“Let Insights Drive Your Strategies” is the subheading of the introduction in Lynne Jackson’s ebook helping kids with ANGER published Connected Families. This book and ministry represent at least some of the views of the Gentle Parenting movement, which has lately gained popularity among young parents, especially through social media platforms. But where exactly do these insights originate?
I was hopeful when I saw Ephesians 4:26,27 in bold print under that heading, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil.” Unfortunately, the rest of the introduction explains that Jackson’s insights into your child’s anger don’t come from God and his word but from her personal experience as a mother, a parenting mentor, an occupational therapist, and a certified life coach. Now there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, and they may very well provide helpful insights into the behavior and psychology of children, but there are endless numbers of secular parenting experts who can offer the same or better credentials.
As Christians, we must not govern ourselves by experience or expertise, but by the directives and truths breathed out by God. And we must examine every truth claim made by human experience or professional expertise using the infallible guide of truth, the Bible.
You will look in vain to find any actual explanation of Ephesians 4:26,27 and how they apply to helping kids with anger. However, Jackson claims that if you join her “on a journey of parenting change” you will begin to “understand anger for what it often is: a complex reaction that implores you to look below the surface, and a valuable gift that helps you discover the values, needs, and feelings of your child.” Only then, Jackson says, can you “help your kids learn to ‘Be angry, and sin not,’” quoting from Ephesians 4:26.
The methodology of this Connected Families resource, then, is to use insights from child psychology and occupational therapy to teach parents what it means for their children to “Be angry, and sin not.” But this approach is entirely backward and doomed to fail. Instead of allowing God’s word to pass judgment on the theories and insights of child development experts, it relies on claims made in Psychology Today and a site called “Lives in the Balance”1 to teach us how to understand and obey Scripture. By ignoring the child’s sin nature, if not outright denying it, any solutions offered to the problem of anger will shoot wide of the mark. They must, because they will not address the core issue that is at stake: our children need the grace of God in Jesus Christ to give them new life and change their hearts. This also is our greatest need as parents.
We must not govern ourselves by experience or expertise, but by the directives and truths breathed out by God.
An example of where this approach goes wrong is when Jackson deals with common causes of tantrums. She says, “Conventional teaching might suggest ignoring, walking away, or removing privileges later because of the current outburst. To implement these methods with little or no understanding about why a child is tantruming misses a great opportunity.”
Now I’m sure if we searched the internet for parenting advice we could find examples of all of these approaches, but since she does not point to anyone who is teaching that parents should respond “with little or no understanding about why a child is tantruming,”2 it feels a little bit like a straw man. Whatever “conventional teaching” is, biblical parenting is nothing like this. Proverbs 18:13 says, “He who answers a matter before he hears it, it is folly and shame to him.” And James 1:19 teaches that we should be “swift to hear, slow to speak, [and] slow to wrath.” When I respond to my kids without listening to them I act foolishly, harm our relationship, and undermine any correction or counsel I would give.
Jackson addresses several common reasons that a child may throw a tantrum. “Sometimes kids are tired,” she says, “or their blood-sugar levels are off, or they’re mad about something else on their minds, or they have intensely wired nervous systems.” This list is not exhaustive, but it’s also not very helpful. Do kids throw tantrums when they’re tired or have low blood-sugar? Of course. Should those be dealt with the same way as a child who is well-rested and well-fed and still throws himself down in the cereal aisle of the grocery store and screams bloody murder? No. But these things can also be fairly easily recognized and remedied: set a bed time and follow a routine to make sure he gets enough sleep, and insist that he eat a well-balanced diet with a minimum of highly processed and sugary foods. This will help eliminate some of the causes of tantrums.
What about the overly sensitive child? Relying on her coaching experience Jackson says, “many children with intense anger issues also have sensitive nervous systems that are easily irritated by noises or bodily sensations. These kids are simply overwhelmed and frustrated with how they experience life.” What causes some children to be so intensely wired that merely “the sensation of changing their clothes, brushing their teeth, or even sitting on a cold toilet seat” will cause them to have a meltdown? The author says it is a physiological reality, and as a result they are not responsible for their actions when confronted with emotional or sensory stress. She says that disciplining your sensitive child for tantruming is “like punishing them for getting a cold.”
Are some kids really wired in such a way that they cannot control their reactions to various stimuli? There certainly are those who struggle with this, but we need to be very careful about accepting any suggestion that having a particularly sensitive nervous system renders a child incapable of controlling his anger. If this were so, it would render meaningless the Bible’s many commands to learn and exercise self-control, at least for those who would be classified as having “intensely wired nervous systems.”3 As parents, it is our responsibility to teach our children self-control, and I would argue this is even more necessary for those with kids who are hyper-sensitive. After all, Jesus said in Matthew 12:36, “for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment.” Contrary to what Jackson says, it is not “like punishing them for getting a cold,” any more than when you correct them for lying, which is also “hard-wired” into their sin nature.
It is not grace to overlook sin. Our children need more than understanding; they need to be called to repent and trust in Jesus. And as parents we need the gospel more than psychology, parent coaching, or occupational therapy.
1Lives in the Balance was founded by Ross Greene with the stated goal of eradicating what he calls “punitive, exclusionary disciplinary practices,” i.e. using restraint, seclusion, or “adult-imposed consequences to incentivize children to behave adaptively.” Instead of relying on the God-ordained authority structure of the home, Lives in the Balance would have parents and children work as equals to develop collaborative solutions to behavior problems.
2Can I just say that I love this word? I think Jackson may have coined it, since it isn’t listed in the dictionary, but it seems more elegant than saying “throws a tantrum.”
3Jackson does suggest that parents may want to get a referral to a pediatric occupational therapist for a sensory processing evaluation, if they believe their child has a particularly sensitive nervous system. There is nothing wrong with this advice, but it still does not eliminate the child’s duty to learn to control himself when angry, anxious, or stressed.