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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
New Emerging Parents Blog

Hi all, I'm back from the Emergent Gathering in New Mexico. It was a refreshing gathering of friends and the conversations I had were amazing. We had a good Emerging Women lunch, which I will blog about in a day or two, but first I want to spread the word about a new venture that came out of this Gathering.

One of the sessions I attended was a discussion on holistic emerging parenting. The men and women who attended were all seeking to connect with other parents on this emerging journey on how to integrate our "new" expressions of faith in with how we raise our children. Most of us have felt unable to connect with the typical Christian parenting group, and were longing to find others of like mind to engage with. Our conversation there was lively - covering topics as diverse as discipline, salvation, and how to handle Christmas and Birthdays. We all wished at the end that we could continue those conversations, and so we decided to create a blog to be a spot to do so.

Hence the creation of the Emerging Parents blog. It is, like this blog, an open membership blog. Since we have had so many good conversations on parenting issues here I wanted to share this new resource with you all. Not that parenting topics can't continue here, but just that this is a more focused area for those. It is of course brand new without much content yet, but hopefully we can all develop that together. So check it out, jump in one the conversations, join if you want, and let's explore emerging parenting together.

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posted by Julie at 10:20 AM ¤ Permalink ¤ 2 comments
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Toy Recall
UPDATE: This recall has been expanded to include millions of Mattel/Fisher-Price toys. Please check their site.

There is a rather long list of Fisher-Price's Sesame Street, Dora, and Diego toys being recalled. You can find it at http://www.mattel.com/. Apparently, some genius with their company decided it would be a good idea to save a few bucks by having their toys manufactured in China where the standards of production are low enough that they managed to use lead paints on their toys. This could be very dangerous, so please check the list and pass this info along to anyone you know who has young children.
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posted by Unknown at 10:20 AM ¤ Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Rewards, Punishments, and Faith
In the discussion on Children's Books, Amy wrote -
Julie, you mentioned staying away from the reward/punishment style of raising children. What do you use instead and do you have a particular way you church applies this to its children's programs? I've noticed recently that our kids ministry uses a lot of candy/sweet rewards, especially to offerings. It's a competition of boys vs. girls. Not that a little candy is horrible thing, but I wonder if there's a more effective way of teaching our children to give just because it's the right thing to do, or out of true compassion for missions, etc.

For those of you who have never heard of the debate about rewards and punishments let me give a bit of a background. This is a discussion that is popular in alternative parenting circles, some education circles, and is making its presence known in Children's Ministry settings. While there are many people writing about the subject, the most well known author is Alfie Kohn. His book Punished by Rewards is the most prominent treatment of the subject (and the source of much emotional debate). Here's the brief summary of the book to help give a framework for this question -
Our basic strategy for raising children, teaching students, and managing workers can be summarized in six words: Do this and you'll get that. We dangle goodies (from candy bars to sales commissions) in front of people in much the same way that we train the family pet.

In this groundbreaking book, Alfie Kohn shows that while manipulating people with incentives seems to work in the short run, it is a strategy that ultimately fails and even does lasting harm. Our workplaces and classrooms will continue to decline, he argues, until we begin to question our reliance on a theory of motivation derived from laboratory animals.

Drawing from hundreds of studies, Kohn demonstrates that people actually do inferior work when they are enticed with money, grades, or other incentives. Programs that use rewards to change people's behavior are similarly ineffective over the long run. Promising goodies to children for good behavior can never produce anything more than temporary obedience. In fact, the more we use artificial inducements to motivate people, the more they lose interest in what we're bribing them to do. Rewards turn play into work, and work into drudgery.

Step by step, Kohn marshals research and logic to prove that pay-for-performance plans cannot work; the more an organization relies on incentives, the worse things get. Parents and teachers who care about helping students to learn, meanwhile, should be doing everything possible to help them forget that grades exist. Even praise can become a verbal bribe that gets kids hooked on our approval.

Rewards and punishments are just two sides of the same coin -- and the coin doesn't buy very much. What is needed, Kohn explains, is an alternative to both ways of controlling people.

This approach forces us to rethink discipline, competition, and parenting strategies. I first encountered these ideas when I was studying methods of Children's Ministry. The discussion there revolved around two main issues. One was the tendency to use rewards/bribes to get kids to do things in church (memorize verses being the most prevalent). We saw the impact that such systems had on actually reducing love and respect for the Bible and its utter long term ineffectiveness in retention of those verses (much less basic understanding thereof to begin with). We also explored how the language of behaviorism has infiltrated of presentation of the Gospel (mostly in evangelical settings). Often people are asked to follow Jesus in order to receive the reward of heaven or avoid the punishment of hell. Long term studies that track and compare how people are called to faith (behaviorism influenced decisions or gradual inclusion into the family) have shown that the psychological issues and faith struggles are much greater in those who were given a reward/punishment option. (not that heaven and hell are not real, but that they should not be what manipulates us into choosing to follow God).

Most people don't like to discuss this issue because it forces them to consider different parenting/ministry styles than what they grew up with. The logic is that, it worked for me/I'm okay why waste energy trying to change things. But studies have shown that such a system of behaviorism does more harm than good. I like the idea of rethinking our strategy for motivating people, but I fully admit that I am still trying to discover practical strategies for implementation. I have started to evaluate what the ultimate goal of all of my interactions with my child is. Am I encouraging her to be the kind of person I want her to be (good, kind, loving), or am I using my power over her by giving or witholding my love in the form of rewards and punishments in order to get her behavior to be the way I find most comfortable?

Before I mention a few suggestions Kohn gives as alternatives, I would like to here from you all. What is your reaction to the rewards/punishment issue? What do you see as good alternatives?

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posted by Julie at 2:55 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 36 comments
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Children's Books
I recently got an email from an EW reader who wrote -
I am a graduate student in English and the wife of a campus minister ... We have a baby boy who is 5 months old. We've been thinking about how to teach him about Jesus (of course) and I've been looking for children's books. I am having a difficult time finding good books for children, and I'm wondering if you might have any recommendations. Perhaps this could be a good post on the blog. Many of the books I find portray Jesus as a white man or assign stereotypical roles to women and men. I would also love to teach him to pray for children in poverty, and I can't seem to find any books on this!

So I contributed my $.02 -

I'm with you on the children's books thing. So many that I find (or have been given to me) are just awful. I've yet to find any good Jesus books for kids, but there are a number of decent spirituality books out there. Some of my favorites include -

The Lord's Prayer and The Twenty-third Psalm - by Tim Ladwig (uses the familiar words with fantastic artwork that portrays inner-city life)

and books from the Early Childhood Spirituality series like - Where is God?, What is God's Name?, and How Does God Make Things Happen? (most by Laurence Kushner or Sandy Eisenburg Sasso). These books are very multicultural and focus on love and grace. They have full picture books and board book varieties (a necessity with my toddler).

and (although they are not "Christian" - by label, not intent) I like the values taught in the Todd Parr line of books like The Peace Book and The Feelings Book. (Emma especially like the idea of peace being enough pizza in the world for everyone, she's two)

and I think they are out of print, but the allegorical stories in The Tales of the Kingdom series by David and Karen Mains have been a favorite of mine since I was a kid.

But I would love to find "bible" stories that aren't warped in some way. That don't change the story drastically to be suitable for kids, that don't reduce scripture to a plithy fable, or that don't teach individualistic "me" centered theology.


So I present the question here to the diverse community that meanders to this blog. What do you recommend?

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posted by Julie at 10:46 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 12 comments
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Giving
In Free of Charge, Mioslav Volf argues that we cannot be the initial givers to God who then expect reciprocity, because all things came from God as gifts to us in the first place, even our lives. This makes me think of how my a child can reason, "It's my room! I can do what I want," while I parent thinks, "Yeah, but who pays the mortgage?" Or a child says, "I'll give you my red car if you'll buy me a new fire engine." And mom or dads thinks, "Wait, I gave you that red car for Christmas." On the otherhand, if a child gives a parent a picture made with all her love and creativity, simply because, then I don't know any parent who dismisses the value of the gift on account of the fact that Daddy bought the crayons and Mommy supplied the paper.

In what spirit to do we offer our gifts to God? How can we be the child we'd love to parent? What thoughts come to mind when you put yourself in God's shoes (or at least try ;)?

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posted by Jemila Kwon at 8:43 AM ¤ Permalink ¤ 5 comments
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Stay-at-Home-Dads
So the other night on The Colbert Report there was a piece on stay-at-home-dads. If you are a fan of the Report, you know that this is a comedy show with tongue-in-cheek commentary. But I was surprised by the language used here - even by the academic expert they chose to interview. To even in a comedic way say that to be a stay at home dad is to give up one's manhood shows that that perception is still a big issue.

As pastors, my husband and I both work from home. He often hangs out with other stay at home dads in the area (who feel like they are unwanted in most mom dominated playgroups and activities). Its a rising trend for dads to stay with the kids, but it inspires much negative reaction. What are your thoughts and experiences with it?

Here's the Colbert Report piece -

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posted by Julie at 9:28 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 10 comments
Friday, February 23, 2007
Girls' Fairy Tale On the Ooze
I wrote a story, inspired and motivated by discussions with some of you about the need for different kinds of fairy tales to tell our little princesses. It's up at The Ooze under the title, Ariana and the Magic Cupcakes.

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posted by Jemila Kwon at 1:00 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 1 comments
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Little boys become men...
(going from 'commentor' to my first post! YAY ME!)

Much of what I’ve read here, and now reading Sue Monk Kidd’s book (far too late for the book discussion.....) has been raising thoughts for me on how we are to raise our boys in light of the issues many of the women here express.

Can we teach our boys to be more cognizant of gender equality and help guide them from being little boys into the kind of men that better support and validate women?

How do you Moms go about teaching your little guys the proper way to relate to girls and later women?

Some of the little ‘practical’ things which can be heard common in our culture that come to mind

  • A boy ought not rough house with a girl
  • He ought to open the door for her
  • He should treat her with gentleness….different than he treats the guys

My little guy is 5 ½ and I have to admit that all of a sudden I'm wondering about what I say to him. I know that I have said things to the effect of: he should look out for girls, hold the door for them, show ‘care’ for them. Not that he shouldn’t care for all humankind, but I've definitely differentiated as far as girls go.

Is that substantiating girls are weaker, girls are different?? Am I setting him up to be...well, subconsiously thinking of girls as 'less than'?

And how does it relate to, if it does at all, teaching respect for elders…or say, giving up your seat for the elderly......I’d teach him to give his seat up for a girl too…but why? Would I then expect him to give up his seat for every Tom, Dick, and Harry that happens to be seatless? If not, why the elderly? Why girls? Why not guys? What am I saying by differentiating? Anything? Am I taking it too far?

Right now we get stuck for what seems like an eternity while he waits for EVERYONE to come through the door – he loves to hold the door open! Its sweet and beautiful......but I begin to wonder what am I really saying to him – or what am I conveying by what I’m saying…

Should guys ‘look out for’ or ‘care for’ girls?

How does that relate to, or contribute to (if it does), the problems many women here face or the climate of the culture (faith culture included) that we find ourselves in?

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posted by Janice at 3:03 PM ¤ Permalink ¤ 20 comments