who can enable a 10-year-old to know how to serve God.
(^) I have often wondered why grounding is so universally popular. I
believe it is because it is easy. It doesn’t require on-going interaction.
It does not require on-going discussion. It does not assess what is
going on inside the child. It does not require patient instruction and
entreaty.
(^) Grounding is quick, incisive, simple. “You’re grounded for a
month. Go to your room.”
(^) Perhaps parents just don’t know anything more constructive to do.
They feel frustrated. They realize that something is wrong with their
child. They don’t know how to get to it. They feel they need to
respond in some way.
(^) One thing is for sure. Grounding does not address the issues of the
heart in a biblical way. The heart is being addressed, but it is
addressed wrongly. The child will learn to cope with the grounding,
but may never learn the things that a godly parent desires for him to
learn. My 10-year-old friend is rather philosophical about it.
(^) “It’s not too bad,” he said to me, “I can play and watch TV in my
room. If I don’t let it bother me, it isn’t that bad.” He has learned to
live under house arrest.
Erratic Eclecticism
(^) This approach is exactly what the name implies. It is erratic in
that it moves about. There is no consistency. It is eclectic as it freely
draws from many sources. The parent gets bits and pieces from a
variety of methods. A few ideas picked up skimming the Reader’s
Digest in the supermarket checkout are joined to ideas from a chat
session in the church nursery. And so it goes. Like a rolling snowball
picking up snow, ideas are added along the way.
(^) For a few weeks, Mom and Dad try contracts. That gets boring and
doesn’t seem to work as well for them as it did for someone else.
They hear a sermon about spanking and decide that is the need.