4 mokeys

4 mokeys
@ da beach

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

My responce to a comment from a rude and vulgar "evolutionist" on a pro-creation fan page on Facebook.

I won't write his comment on here because of his vulgarity, but basically he insulted those of us who believe in creation instead of evolution. Here is my response:

As far as faith goes people who believe in evolution put many Christians to shame because you believe what you are told by your teachers and your media blindly with out question. Just because you once saw a cute little drawing of a monkey turning into a human on a text book, POOF, you became a believer. Wow! Congratulations.
Wish I had your amazing faith! I had to research both sides of the issue before deciding that evolution is a bunch of crap and creation is the only logical explanation based on real evidence.

Little moment

Today I witnessed a little moment in Eva's life that I believe is one of the amazing gifts that come from being able to stay home with my babies!
While Eva was playing in the living room she caught a glimpse of the reflection on the big screen TV (it was turned off) and abruptly stopped what she was doing. She stared at it intently for several seconds. I thought she was looking at her own reflection or mine so I began to wave thinking she might like that. Suddenly she turns and begins to walk toward the kitchen. Then she just stopped and stared at it. That is when I realised that it was not mine or her reflection she noticed, but it was the kitchen's which faces the TV. What intrigued me was the look on her face. It seemed as if she had just discovered some new world! She went back to the TV and looked at the reflexion again and then turned and looked at the kitchen once more. I wondered what was on her mind at that moment but I can only assume. This was of course not the first time she looked at a reflection. She sees mirrors in the house everyday. I think she just was not expecting to find a duplicate of the kitchen on the TV screen.
That might be a trivial little moment for someone else, but for me it was fascinating and part of the many reasons I feel so blessed to be able to be here at home to witness such moments of wonder and discovery in my children's lives!

Discipline, discipleship and peaceful parenting vs. spanking

Around the beginning of the year Nick and I decided to not spank the kids anymore. After much prayer, discussion and lots of reading we realised that there were better ways of disciplining the kids. I've always felt that spanking was wrong, but conventional wisdom says that spanking is good and I, like many people, grew up being told that "I spank you because I love you". I don't doubt the sincerity behind those words, however it always seemed to me to be contradictory that in order to teach a child to do good that a parent must physically harm his or her child. Then while researching unschooling I found many articles that talked about non-spanking ways of disciplining children. I even found many Christian based articles on non-violent parenting which made me feel relieved that indeed the Bible does support a more gentle and peaceful way to parent instead of the pro-spanking stance that many Christians have and preach. After a few months of not spanking I began to forget what I had learned. About 2 weeks ago I started spanking Nicky again. To my own dismay I had once again given in to my old impatience and impulse instead of following the conviction and wisdom that the Lord had given me. I started to feel guilt and the memory of the joy my kids had when I first announced to them that we would not spank them anymore haunted me because that day I saw how much pain, not only physical but emotional as well, it had caused my children when I or my husband spanked them. So a couple of days ago I went back to reread the articles on peaceful Christian parenting and I even found some new ones and today I recommitted myself to not spank. One of the things I read that helped me was that the Bible tell us to discipline our children with love and grace like God disciplines us. He allows us to live out the consequences of our actions but He never purposely causes pain in our lives just out of frustration or anger (by "us" I mean his children in Christ). Even as we live out the consequences of our bad choices He is always there offering comfort, love and grace not pain and humiliation. Also, I read more about how Jesus himself treated and interacted with children. While his disciples saw kids as burdens and hassles to be done away with Jesus welcomed them openly into his arms and then told the people that in order to enter into His Kingdom that one must become like a child.
Another article mentioned that the same Latin root word as discipline is the root word for diciple or discipleship. Therefore when we discipline our children we shouldn't think that we must try to control their behavior the way one can train an animal to behave in certain ways under the motivation of reward and punishment. No, we should see disciplining in the same way as disciplship.
We first need to "practice what we preach" because as it is commonly known kids learn to do as they see not as we say. Most importantly we parents need to have the mindset that when one is discipling one is teaching the disciple better ways of living and equipping them with the tools to do so. In my opinion spanking doesn't work with discipleship. It simply offers an unnatural and painful consequence that for the moment might deter a certain behavior, but it doesn't offer better solutions to the problem nor does it encourage a child to become more Christ like.
So that is the lesson I'm learning right now. I'm seeking better tools that my hubby and I can use to dicipline (disciple) our children in the ways of the Lord. One thing I know for sure is that we both must start by becoming better deciples of Christ and His word the Bible.