NOTICE: TODAY'S ARTICLE IS A LONG ONE, BUT YOU REALLY DO NEED TO READ IT... EVERY WORD OF IT.
The Bible says, therefore God speaks these words for our benefit...
Ephesians 6:4... Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
Matthew 19:14... Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."
Psalm 127:3... – Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb is a reward.
Children! Grand Children! Great Grand Children! I must tell you, the older you get the more precious and exciting and really cool children are! (I'm a grandpa!)
Sadly, as you look around our world and in American society, that’s not always the case. There is a growing epidemic of tension and frustration between one or both parents and their children. There are a myriad of reasons for why parents act towards their children the way they do. None of the often touted “excuses” justify what is happening to the countless innocent children abused and mistreated by parents who themselves were once abused and mistreated.
Attitudes today, embraced by many parents, stemming from feminism and liberalism have given birth to ideas that children are a curse, a burden, a bother, a chore, an inconvenience, an intrusion and all around undesirable. Children, we are taught – whether we realize it or not – intrude upon our personal freedoms. They infringe on our rights over our own lives, our time and even our own bodies.
We are all products of our parental upbringing. The way we were raised shapes our adult attitudes and actions, whether we want to acknowledge that reality or not, it’s true.
Read and hear with your heart the words of this poem written half a century ago...
Children Learn What They Live
If a child lives with criticism, He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility, He learns to fight.
If a child lives with shame, He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with tolerance, He learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement, He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise, He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness, He learns justice.
If a child lives with security, He learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval, He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship, He learns to find love in the world.
© Dorothy Law Nolte, 1954
Some parents blame their kids for all “their” problems in life. Give me a break! YOU are the problem, not your child. Abuse come in many forms, both emotional and infliction of physical pain. In today’s society, it seems that parents have raised emotional abuse to an art form.
The National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect defines emotional abuse as: "acts or omissions by the parents or other caregivers that have caused, or could cause, serious behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorders.
The American Medical Association (AMA) describes Emotional Abuse as: "when a child is regularly threatened, yelled at, humiliated, ignored, blamed or otherwise emotionally mistreated. For example, making fun of a child, calling a child names, and always finding fault are forms of emotional abuse."
Emotional abuse is more than just verbal abuse. It is an attack on a child's emotional and social development, and is a basic threat to healthy human development. Emotional abuse can take many forms. Here are the ones that find fertile ground in dysfunctional tension filled households...
Belittling – Belittling a child causes the child to see him or herself in the way consistent with the caregivers words. This limits the child's potential by limiting the child's own sense of his or her own potential.
Coldness – Children learn to interact with the world through their early interactions with their parents. If parents are warm and loving, children grow to see the world as a secure place for exploration and learning. When parents are cold to their children, they deprive the child of necessary ingredients for intellectual and social development. Children who are subjected to consistent coldness grow to see the world as a cold, uninviting place, and will likely have seriously impaired relationships in the future. They may also never feel confident to explore and learn.
Corrupting – When parents teach children to engage in antisocial behavior, the children grow up unfit for normal social experience.
Cruelty – Cruelty is more severe than coldness, but the results can be the same. Children need to feel safe and loved in order to explore the world around them and in order to learn to form healthy relationships. When children experience cruelty from their parental figures, the world ceases to "make sense" for them, and all areas of learning are affected - social, emotional, and intellectual development are hindered.
Extreme Inconsistency – The foundations of learning are laid in the first interactions between child and parent - both mom and dad. Through consistent interactions, the child and parent shape each other and the child learns that his or her actions have consistent consequences - this is the foundation for learning. The child also learn to trust that his or her needs will be met from others. When the parent is inconsistent in his or her response to the child, the child cannot learn what is expected from the start, and all areas of learning can be effected throughout the child's lifespan. That’s scary... an entire span of life ruined!
Harassment – Harassment has similar effects to those of belittling, but also involves a stressful response. Harassment scares the child, and repeated exposure to fear can alter the child physically, lowering their ability to deal with other stressful situations in life.
Ignoring – Ignoring a child deprives the child of all the essential stimulation and interaction necessary for emotional, intellectual and social development.
Inappropriate Control – Inappropriate control takes three forms - lack of control, over control, and inconsistent control. Lack of control puts children at risk for danger or harm to themselves and robs children of the knowledge handed down through human history. Over control robs children of opportunities for self-assertion and self-development by preventing them from exploring the world around them. Inconsistent control can cause anxiety and confusion in children and can lead to a variety of problematic behaviors as well as impair intellectual development.
Isolating – Isolating a child, or cutting them off from normal social experiences, prevents the child from forming friendships and can lead to depression. Isolating a child seriously impairs their intellectual, emotional and social development. Isolating is often accompanied by other forms of emotional abuse and quite often physical abuse.
Rejecting – When a caretaker rejects a child, the caretaker is negating the child's self-image, showing the child that he or she has no value. Children who are rejected from the start by their parents develop a range of disturbed self-soothing behaviors. An infant who is rejected has almost no chance of developing into a healthy adult.
Terrorizing – Terrorizing, like harassment, evokes a stressful response in children. Repeated evocation of the stress response alters the child physically, lowering their ability to fight off disease, increasing their risk for many stress-related ailments. Aside from the physical affects, a child living in terror has no opportunities to develop anything other than unhealthy and anti-social survival skills.
Emotional abuse is the core of all forms of abuse, and the long-term effects of child abuse and neglect in general stem mainly from the emotional aspects of abuse. Actually, it is the psychological aspect of most abusive behaviors that defines them as abusive.
Think of a child breaking his or her arm. If the arm was broken while riding a bicycle and trying to jump a ramp, the child will heal and recover psychologically, perhaps strengthening his or her character and learning valuable life-lessons in the process by overcoming obstacles with the support of his or her caregivers and friends.
If the same injury occurs because a parent twists the child's arm behind his or her back in a rage or throws the child down the stairs, the child will heal physically, but may never heal psychologically.
In thinking of sexual abuse, think of a child being examined by a doctor - doctors touch children's private areas routinely in physical examinations without damaging children in any way. But think of the same contact sexualized, from an older acquaintance, caregiver, even a parent. It is clear that the damage from fondling [or worse] the child is psychological and emotional and will most certainly scare them for life.
Now think of a child who lives with a parent who terrifies the child but who has just enough control (IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTROL) over him or herself to refrain from injuring the child physically in a way that will draw questions. That child is suffering the same devastating abuse as the children in the examples above, but often nothing can be done about it.
Sadly, emotional abuse goes almost unnoticed and certainly unattended through intervention. Despite the fact that the long-term harm from abuse is most often caused by the emotional aspects of the abuse, emotional abuse is the most difficult to substantiate. Rarely, if ever does emotional abuse reach a level warrenting legal intervention and prosecution.
Again, in a fallen world where the counsel of God is far from the hearts of parents when they are only concerned about their “freedoms”.. it takes real injury or even the death of a child to motivate actionable intervention.
Rest assured... God is watching your every action... your every word... your every thought... every attitude of your heart when it comes to raising the gift He has made possible for you to bring up to honor and glorify Him. Proverbs 22:6 says... Train a child in the way he should go, [that would be towards God] and when he is old he will not turn from it.
A plea to parents who call themselves Christians...
Take your eyes off of yourself... said more bluntly... you have children now, get over yourself and focus all your energy on them. Allow the Spirit of God to reset your vision to see clearly God’s purpose for children and the family. Children are part of His plan... not yours. We must all be willingly and gladly embrace His calling and purposes by working with Him instead of against Him when it comes to rejoicing in the blessings of our children.
Are you living and believing that God will build and fortify your family? Are we willing to let Him? Do you view children as a blessing, a reward, and an arrow to be raised for the glory of God and the furtherance of the gospel in this fallen world? Do you understand God’s purpose for children?
When it comes to kids... you MUST get it right. Remember who is watching and listening... GOD.
