Dale Johnson: This week on the podcast I have with me Dr. Sam Stephens and Emily Staley. Dr. Stephens is Assistant Professor of Biblical Counseling at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His full-time job is with ACBC, and he serves as Director of Membership and Certification.
Emily is ACBC certified and is pursuing an MABC at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She’s the author of one of our ACBC booklets on the Duluth model and she’s married to Alec, and they have two girls, Dottie and Jemma. Also, sad news that Emily is leaving us here at ACBC.
Sam Stephens: That’s what she thinks.
Dale Johnson: After five years, wonderful service, and I was reminded that we’ve not had her on the podcast and I’m so sad that I made that huge mistake. But I’m glad you’re getting to hear from her now and we’ll incorporate her certainly in the future. So, we’re going to talk today about the concepts or the practices behind.
Last week we were able to look at some of the ideas that undergird the concept of gentle parenting. We even got into some of the ways that Christians are lured and enticed by these ideas. And error, as Irenaeus alludes to, error is never naked. What he means by that is there are elements of truth or even words that are used in a different way that might be Christian lingo, but it’s used in different ways, as we talked about with gentleness, where it lures people.
And so, I want us to consider even today some of these concepts and the practices that are used in gentle parenting. So, this is ideas of behavior management versus the concepts of heart change. Obviously, the way we think about parenting, it would really hone in on, yes, we’re concerned about behaviors, what that exhibits developing and bubbling over from the heart of our child. That’s really our focus in a Christian way of thinking. But we see some different elements. And so, I’m going to just pitch this out there as we talk about what are some of the practices that gentle parenting employs.
And again, I want to make sure that as we’re talking about these things, these things are not value-free. These things aren’t neutral in terms of knowledge. They come from a basis that we talked about last week. They come from ideas that drive the way that approach practices. So when we talk about these practices, they’re not unhinged. They’re not untethered from the ideas that are behind them. So just throw this out there.
What are some of the practices that we’re seeing promoted in the concepts of gentle parenting?
Sam Stephens: I think, Emily, I’ll set you up as another one for Dale to talk about PDA for a moment and some of the things that you saw online. It’s not what people think when they hear PDA.
Emily Stahly: Yeah. So a new disorder that’s online, it’s not in the DSM and it’s not, I wouldn’t consider it mainstream, but there’s the idea of Pathological Demand Avoidance. So where kids are, they call it a nervous system disability, where kids cannot function when demands are placed upon them, whether it’s a command from their parent or an expectation, or even if they’re hungry, the idea that they have to get up and go get it themselves is a demand. And so it sends them into fight or flight. And so all of this parenting is based around accommodation so that it doesn’t send their kids into a dysregulated nervous system sedate. And this is kind of an extreme example of where this view leads when you accept this view of-
Sam Stephens: When you take it to its logical end, honestly.
Emily Stahly: When you take it to its logical end.
Sam Stephens: It’s extreme, but when you take it to its logical end, this is where it leads.
Emily Stahly: Right. So when you have this view of a child, especially has a developing brain, a developing nervous system, and that when they’re upset or when something is not going their way, they’re dysregulated. And that’s the sin in their mind. That’s what you want to avoid is dysregulating your child.
In a less extreme version, you have this with gentle parenting of where you want to affirm their emotions, affirm, especially they use the word big emotion. So when a child is, you know, having a tantrum, the founder, Sarah Ockwell-Smith is like, oh, this is normal in a sense that it is normal to expect a tantrum from like a two-year-old, but she makes it. It’s just a part of their developmental phase. It’s not, there’s nothing moral about it. It’s not them sinning. It’s just their brain is developing.
So part of the gentle parenting approach is respecting these emotions, making them feel secure and attached to you as a parent, but then coaching them and helping them develop. So they’re not acting out in unacceptable ways, but that’s not in a way that’s like sinful versus righteous. It’s unwanted versus wanted behavior.
Sam Stephens: Emily, can you give an example? Like you mentioned, we were talking about this offline. Given an example of what a parent would do like in terms of practice to not lack of a better way to put it, trigger their child into this dysregulated state.
Emily Stahly: Right. So it’s giving them different tools to express their emotions. So you would be like, it’s okay to be angry at me, at your sister, but you can’t throw things you can’t hit, but you can go play with Play-Doh and squeeze that. Or you can go throw a ball or you can go get your frustration out in another way.
Another thing that’s big is not demanding anything of your child or this is a big one. You set boundaries as a parent of “this is not allowed.” So you can’t run away from me or you can’t throw these things, but you don’t require anything out of your child. So when they do that, you take the ball away or you physically restrain them. There’s no requirement for obedience that you’re just going to act upon them.
Sam Stephens: There’s no recourse for the child.
Emily Stahly: Yeah. Most recourse is taking away of privileges or something like that, but there’s no real sting of like a punishment for a bad behavior. And so with this idea of boundaries, it’s putting all of the onus on parents. And then afterwards, you hug it out. They could say, co-regulate your nervous systems. The parent, you got to be calm so that the child can share your nervous system and calm down. And then you basically have like a mini talk therapy session afterwards to help them deal with it and move beyond it. But there’s no real recognition of sin in their heart. It’s all improper expression of what’s going on.
Sam Stephens: You mentioned that you’d, we’ll be talking about this. You found an online forum where there were some family members going back to the path of logical demand avoidance for a moment. Cause I just think this is really, it is extreme and it’s, but it’s very worrying because no, this has not been adopted by psychological entities out there, but who knows? One day it may be, it may find itself in the DSM. I mean, other stranger things have happened, but there were some examples of parents. I think there was a question in an online forum about what are some things that you all do to help your child? At least one example with bathrooms.
Emily Stahly: Yeah. With potty training, not having a demand of having to go to the bathroom every time. So putting a potty in every room or getting ice cream on the way to school. So it’s not as unpleasant to go to school every single day. So every single day you’re going to McDonald’s, you’re getting some ice cream to eat on the way to school. So you’re just breeding selfishness.
Sam Stephens: These are just real-life examples. These are examples that parents like, I do this every single day. I think there was another example where I don’t even drop them off. They don’t even go into the school until they are ready.
Emily Stahly: Right. We just sit there in the car until they’re ready. And so, they, gentle parents will try to say that, no, this is authoritative parenting, but it’s not authoritarian. But really the kid’s emotions are really, it’s running the show.
Sam Stephens: They steer the ship. That’s semantics then.
Emily Stahly: Right.
Sam Stephens: I mean, ultimately.
Dale Johnson: That’s really important nuance that you see kind of unfolding. I want to get back to the PDA. We’re not talking about public display of affection. Pathological demand avoidance. Pathological Demand Avoidance. I want to get back to that in just a second.
But I also want to, what you’re describing is trying to deal with the sensitivity of a child. We use that language a lot. And I think my concern is we’re building our framework and the concept of sensitivity. And if you hear, man, my child is sensitive to something, no parent who loves their child wants to be uncaring or unsensitive toward their child. But that is just simply language that’s happening right now. And I know, yes, their emotions are responding and so on and so forth.
And so it seems to fit the explanation of quote-on-quote sensitivity in this language. But do you see how we’re forgetting a Christian framework of a child? I mean, how does the Bible describe that a child is born, right? The Bible describes that a child is born into foolishness. The Bible describes that a child is born into sin, where until Christ frees them of living for themselves, who is it that they live for, the Bible says very clearly. And so, I think we’ve changed this concept of depravity and now describing it into sensitivity.
So, notice what I’ve not done. I’ve not said that the child is not exhibiting these things, but the way in which we explain it is not from a Christian perspective any longer in the way that the Bible says a child is born into and what it is that they’re actually wrestling with and the beauty of him giving parents to help get that foolishness out so that he fears the Lord. That’s a radically different philosophical approach when we think of Christian thinking. Now we’re describing something in terms of sensitivity built upon, as we talked about last week, polyvagal theory, attachment ideas, and developmentalism. And just your initial thoughts on how we’re changing this concept of depravity and what the real need of the heart of the child is and sensitivity.
Emily Stahly: I saw an example of a Christian therapist who’s an advocate for gentle parenting talking about this very concept where she was responding to someone saying that children from a very early age exhibit jealousy, anger, strife, and all of these things. And she flipped the script, well, developmental science says. And so, Scripture has left to be her, has no longer her authority. But what her argument essentially is, is that, well, kids’ brains aren’t fully developed yet, so we can’t expect self-control, which I think is partially true. I have a toddler at home. I understand that she is still growing and developing. But where she goes off track is that she says when they’re acting out in anger or something like that, it’s not a sign of them being morally corrupt. They just don’t have the hardware yet in their brain to have self-control. But they’re still completely missing the point of, yes, the child may not have the self-control that an adult has yet, but that sin is still there. And so, it’s a matter of like, yes, adults may have a longer fuse than a child, but what’s setting off at the end of the fuse? It’s anger. It’s what’s in their heart. And so that is completely dismissed as a sin problem, even from a Christian, if the child’s brain is not fully developed.
And I was thinking, like, what’s so sad about this is that she’s rejecting what God’s Word says in Proverbs of, like, foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child for this imperfect developmental science, when the Lord and Creator of the universe who created humans and the nervous system and also created your particular child is saying that foolishness is bound up in their heart. And, like, foolishness, I think we have, like, maybe not an accurate view of it from a biblical perspective. It’s not just being silly. It’s not just being, you know, absent-minded. It’s wickedness.
Dale Johnson: And unwise. Yeah.
Emily Stahly: And so, like, Mark in Mark 7, it describes it as, like, it’s listed off as of all these evil things coming from the heart. Foolishness is one of those evil things, because it’s choosing what is wrong, even when you know better. And, like, this is what I’m teaching my toddler right now of giving her a definition of foolishness. It’s like, you’re being foolish when you know what is wrong, and you’re still choosing to do it.
Dale Johnson: This is the difference of biblical anthropology, where the Bible makes clear where that stuff comes from, right, is nobody’s arguing that a child doesn’t exhibit these things. But now we’re describing it in a physicalism, right? We’re describing that this comes from because of neurology or neurodiversity or whatever the language might be. We’re using that language in quote on quote developmentally appropriate ways to now sanction the way that we explain what’s happening with a child, when the Bible describes that these things come from the wellspring of the heart. And what’s bound up in their heart is a desire to please themselves and to have everything around them work for their benefit.
Okay, Emily, what I want to do is shift gears, Sam, I want you to respond to this thought, okay? Because as you’re describing this, here’s what I’m thinking. The strong-willed child from James Dobson, okay, and gentle parenting actually have the same goals. And the goals are, what we want is socially acceptable external behavior, okay, in some way that is appropriate and certainly takes pressure off of the parent, okay? Now what’s interesting is they’re choosing very very different ways to get there. And what they’re saying is that both ways would argue from a positional standpoint that one way is harmful, and the other way is better. And the other way would say, well, it’s harmful. I think it’s interesting that they’re aiming at the same thing. They’re having different means to get there.
So, one says the way we get socially acceptable developmentally appropriate behavior from a child in the regulation of emotions is through gentleness. The other pathway is taking other elements of truth mixed with error and saying the way we get that type of child actually is with strong behavioristic style discipline. I just don’t want people to miss that concept because at root, neither of them get to what the Bible says is most important about the child, which is the heart.
Sam Stephens: I would even go back even deeper than that and saying, what is the ambition behind wanting to create this socially acceptable or personally acceptable behavior? I think, again, the Bible presents a very clear dualism here. It’s either our ambition is to please the Lord or it’s to please ourselves. We are either lovers of self or we are lovers of God. And so while it’s maybe not explicitly expressed in either one of these parenting methodologies, the end goal is either I as a parent will not be embarrassed by my child and they will behave in a way that will help everything be more conducive according to my wants and desires in our home, or it will set them up for success to live their life however they choose. Because again, as we’ve mentioned, I think, last week, and we’ve mentioned even a couple of times today, there’s not a lot of clear moral direction here. It’s all very fluid as to what the aims and goals are. But if you had to nail it down, it’d be our ambition is to please ourselves. That’s ultimately the ambition. And that’s why you don’t see certain things like discipline, very much not punishment, correction, instruction into clear, very definable, morally laden instruction and clarity there for children or for parents. The aim is really going to change based on the personal whims of the parent and the child.
Emily Stahly: Yeah. And I think one thing to really emphasize is that they’re so after this emotional regulation, this emotional health. But when you think about what they’re doing in feeding the flesh of their child by affirming their emotions, affirming their desires and just trying to help them do that in more acceptable ways, what stuck out to me is that you’re actually breeding chaos for your child. Because thinking about James, James three specifically, “but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder in every vile practice.”
But think about that chaos that you’re breeding in your home, especially if you have multiple children. There is going to be chaos and dysregulation. And so if even if your goal is to have this emotionally healthy child, when you’re feeding their desires and affirming those things, you’re just making that sin is taking even further root in their heart rather than using, you know, the rod or spanking or those sorts of things which are taboo to Christian gentle parenting to drive out those things from the heart and make sin painful in a very tangible way for especially small children.
Dale Johnson: I want to circle back to the concept of PDA and then discipline. Before I get there, I want to, let’s talk about, you mentioned this, Emily, a little bit, the concept of foolishness and self-control. And when we think about the concept of foolishness and self-control, in our minds, biblically, that’s a really key framework, right? The child in their foolishness struggles with self-control.
How does the gentle parenting approach look at moments when a child exhibits foolishness or when they exhibit a lack of self-control? Sort of describe their thinking, their approach.
Emily Stahly: So, what I’ve seen is an emphasis on empathy. So, relating to your child, affirming those emotions. Then there’s a lot of different systems to put in place. They call it scaffoldings, poor different things. So, a good routine, clear expectations, those things. And so those are all fine and good things. So, a child isn’t living in chaos and the expectations aren’t clear to them. But then also the idea of co-regulation of that nervous system level.
Sam Stephens: I want to pause in there, Emily, for a second, because we’ve talked about co-regulation. What in the world is that? I mean, talk about things that seem scientific. That’s not scientific or measurable in any kind of real tangible way. So, what’s the idea behind it?
Emily Stahly: Some people in a more pop psychology phrase it as, let me borrow your nervous system, like you’re calm, I’m upset. So, a hug is co-regulating because my nervous system is taking a cue from your nervous system to calm down and it’s actually safe.
Sam Stephens: So, it’s about as naturalistic as you can make it, right?
Emily Stahly: Right.
Dale Johnson: Mystical and naturalistic.
Sam Stephens: Yeah, it’s an odd combination of both of those.
Emily Stahly: A lot of people talk nowadays, and this isn’t just for gentle parenting, but trauma-informed therapy and all of these things. They talk about the nervous system as its own creature, functionally.
Sam Stephens: That’s very eerie to me.
Emily Stahly: So, take that for what you will.
Sam Stephens: Okay, I will. Sorry for interrupting.
Emily Stahly: Yeah. So, the idea that this also, gentle parenting, is scientific is very suspect. Like, the science is not clear by any means. They’re not going to use the term foolishness. They’re going to say dysregulated or acting out or those things, but it’s not moral. It’s simply a developmentally appropriate behavior that you’re helping them work through and grow out of.
And so, whether it’s hitting, it’s biting, it’s throwing a tantrum, all these things are developmentally appropriate is what they would say. And you’re helping coach them through those things rather than giving any moral weight because you don’t want to shame your child. That will dysregulate their nervous system.
Honestly, nowadays, everything’s about the nervous system. And also, as a side note, if you’re a parent listening to this or you’re discipling a parent or a pastor, there’s so much even just bad pop psychology on social media that young parents, especially young mothers, are eating up. It may be a little ironic that you’re listening to this podcast, but don’t get your parenting advice off the internet. Go find a godly couple at your church. You see the fruit of their parenting. And I’ve had the privilege of being on staff for five years, and I’ve known you two for about six years now. And you have children that are older than mine. And I see the fruit of y’all’s parenting. And so, I’ve even gone to Sam at certain points and be like, Sam, we’re dealing with this behavior. What do you do? Because I want to honor the Lord, but I’m kind of baffled right now how to deal with this particular behavior. So, plug yourself into your church. Stop following these people on Instagram because, one, they’re not scientific. And two, they are leading you down a path that is not good for your own heart, but it’s also not good for the heart of your children and your home. You are going to breed chaos.
Dale Johnson: It’s fearmongering in many ways.
Emily Stahly: Right. Get off the internet after you listen to this podcast.
Dale Johnson: I think some of those things are so helpful because you can see how the deception that’s behind it, because you said this, Emily, and you said this, Sam, they’re trying to restate these things as if they’re non-moral. It doesn’t matter what we hope were true or what we’re trying to not be true. That’s the deception behind it is it’s now using language to remove the very moral basis of a child interacting with the world around them. They are a moral agent acting, and when they do that, it becomes moral in the sense of it’s good expression of selfish wants and desires, or it’s bad. We have to understand the moral nature behind it.
Okay, we’re going to get back to the PDA thing, because I think this is important as we think about the pathological demands. And I’m thinking about that concept just in relation to what Scripture calls us to as parents. I think about, because the model that’s typically used is the way in which we discipline or disciple our child, the way Deuteronomy 6, to bring them up, Ephesians 6, to nurture them in the admonition and instruction of the Lord, or discipline and instruction of the Lord. These are critical framings, but that comes from the concept that Jesus himself gives to us as disciples, where he tells us that as we make disciples, we teach them to do everything that God has commanded us to do. And I think about, well, those are commands, those are demands that he’s demanding of us, and that’s not unhealthy, that’s not a bad thing.
We’re called to discipline and train our children. I want to clarify discipline, because discipline doesn’t only mean punishment. It certainly incorporates the concept of punishment, but discipline means all sorts of things.
Sam Stephens: It’s formative.
Dale Johnson: It’s formative, like the way that you think about spiritual disciplines in your life. You’re practicing things that are intended to form you and shape you into who you are. And so, this is one of the myths, okay? Can I just read this to you? So, this comes from the founder, and she has a blog where she describes the myths of gentle parenting. Now, we could do a podcast series on each one of these, but I’m just going to pick one. And this is myth number two, where she says, “gentle parents don’t discipline.” She describes, this is the truth, okay, in her perspective. I’m not advocating this, this is how she describes it. “The top myth surrounding gentle parenting is that those who follow it don’t discipline their children. Gentle parenting and discipline are perceived to be at odds with each other. However, this myth is rooted in a misunderstanding of what discipline actually is.” Now, I want you to pay attention to what she describes discipline is. “In short, discipline, which stems from the Latin word, disere, meaning learning. Discipline, therefore, means teaching children more appropriate and socially acceptable behaviors.” Now, that’s her understanding of discipline. So, what’s happening is we hear that word, and we’re like, oh, okay, gentle parent, the biggest reaction that I had against it is it seems like they don’t discipline. But she’s saying here that they discipline, but under this definition.
Now what’s happening is Christians are adopting this concept of discipline, and when they go read the Bible, it actually alters their hermeneutic. When they understand, they read, oh, the Bible says to discipline and instruct in the Lord, or to nurture and admonish in the Lord. Okay, gentle parenting is trying to do that, but they’re trying to do it in very different ways, just socially appropriate behavior. No, what the word says is discipline is that our hearts conform to fearing the Lord above all else. That’s the beginning of wisdom. That’s the beginning of ridding yourself with foolishness. That’s the beginning of self-control, for example.
So, I’ll just throw that part out there. Let’s talk about this concept of they’re creating this new disorder of Pathological Demand Avoidance. When the Scripture articulates clearly that discipline is something that’s healthy and good, we have to think about this biblically. So, how do we wrestle with that?
Sam Stephens: One is the pathological, that term, right? It’s medicalized, and so it’s turning this into a sickness, not moral rebellion, as the scriptures would put it.
Emily Stahly: They call it a nervous system disability.
Sam Stephens: That’s right, and that’s where things are just continuing to move. And this goes back to larger discussions we’ve had about the entire mental health paradigm and our concern. I think we’re trying to call the church to be discerning and to be concerned about this because the further that we make it foreign to the Scriptures, we’re now saying there’s a whole subset of behaviors, activities, pursuits that have nothing to do with what God says is the way we should live and act and think and believe, and that’s extremely problematic. So, that’s the first place to begin is that idea of pathology is not rooted in, oh, this is actually morally wrong, and that wrongness is what I have to respond to. No, it’s saying it’s an illness. It’s a disability. And, of course, nowadays in a lot of modern contemporary conversations, even disability—it’s so weird how the world’s wisdom is contradictory, right? Even disability now, generally speaking, right, is now seen as something that we should embrace, and there’s not even a wrong with that, so they shouldn’t even call it pathological, right? It’s like just a man of voice.
Dale Johnson: The unwanted symptoms of behavior become the pathology, and this is really important because those symptoms exist. Kids have bad behavior. Even kids that have been raised well have bad behavior because they’re born into foolishness and selfishness. You have bad behavior, right? We exhibit wrong emotions sometimes. We respond wrongly to things. We behave wrongly. But the Bible indicates that that comes from somewhere. That’s symptomology, and it comes from the heart. That’s not the pathology, and this is a huge difference. So, talk about this concept of discipline, and let’s start to contrast it with actually what the Bible says about these things.
Emily Stahly: What I see is discipline is mostly that positive aspect, trying to coach them in the right direction, because if you have the assumption that a kid is generally good inside, enough coaching and enough support, they’re going to choose what’s right. No, they’re not. Discipline has to include a painful aspect to it. So Hebrews 12:7 and following come to mind where it talks about God treating us as sons and disciplining us, but he also brings in our earthly fathers, for they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciples us for our good. So we need to disciple our children for their good. It’s not just because we’re mad or we want to get, you know, it’s not about that. It’s for their good that we may share his holiness. “For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
I had this conversation with my child a few weeks ago of, I don’t like spanks. That’s the point. I love you, and I love you so much that I want you to think about the pain of consequences of sin before you do it, because it’s in a controlled way with a mother and a father who love you dearly, but if you continue to choose foolishness as you get older and out into the world, those consequences are much more severe. And in a more internal sense, if you don’t turn away from your sin, then you’re left under the wrath of God. And so it’s bringing that in a micro way, in a controlled way of, yes, I don’t like spanks, mama. I know. That’s the point. And I do it out of love, because I want you to no longer choose what is foolish and what is sinful from a young age, and to spare you from the consequences that even, you know, I was as a teenager and, you know, even in my early 20s, I had kind of learned from my own consequences, not from a lack of my parents trying, but I didn’t listen. That was my foolishness, choosing what was wrong, and I had to reap the consequences of that.
Sam Stephens: And even those things, that’s a mercy of the Lord. Right. To drive us back, like bringing us to an end, the end of ourselves, our perception that we’re limitless, and I can direct my own destiny. And these things are falsehoods. These are lies that the enemy’s been giving since the beginning. And so, no, those things are themselves a mercy. And even to what you point and what the Scriptures speak about, even the sting of punishment, rightly administered, of course, and with the right aims and motives, is a gift to our children. Our children actually flourish. Like Dale had mentioned, the definition of discipline that Sarah Ockwell Smith pointed to, the Latin, I believe, that you pointed out, but the Scriptures speak about that, go much older than Latin, right? The Greek and Hebrew speak about this idea of cultivation, and that cultivating is not done in man’s strength, but does involve instilling a fear of God and the truth of his revelation and what he has revealed to us about himself and his character, his expectations.
God is Father, we are his children. The entire paradigm is put in that context or the picture of parenting. And so, cultivation, though, I think people always, whenever I think about cultivation, well, you know, what comes to mind generally is the produce, the after effect, the end result, a beautiful garden, it’s already been weeded, and it looks beautiful and all the fruits, but what’s the beginning parts of the cultivation? The breaking up of the ground, the removing of the rocks, pulling up of weeds, the sweat and the toil that goes into it, and that is what parenting, as a spiritual enterprise, requires. And we can’t avoid that. You’re not going to get this beautiful garden that’s weedless and without all of what’s required in the cultivating of that.
Emily Stahly: Yeah, and I even, I listen to older parents talk about kids who are, you know, teens, and seeing that, wow, your kids are kind and respectful, and then you’re like, well, they were not an easy toddler, but they stuck with it, and then they have that fruit later on. And, you know, again, it’s not guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed, and we have to trust the Lord with our children. But obeying, in general, there’s going to be a fruit.
And Dale, I remember in one of your classes years ago, the Marriage and Family class, you had this analogy of why, because that change isn’t guaranteed with your children, but your goal was to build up that wall of their conscience so high that they knew that they were choosing wrong if they were going to rebel. And that just stuck with me, even all these years later of like, wow, that’s my goal as a parent, is that my child knows right from wrong, and by God’s grace, they choose what is right. But if they don’t, they know they’re rebelling against the Lord.
Dale Johnson: Well, and one of the key contrasts that I think about is Proverbs 25, 28, because he describes what a man is like when he’s not self-controlled. He’s like a city without walls.
And our job, people will ask me, well, do you teach the commands of God to your children? Yes, number one, we’re commanded to do that. Number two is it helps to conform their conscience to the Word that when they sin, they actually feel properly and appropriately guilty for that.
But this is the way that the proverb describes it. A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. And the goal then is, how do I help them to understand these are the commands and the expectations of God, so that they can feel appropriately guilty for those things. And the desire of feeling guilty in an appropriate way is that call to repentance, that we would feel the burden that Jesus talks about, so that when we hear his call of, come to me, you who are weary and heavy laden, I understand that. As opposed to, as we see in Jeremiah, where the people of Israel were not hearing the Word of God because their ear was uncircumcised and it was a reproach to them, the Bible says, and they did not blush, neither were they ashamed when they committed abomination against the Lord. And this is what we’re creating now with some of our children.
Another passage, Proverbs 15, starting in verse 31, he says, the ear that listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. So from a Christian perspective, when we think about a child is born into foolishness, well, how do they become wise? They listen to what is life-giving reproof, not affirmation or social acceptability. That’s not genuine discipline based on the Scripture. Verse 32, whoever ignores instruction despises himself. These things are not morally neutral. So if I’m encouraging my child to just simply do something that’s socially acceptable and empower themselves, that’s not love to your child. That’s actually hatred toward your child. That’s actually doing something that’s against genuine love toward your child because you’re teaching them then to live, as you mentioned, Emily, in chaos and despise themselves because life is not going to go perfectly. And so as it doesn’t, if you can’t respond wisely, you’re going to respond unstably, as James 1 says. The final verse there, it says, whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence. The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor.
And this is such a key critical opposition, I would say, to the concept of gentle parenting. And we have to start to approach these things and not be lured in by some of the language where it’s a reaction to, well, I want to be gentle with my kids. Of course I want to be gentle. But biblically, how do we approach? What is it that we’re actually fighting? And how are we actually helping them in the best way possible? And what we see biblically is a very different way of thinking as to what really ails our children, what we’re seeing exhibit in their behaviors and their erratic emotions that come out. It’s telling us something, but it’s not telling us the things that the world is describing to us. And if I could just add something,
Emily Stahly: I think the biggest danger of gentle parenting, especially from a Christian perspective, when you put that Christian package on it, is that you are fooling your children into thinking that they’re okay when they’re not okay. And going back to one of the examples I mentioned earlier, she talked about the goal of discipline is to coaching. She kind of uses this language, I’m paraphrasing, but coaching their brains so they can mature and grow into the fruit of the Spirit. And this is a huge red flag. You cannot grow into the fruit of the spirit if you do not have the Spirit. And if your kid has been told that they’re essentially good and they just have to manage their sin better, then they’re not going to know their need for Christ. And you are setting them up…
Dale Johnson: Not for peace.
Emily Stahly: Not for peace, but for wrath. And that’s strong language, but you have to have an eternal perspective with parenting. And even when it’s hard and unpleasant and maybe socially taboo nowadays to continue using the rod or spanking, you have to have your child’s eternal destiny in mind and continue to pray for them. And so, I would just appeal, if you’re a Christian parent and these things appeal to you or that you’re listening to them, that you really need to dig into the Scriptures and not be fooled by these faulty hermeneutics, this faulty interpretation. You cannot grow the fruit of the spirit in your child or yourself. You must have the Spirit do these things for you.
Dale Johnson: That’s such an important thing. And I will finish by saying this, that, okay, we acknowledge very fully what’s making gentle parenting thrive is a reaction against harsh parenting. Biblically, I would affirm, like, yes, we don’t need to encourage harsh parenting.
Just because you’re trying to, quote on quote, discipline and instruct your children does not give you permission to be harsh to your children. But there’s a biblical center. There’s a way in which we’re to think about this concept, to be gentle with our children, but to strive towards appropriate exhortation and reproof in the way the Bible tells us to, that they’re not born morally neutral. They’re not born toward the good. They’re born hating God and loving themselves.
And so how are we given the methods? Biblically, this is the target of the heart. And I think this is important that we reconsider biblically what the scriptures call us to and to walk faithfully in that. And when we fail, to be honest with our child, to repent, to confess that before them and demonstrate that, hey, I’m a sinner just like you, and we’re both in process of the Lord transforming who we are in relation to Him. And we both are in desperate, desperate need of Him. So very helpful discussion. Thank you both for taking time with us. I do hope this is helpful.
Sam Stephens: Thank You.
Emily Stahly: Thank you.
