song lyrics, and resonate with the average NYT reader, but I can only hope that these printed words of Bono wind up where they belong: as liner for the bird cage and cat box.

Do As I Say, Not As I Listen

Today I learned that in fact my Great Grandmother Looper is not dead. I thought she was. Yet she lives, as she has for 107 years now. It is true that earlier in the week she suffered two heart attacks, and in fact is currently (to my knowledge) unresponsive, yet resting peacefully and in hospice care. BUT yesterday my mom left a voicemail on my phone about Grandmother, and for some reason I was sure that my mom was passing along to me the news that Grandmother had passed on. Gone from this earth. So when I had a chance to call my mom back today to find out more, it turns out I didn't listen very well to her voicemail, and indeed Grandmother is still alive. I felt fairly stupid, and rightly so.

Later in the same conversation today, I misunderstood something else my mom was telling me, and she called me out on it, noting it was just another case of me not listening to my mother. (Just as I have for nearly 30 years now.) Surely if there is any communication break down, it is going to be on my end. I struggle to listen to people like I should, and in fact I struggle to talk to people like I should. At work my propensity to keep quiet means that I don't share information as well as I should. I assume sometimes that people already know something, when in fact I haven't told them what it was that I expected they already knew. So I constantly try to improve on that.

I also try to improve on making eye contact with people. I have done absolutely no research on this, but I feel like eye contact and listening go together. If I can become a better eyeballer I might become a better listener, and vice-a-versa. My two benchmark examples of eye contact fall at opposite ends of the spectrum: my FBC Arlington youth minister Curt Grice had an amazing way of looking directly into your eyeballs constantly. It was almost unnerving. He bored little holes into your irises when you were talking to him, and when he was talking to you. On the other end of the spectrum was one of my college roommates, James Watkins. He never looked anyone in the eye. When you talked to James, he was looking about four or five feet to your left or right.

For whatever reason over the last few months I have been catching myself not keeping very good eye contact when I am talking to someone. I feel like I keep good contact when someone else is talking to me, but I find my eyes looking off to the side now and again when I am speaking to someone else. Frankly I have been embarrassed to ask Stephanie about it, for fear that perhaps I'm actually like James, and for other people I'm the guy that they think never looks at them. I hope not. Perhaps it is acceptable to look away occasionally, but honestly my goal is to be a Curt Grice kind of eyeballer - all the time. Inside my head, when I am speaking to someone, I am truly telling myself, "don't look away... keep focused... watch those eyeballs..." It is difficult.

Yes, communication is difficult for me, mostly because I am selfish and would rather not use words unless I have to, and because I'm more likely to selfishly consider myself or another subject when I should in fact be listening to whomever is talking to me.

Pride is at the root of it, like most things. Tonight during Family Worship we read from Mark Chapter 10, the account of James and John making a remarkable request of Jesus - that they might sit at his right and left in His glory. At first we are prone to react like that's a ridiculous thing to ask - to share in God's own glory, and sit at his right and left hand? Are you kidding? But in reality we do it everyday, in fact we go farther than that, and simply place ourselves in God's rightful place when we choose to worship anything other than Him. It is also interesting to note that we would very likely be right there with the rest of His disciples, who were indignant that James and John made that request. But I would venture to say that they were not indignant because of the absurdity of the request, but because they probably thought they deserved to sit at Jesus' right and left hand, instead of James and John.

While I was attempting to apply this little story to little Lucy's life, as always, it came back to me. Far be it from me to expect Lucy to consider others first and eliminate forms of pride in her life, if I am not willing to do the same. Someone recently referred to their children as "little mirrors." It is true that we do not really see our faults in full view until we have a child to display all our shortcomings right in front of us. That is one way to bring a man down. For every time they may see their father do something well, they surely see him do ten things poorly.

The fact is, communicating poorly is not just my problem. It may well become my children's problem if I do not redouble my efforts to improve. To be sure, they will always be responsible for their own behavior, and cannot someday blame me or Stephanie for their misbehavior, just as I cannot and will not blame my own parents for my own misbehavior. But I, as their father, am doubly responsible, to first behave as I should, and secondly to train my children to behave as they should.

So hopefully someday, years from now, I won't be leaving a voicemail on their phone that results in them thinking that a dear old family member has kicked off, when in fact she really hasn't.

Home Sweet Home

Now that we're moved into the new house and unpacked, here's a photo to prove that we're settled in nicely:

G.I. Joe, Rest In Pieces

In six days we are moving.

Today we started packing in earnest.

Today I also cleaned out and organized our cache of stuff in the storage shed behind our house. Some of the items I rummaged through were boxes of my childhood toys and games, including Legos, Ghost Busters, G.I. Joe, and the like. I was puzzled as I was sorting through my old G.I. Joe collection that many of the figures were dismembered. Look closely below, and you will see torsos fairly well separated from lower extremities.

Knowing that I was a conscientious child and never willfully destroyed my possessions, I knew that these figures had been torn apart by another. Given that the G.I. Joes have been in cardboard box storage either in my parents' attic or our own storage shed for the past +/- 20 years, I had to deduce what might have happened.

Either cycles of heat and cold, as well as humidity can break down the flexible/elastic pieces that held the figures together, or some critter enjoyed that same elastic as a meal. I'm not sure which option is more likely. Honestly, I hope it was a critter of some kind who would have snapped their legs off quickly, rather than the weather, slowly, year after year, breaking them down into this condition. Given that there were no other casualties among my old toys, I really can't say what exactly happened.

But so much for these guys making me any money on ebay.