Reddit Parenting Advice #9 – Mother Doesn’t Know Whether Her Daughter is Arthur or Martha

As our culture turns its back further on Christ the king we begin to see the utter foolishness of rebellious unbelief. Truly it is the fool who says in his heart there is no God. The denial of the transcendent self-existent God who reveals truth to us through his world and Word ultimately leads to insanity. So today’s Reddit advice post is a sad reminder of our need to turn back to Christ in repentance and faith. Let’s get to the post.

Hi y’all! I’m really needing some guidance and advice on how to deal with this situation. I have a 4 year old girl who for the past two years has been telling me she’s a boy. I have never corrected her but I have asked why she thinks that and will respond with “because I am!” Or “I like blue”. She always wants to play a dad/ brother role when she’s playing pretend.

So here we have a supposedly mature adult who needs help with telling a four year old the facts of life. A four year old girl is telling Mum that she is a boy. Mum is not sure what to do. She doesn’t say, “Well no, you’re a girl sweetheart!”, instead she decides that asking probing questions will help, because, you know, four-year-olds are known for their rationality. Oh! She’s a boy because she likes the colour blue. Right. Here’s a question, if your four year old told you that the sky is green, would you ask them why they thought that, or would you correct them on their obvious misunderstanding of facts? Parents are given to children by God to help their children to develop into maturity. That means a parent is there to give truth to their child. The parent helps their child see the world as it truly is. And yet this mother is hiding truth and acting as if her preschool child has wisdom when she is clearly completely confused. Let’s continue with this travesty.

After two years of letting her do her thing I finally asked if she wanted a “boy hair cut” she happily agreed! I told my mom about how I’m going to take her to get her hair cut and my mom clapped back saying I was pushing her and I shouldn’t have asked and let her bring it up. We ended up cutting her hair and she looks super cute and she says she likes it but she has also said things like “now I’m not cute like my sister” or “Grandma won’t love me”

The child is completely confused, and you, dear Mother are not helping. Sort yourself out.

She also has a identical twin sister. I think she’s really just trying to be opposite of her sister “I’m a boy and she’s a girl” “I like blue and she likes pink” Even “I’m hot and she’s cold” I’ve never dressed them the same and allowed them to pick out their own clothes. One has always chosen girls clothes and the other mostly boy clothes but she does wear girl clothes, dresses up as a princess and plays with towards geared towards girls.

I’m really trying to handle this the best way possible and I think I’m messing everything up and pushing her to be a boy when I’m just trying to support her.

Yes, you are messing things up. This is a complete failure of parenting. You are meant to be the rock – the anchor point for your child in these formative years. You are meant to be the authority. Yet like so many modern parents, you are afraid of being an authority and telling your child anything. You won’t tell her what she will wear, you won’t tell her she is a girl. Children are not little adults. You must nurture them in order for them to flourish and thrive. When planting a young fruit tree, you might tie it to a stake. You will pull out weeds that might smother it. You will tend that tree and prune off some branches in order that it may one day produce more fruit. You don’t just leave it and hope for the best. Not if you want that tree to flourish. As a parent your job is similar. You don’t just leave your child to figure everything out. You provide authority, and boundaries and truth. Failure in this area will destroy your child. Once upon a time, parents knew their job was to…well parent. Now, we have adults who can’t tell Arthur from Martha. What a fiasco.

Reddit Parenting Advice #3

In previous reddit parenting advice posts, we have investigated a Mummy who tried getting into a cot, and a question about weight. Today we are looking at a child with oppositional defiance disorder or potentially a Dad with Passive Parenting Syndrome.

Our son is 9 and is oppositional defiant. We’ll have an official diagnosis soon but I mean what else could it be? Straight up defiant from morning until night. Honestly we want to give him to the state and let them deal with him. We have 2 other boys 7 and 3 and it’s not fair to them. We don’t want to spend the next how ever many years dealing with this every day. I can’t get work done, we neglect the other 2 kids because all our time is spent on him. It’s absolutely insane why someone would want to push you and defy you on all fronts. He questioned me today on if getting out of the car is listening to me when I asked him to get out of the car. He repeats himself even if you answer the question, which I didn’t because it’s a stupid question and I won’t fall into his trap. Then he refused to go inside, then he refused to go up the stairs, then he refused to take a shower. Every step was just questioning. We flipped our lid. This was after a day of him going after his brother and getting rise out of him at 7 am, kicking him in the throat (although the middle child was going after him so I’m not sure what went down exactly), and basically defying anything I asked him to do, literally anything all day long. And guess what? Tomorrow it starts all over again. He talks all day long, watching movies with him is impossible because he’s always talking through them. He has anxiety and maybe something else, who knows.

Let’s begin with the incoming official diagnosis of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. There’s a word for ODD: sin. As far as I’ve been able to find out, to be diagnosed with ODD a child must have at least four of the following symptoms: often loses temper, touchy and easily annoyed, angry and resentful, often argues with adults, often actively defies or refuses to comply with requests from authority figures or rules, often deliberately annoys others, often blames others for mistakes and misbehaviour and has been spiteful or vindictive at least twice in the last six months. To be diagnosed with ODD, there must be a ongoing pattern of these behaviours.

So ODD is essentially a description of a collection of behaviours – behaviours that you expect to find in children. All of my children regularly exhibit a number of these behaviours. In fact, from my experience in dealing with children, I think ODD is a description of childhood. What toddler does not struggle with his temper? What child does not argue with adults? What child does not deliberately annoy his siblings? What child does not blame others for their misbehaviour? What child is not periodically vindictive? What we have here is a list of sins typical to childhood and unfortunately some adults who have never learned to curb them.

We are already talking about getting another therapist for me and my wife so we can get help dealing with it.It sucks.

This surprised me. I assumed I was reading the words of a mother. But no, here we have a father whining about his son. Herein lies part of the problem. Men are responsible for their family’s health. Fathers should be men who actively lead. Yet here we have a father who seems passive and resigned to being acted upon. What father cannot handle a 9-year-old boy? Why do you tolerate his behaviour and backchat? You are a man. You have strength and presence. Use it. Be a man.

Parenting philosophy matters. The way you think about parenting and children determines your destination. This is seen even from the earliest days of parenting. Parents who approach feeding and sleeping from a child-led perspective often end up fighting behavioural issues. Children who have learned from infancy that their desires determine their parents’ action tend to become disagreeable children. Philosophy drives practice. This is another case of the easy choices leading to a harder road.

We are already trying to arrange vacations without him because he ruins every vacation we go on. We can’t bring him on a plane out of fear that he’ll have one of his psychotic melt downs. I cringe when he wakes up and I hear him come down the stairs. I hate spending time with him. I hate spending money on him or signing him up for activities. He deserves nothing. I’m so pissed just typing this out. How do parents deal with this? I can’t even explain it to people because when I do there like “boys are boys”, “we all have kids”, “it gets better with time”. Hell no it doesn’t. It’s gotten much worse and honestly the next few years are freaking us out. The kids super smart, and I hate when parents say that about their kids because they all think there kid is smart but I wouldn’t be shocked if his IQ is 130+ when he gets tested next week.

And this is where a child-led parenting model tends. You begin secretly hating your children. They are not pleasant to be around. Life becomes miserable. Scripture puts it this way: “A foolish son is a grief to his father and bitterness to her who bore him.” Unfortunately, it’s worse for the child. A child whose parents do not like him will find he has few adult admirers either, and that is a very bad thing for his development.

He doesn’t struggle with school, loves God, and is social and has friends in the neighborhood. I’m not really asking for anything, we just feel so lost and alone. I know there are other parents out there and maybe I should reach out for support, but that’s easier said than done. I just wanted to vent and if anyone knows any good places to send him for the summer let me know so we can actually enjoy ourselves as a family.

Again we see a very unmanly approach to the situation. Dad wants to vent. He wants to remove his son from his family rather than deal with the situation and fix it. This approach to fatherhood and manhood is perhaps an unfortunate consequence of a world that hates masculine strength and decries it as toxic masculinity. Men who reject their place as strong loving leaders in their families inevitably become passive. Like a lion caged it’s pitiable.

How would a Dad like this turn things around? He would need to begin by admitting his responsibility for the situation he finds himself in. Yes, this son may be a difficult boy, but he is only a boy. What this boy needs is a strong father. Dad needs to repent of his weakness and ask God for wisdom and strength to help his son and to show love for him. By showing love, I do not mean liking his son, I mean doing what is in the best interests of his son.

Next Dad needs to sit down with his truculent son and confess his sin as a father to his son. It would go something like this. “Son, I have let you get away with things that are slowly destroying you and hurting the relationships in this family. I am committing to no longer allowing that. I am now going to lead you and I will discipline you when you go off the path. This discipline will hurt, but it is because I am charged by God to love you.”

Then Dad needs to think long and hard about severe consequences for his son’s defiance and sin. Does he have a cellphone? Does he use technology and play games? Is his room full of toys? If so these items are going to be part of the disciplinary process. As your son shows defiance and rudeness, these good things that you have given him can and should be taken away. My suggestion is that they are sold or given away. Your son needs these goodies far less than he needs to develop character. Providing him with food and a bed and loving discipline is your job. Having an empty bedroom might just teach him that blessing comes with obedience and disobedience leads to curse.

You may wonder if he is too old to smack (spank) or physically force to do something. Generally, my advice would be that parents want to be almost done with this by the age of 9. However, it seems entirely likely that this loving duty has been neglected in earlier years, and it may be important for Dad to show his son that Dad is a physical force to be reckoned with and he must come under Dad’s authority. This must never be done in unrighteous and uncontrolled anger, so if you can’t manage that you should not try it. Furthermore, Dad should consider the laws of his country and whether he should risk breaking them for the good of his son or if it is not worth the risk.

On the positive side of things, Dad must do the opposite of his natural desire to flee from his child. His undesirability is going to make this hard, but Dad must actually spend more time with him. Take him away for a father-son trip in the mountains. Take him fishing. Give him plenty of time with you. Try to repair that relationship that is quite obviously tenuous. This must be done in the context of firm unwavering authority. Love and spending time with him does not mean putting up with rudeness and disobedience.

It’s not going to be easy, but men weren’t designed for easy. God wanted us to wrestle with challenges. So go get to it.

Reddit Parenting Advice #2

Recently I decided to get in on the parenting advice act. Today we are looking at the issue of weight. This is an issue that is becoming more common among children. As a teacher who occasionally takes some outdoor education trips, I notice that what should be within the realms of capability for every student is now considered by some parents as too arduous.

Hi! Ive been very unsure on posting about this but I’m confident I’m not the only parent who worries about this, so I’m hoping to have a healthy discussion and maybe get some sound advice. We recently moved from our home state to a new one, and that’s really when I started to notice the weight gain in my daughter. She’s 7 and about 4’2” so she’s pretty tall for her age. I can attribute most of the gain to being in virtual school due to Covid and definitely not being as active due to not having a recess or much time to play outside, but also just the stress being in a new place with no friends or family has put on her. And because we are in doors a lot, she’s constantly wanting to snack on things. We live up North so the weather is just now getting to where I can start taking her outside and to the park regularly, so I’m sure that will help a lot also.

I guess I’m just wanting some tips, mostly to keep me from obsessing over it. She is considered overweight at her age and height, but she’s also very tall for her age.

While I’m no expert nutritionist, my basic understanding of weight gain is energy in exceeds energy out. So there are two aspects to look at. Consider energy in. Today in the Western we have more than enough food – even the very poorest among us. Compounding that, a lot of our food is high in sugar and low in nutritional value. So what could the problem be? One clue is that free snacking could be an issue. We have here a 7-year-old who is constantly wanting to snack on things. This is an issue I’ve seen in many households. I remember distinctly going to a friend’s house some years back, and their young boy was snacking away on unhealthy snacks not long before dinner time. Come dinner time he had no desire to eat the roast lamb dinner and vegetables. However, not long after dinner, he continued to snack on more unhealthy food.

So my first piece of advice would be to make sure that you the parent control your child’s intake of food. My wife is a stickler for this. She has trained our children so that they do not pick something up out of the fridge or pantry and eat it. These are her domain, not theirs. She issues the rations for the troops, and they eat said rations. There are times for food (breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner), and there are times when you do not eat. Your child eats at the times food is offered to them, and they do not eat in between those times. In our days of loose parenting, I see young children assume the responsibility for their own nutrition and feeding. A child’s appetites are not to be trusted. No doubt many of us remember as children gorging ourselves at birthday parties and then suffering the consequences and ruing our lack of self-control standing over the toilet some hours later. As usual, parenting philosophy drives practice.

Secondly consider energy out. While we do not know a lot about the individual circumstance here, we do know that children today are more sedentary than children of previous generations. A large amount of blame can be directed to their discretionary screen time. Another aspect is precious parenting. We can be overly afraid of our children being outside because “it’s dangerous”. Additionally, we see our role as taking our children to activities or the park where parents of previous generations did not seem to think their job was to entertain children. When I was a child, I was allowed to walk to the park from a relatively young age with a friend. In fact, I remember a common refrain from my parents, “Go outside and play.” In some areas, this may not be wise, but our children can surely run around in the back yard, or build a snowman on the sidewalk. So my advice here? Reduce discretionary screen time significantly. Tell your child to get outdoors and play and be OK with the muddy clothes that may be a result.

Parenting Advice – Sleep

Recently I viewed some great clips of Matt Walsh giving parenting advice, and I thought I’d get in on the act. It looks like it could be quite fun, and given I have a number of children, and have an interest in parenting children and education, I may even try to make this a semi-regular feature. Today we will look at a post on Reddit.

I’ve seen a lot of posts about baby not sleeping without being held but these all seem to just apply to naps because these people still manage to get baby into the cot at night. We can’t. At all.

We’re 5 1/2 months in and we’ve tried a few times to get him in his cot with no joy. I get into the cot myself and nurse him the try seeking out but it’s like he knows he’s in the wrong bed. We can practically throw him in our bed and he doesn’t flinch but we place him carefully and feed him in the cot and it’s like he just knows! He used to go in for 20 mins here and there but now he won’t even co sleep without me holding his hand or nursing him.

It’s my fault. I do love cosleeping and know breaking this habit is going to mean possibly weeks of no sleep for me, my husband or my toddler so I’ve opted for the easy life but he needs to leave at some point…

FYI We have a toddler so any advice needs to take her into consideration. We don’t really want to consider any form of sleep training until he is past his 9 month sleep regression at least.

Ok, so let me start with the first paragraph. We have a mother who cannot get her 5-month-old into a cot at night. I actually don’t believe that for a minute. There is no way it is physically impossible for a mother to get her 5-month-old baby into a cot. What you are actually saying is you won’t put your baby into the cot. One of the biggest failings in modern parenting is that adults refuse to be adults. You are the parent. You run the show. If you can be beaten by a 5-month-old, perhaps you should consider what has gone wrong.

Then in our next paragraph we find out that she has managed to get him in his cot, but with no joy. In other words, he cries when you put him into the cot. This mother has even tried to get him to sleep in the cot by getting into the cot herself. Seriously?! Dear reader, do you have that mental picture emblazoned in your mind? This is where poor parenting philosophy will lead you…back into a cot. Clearly lack of sleep does terrible things to our cognitive functioning.

In paragraph three we get the truth. Our mother admits it is all her fault. Correct. She has created this habit because of her own love for cosleeping with her child. In putting her own desires ahead of her child’s actual needs, she has created a sleep problem for her child. She rightly points out that she has opted for the easy life. She has trained her child to need her to sleep, and it is no surprise that he now needs her to sleep.

Situations like this in parenting are all too frequent, and there are almost always a few common elements. The first is the life principle that those people who opt for the easy choice often end up walking the hard road. When it comes to making decisions, there is often a difficult choice and an easy choice. An example would be putting your child down to sleep. It’s difficult to do this at first, and new mothers find it hard to be parted from their little ones. It is easier to hold and rock the child, and it’s beautiful to see a baby fall asleep in your arms. It’s a lot harder to make the choice to put them down and hear a bit of crying. But the truth is, the difficult choice leads to an easier life, whereas the easy choice leads to a difficult life. This is a common theme in many parenting dilemmas.

The second common element is that so often parents know what they need to do, but they do not have the ability or will to carry it out. This mother knows she needs to let the child cry and learn to sleep, but she is putting artificial barriers in the way because she does not have the will or strength to do it. As you can see, this is related to the first point. If you go through life making all easy choices, you do not develop the strength of character to make difficult choices. Unfortunately, as a result of this, you will forever be suffering the harsh consequences of not being up to doing what you need to do.

The final element in all of this is that your inability to do the right thing does not just impact you, but it impacts your husband, your toddler, and also, your baby himself. Learning to sleep is extremely important in your baby’s cognitive development. More sleep is correlated with higher IQ and performance in school years. A good parent, should strive to ensure that their own emotional weakness does not get in the way of their child’s development. So grow a bit of character, make the hard decision and give your child sleep. It won’t take weeks. It will take a few nights of you developing the strength of character to allow your child to cry it out. Don’t make out like you love your child and people who love their children would never do this. Loving your child means doing what is best for them. What you actually love is your feelings. So get over that, and act for the good of your child and the rest of your family.

How to Have ‘Easy’ Children

It is not an infrequent experience for my wife and I to be complimented our children’s behaviour in public. I say this as a matter of fact and not in order to boast. After all, I get to see my kids at home, and these observers do not. I know their wicked little hearts! It does seem however that people are genuinely surprised when children sit politely at a table and eat nicely at a restaurant, or follow Mum around the supermarket without whining and throwing tantrums.

Part of the reason for the surprise is a now widespread and defective philosophy of child-rearing. Faulty philosophy has an unfortunate tendency to lead to faulty action. Many young parents have imbibed a child-centred philosophy from their own upbringing and schooling, and combined with their naively optimistic view of human nature, they carry this with them into their parenting.

Recently when talking with some young couples without kids about disciplining children, we surprised them when they asked what a parent should do to train truculent and disobedient toddlers.

Our rule of thumb is that as soon as the child is able to deliberately disobey (and that happens from around 6-9 months for example when they refuse to lie still when you are changing a nappy), you must sternly reprimand them and as appropriate force them to do what they are told. This may mean a sharp tap on the hand, or as they become a bit older, on the bottom although in NZ these days you might need to be careful should you use this kind of physical discipline, and may need to consider how best you can force your toddler to do what he is told without falling foul of the law. The goal of a parent in the early years say until around 5 must be to aim for instant obedience. Your children must learn to come under your authority without question or delay. That is probably the most important lesson you can teach your children in the early years, and will set you up for a more pleasant parenting experience in the primary school years.

So our young friends were surprised by the fact that force would be used on a toddler. This lack of experience and knowledge leads to one of the most disturbing trends I have seen in the parenting of toddlers – attempting to reason with them. Never reason with a toddler. Never get down to their level and put on a soft wheedling voice pleading with them to use reason and do the right thing. Readers, I’m sure you’ve seen something like the following scenario.

“Now Jack, we mustn’t stand on the blocks or we might break them, and then we won’t be able to play with them any more,” pleads the careworn Mum while the little (parent-made) monster Jack grins malevolently back at Mum with a ‘Try make me’ look in his eyes.

What a parent must do is show that they are a loving but strong authority who must be obeyed immediately. If Jack has been asked to get off the blocks and is dilly-dallying, grab him immediately and take him off the blocks and in a stern no-nonsense voice, say something like, “Mummy said off !” Fewer words are better and more memorable. Emotional lectures are a waste of time. The message must be simple and short and backed up with your physical presence and action. If at home and away from nosey do-gooders, a little tap on the hand to remind him to obey immediately in the future will not hurt him, but likely save him from a whole lot of trouble later.

Failure to act as the authority in your child’s life from in these early years will turn young children into brats who other adults will secretly (or not so secretly) hate to be around. And as Jordan Peterson argues in his 12 Rules for Life, that is not good for them.

Well-behaved children who are a delight to be around are the result of firm training in these early years. One of the most annoying things my wife and I hear is “But you’ve got easy children.” Our experience has been that almost every one of our children have been difficult in the early years. Some have been more compliant and willing to come under authority, but others have been determined to push the boundaries and refuse to come under authority for some time. Persistance in crushing this rebelliousness has been hard but has paid dividends for them. Yes, that’s right for the child.

Some may object to the use of phrases like crushing rebellion as unloving. Get rid of this weakness. Parents have a God-given duty to discipline children and train them up. What is truly unloving is caring about your own feelings of dislike for discipline and upsetting your children than for the child himself. Rebellion and sin lead to death, and no loving parent wants that.

God’s word puts it bluntly. “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” You might think those feelings preventing you from disciplining your children are loving feelings, but the action they give birth to is not love but hatred. Discipline is the sign of a loving parent. God disciplines those he loves, those who are his sons. If we refuse to discipline our children we are treating them as if they are bastards (Hebrews 12:7).

Parenting Philosophy – Who runs your household?

As a teacher, I see all types of parents and parenting philosophies. I also see the end products.

One type of parent that I see is what could be described as ‘well-meaning, but powerless’. This sort of parent complains to the teacher about their child’s behaviour and how they are unhappy about what he is doing, but they are unable to prevent it. A classic case is the child who continues to use technology when the parent tries to limit it.

How does one get to a stage where a primary aged child refuses to do what his Mum or Dad asks and Mum and Dad are helpless to do anything about it? It all comes down to parenting philosophy. Many new parents-to-be, naively view parenting as something that comes naturally and easily. The idea of a philosophy of parenting seems to over-complicate things.

The reality is that every parent has one, whether they can state it explicitly or not. And given that the nature of both parents and their offspring is fallen and impacted by rebellion against the Creator, we cannot assume our natural approach is the best approach.

So how do parents end up tearing their hair out over a rebellious primary aged child who does not do what they ask? It happens because from the outset of parenting, they have operated out of a faulty understanding of the nature of the child, and the purpose of the parent.

A modern view of the child and parent

What is the nature of the child? Modern parenting and educational philosophies view the child as containing pent up and endless potential for good, just waiting for the opportunity to express their innate truth, goodness and creativity. Children are the answer to the problems the world faces. They will solve the problems of climate change, racism, sexism and any of the other current -ism’s and ‘phobias’, if parents and teachers would just listen to their wisdom.

Where do we see this worldview today? Everywhere. One place where it is particularly obvious is our modern education system. We speak of child-centred education, and student agency. We see modern learning environments where students determine what they want to learn, how they want to learn, and who they want to learn with. When Johnny isn’t learning, we immediately point the finger at a teacher who is perhaps no engaging, or not catering to Johnny’s preferred learning style.

This worldview is also behind the absurd modern trend of seeking the voice of younger and younger people on serious and complex issues they can’t possibly understand. Thus we have teenagers, whipped into a state of emotional frenzy and fear by teachers and a media focussed on doomsday predictions, protesting over climate change despite having very basic to no knowledge of the scientific discussion. Enter Greta Thunberg with her irritatingly emotional and scientifically devoid blackmail foisted upon us by mainstream media.

A biblical view of the child and parent

Biblical wisdom views the child differently. In the book of Proverbs, Solomon reminds the reader that “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of the child.” Children are conceived in sin. From their very conception, they are tainted by the sin of our father Adam. Thus a chid’s natural inclinations and impulses have to be curbed, and altered so they can live as useful members of society. What comes unnaturally to them must be instilled into them.

That means that our approach to parenting and educating children should not be child-centred if by that we mean driven by doing what the child wants, is interested in, or thinks they need. No, it will be determined by what they actually need, which is the direction, intervention and training of a wise adult.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out which of these views meshes with reality. All it takes is a parent with open eyes. Very early on in the life of a child, as soon as they are able to physically express it, rebellion and self-centeredness become obvious. My youngest has just turned one, and it has been obvious in her for at least 6 months. When told ‘no’ or ‘don’t touch’ she will regularly look at us and reach out to touch what she has been forbidden to touch. When she doesn’t want to eat the food I am offering her on a spoon, she will reach out and hit my hand away, even when what I am offering is good for her, and what she wants to eat is not! No, it is clear to all who would open their eyes that children do not enter this world automatically good and knowing what they need to develop. That is a foolish view.