This parent is teaching his child not to communicate with him. He could have said, “We have already ordered, perhaps next time you could get french toast. To change our order now would be hard on the waitress.” This response would encourage the child to continue to communicate with dad, and understand that dad has good reasons for certain decisions. Punishing the child with public humiliation and hunger will teach the child it’s best not to communicate with dad. The long term implications of that are disastrous for parent and child.

Not to mention the continued public humiliation of this child! As if once wasn’t enough, dad has to repeat it constantly.

Patriarchs speak of submission out of love, but this parent is fostering submission by shame and threat.

Luke 11

11If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

12Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

13If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

Looks like this poor kid asked for French Toast and got water (without the bread).

I was the one who told Karen about this story. I heard it this past weekend at our local homeschool convention. It was in a keynote given by Diana Waring. She related this incident as an example of what we teach our children by how we discipline them. This boy got the lesson loud and clear- I am never to have my own opinion, desires, wants, etc. I am never to give my father any other information because he is the one who makes the rules.

The father in this story used this as an example of how in control and in authority he is over his family.

I think this is much more than a child thinking he can drag his parents around by the nose. This is about a father who has gotten the notion that it is all about his authority and his word, instead of a relationship with his son.

I understand what it is like going to eat with a large family. But, I would have said: “Look children! God has blessed us! You know how I said that we could have the 99 cent pancakes? Well, God has allowed us to have a choice! Isn’t that great? That is just like our God! So, how many want pancakes? Okay, four of you. And, how many want french toast? Okay, four of you. ”

If I hadn’t noticed the blessing of this choice and my child would have told me about it, I would have praised him for his good eye and I would have then opened up a choice for all of the children. I would have looked at it as God’s blessing and not a way I can put my child in his place for daring to ask me if he can have something else.

When we go out, I give my children a choice between 2 or 3 things. If someone pushes it and asks for something outside of those choices, I do not give in. It is their choice- either pick something or not.

It seems silly to the extreme to only allow pancakes when french toast is the same price! It is also cruel, imho, to order a child water for simply noting what the sign says.

This was all about power and authority and showing one’s family who is boss.

I think that since this story was told by Diana Waring about another father, we should be even more cautious about judging this man’s parenting and using it as an example of what NOT to do. The story, as told, does make a compelling case that the father was being unreasonable with his child and it does seem silly not to allow him to switch. But we do not have all the facts and are hearing this story retold by Diana Waring and then again here. And because we don’t we have no idea what sort of relationship this son and father have, his age, and what transpired before or after this incident there isn’t a lot to go on.

If someone took a snapshot of something I said or did with my children at any given time, I might be thought unkind or cruel at various times as well. The struggle for power and control may indeed be the heart of the father. But might it also be in the heart of the son? If the father had offered french toast would that son have requested pancakes? We don’t know. Prehaps this father has had this experience with this son before and knew where it was all headed if he didn’t end it early. I’m not saying I agree with this father’s choice, on the surface it does indeed look unreasonsable, but since we don’t have all the facts it is difficult to move from unreasonable to cruel and that the child would be irrepairably harmed by the millstone his father created. We just don’t know. We should listen to this story and base any judgment on the information provided. And if there is insufficient information we might consider forgoing judgment altogether. The way this story is told we are prejudiced against the father from the beginning by the assertion that he was “bragging” and we believed it based on what? It turns out that was Diana Waring’s perception of his demeanor (if in fact she heard actually heard him speak and didn’t hear this story second hand as well.)

It is easy for each of us to sit back and say what we would have done, but we are not that father parenting that son. And wouldn’t we then become like the legalists we are often critical of, declaring that we know better how to parent thier child than they do and that they should have done it this way?

Cindy this is how the story came to be on this blog, Corrie said, “I was the one who told Karen about this story. I heard it this past weekend at our local homeschool convention. It was in a keynote given by Diana Waring. She related this incident as an example of what we teach our children by how we discipline them. ”

So this story was retold by a Diana Waring, a speaker at a homeschool convention and we’re not sure and not told how she knows it. It could have come from someone else. Nevertheless, we have her account told to Corrie, who told it to Karen, who posted it here. And that is what we are discussing. No one here heard the father directly only a second hand account.

I agree that the father is responsible for the witness he creates, but we’re not even sure that what is being told here accurately portrays his actual attitude or actions. We just have Corrie’s retelling of a story Diana Waring told about some father that she may or may not have even heard tell the actual story.

You also said, “The inital blog post qualifies this as an example that the father bragged about to demonstrate the order that he maintains in his home (and in public…).”

So how do we really know that his demeanor was really “bragging” about his parental abilities or if that was an embellishment provided by the speaker to provide contrast and make her point more clear? We just don’t know.This is a subjective assessment of the father’s tone which she gave to the listeners at her workshop at the homeschool conference. Corrie listened to here and then retold it to Karen, who recorded it here. We don’t know if qualifiers were offered we just know that Diana Waring didn’t tell them to her audience one way or the other. But somehow she arrived at the conclusion that he was “bragging.” I’m not saying that Diana Waring is intentionally misleading in her presentation of the story or that Corrie did not relay them accurately as well.

But there are a few too many iterations of this story for me to draw any hard and fast conclusions about this father’s parenting. That’s all. And it is easy for us to use this example to expound on what we would have done or how this father caused his son to sin or stumble.

(Question for Karen, was the comment by Corrie changed? For some reason, I had in my memory that her comment about Diana Waring said something a bit different than what is there now? But maybe it’s my flawed memory.)

Corrie, it must have been my flawed memory. I thought I remembered something about Diana actually hearing the father and a similar scenario she’s often heard repeated by other homeschoolers. But I guess not. Sorry.

The subjective portion I was referring to was the point about “bragging”

The beginning of Karen’s post said, “Someone shared this story with me over the weekend and it broke my heart.

The homeschooling father of 8 children began to brag about the order that he keeps in his home and in order to prove it to be true, he shared this story. ”

The way this story was set up we were predisposed to thinking that this father was boastful in not only his actions toward his son, but also in his bragging way of sharing them to show his control as a parent. But the truth is that we don’t know the demeanor of the father we only know what Diana shared to you and you now relay to us. And there is no evidence of bragging.

Rules over relationship is definitely a problem. But so is relationship over rules. Neither should take priority over the other. They both must equally be present in our parenting. That is my whole point about grace and truth being the present in the life of Jesus. John 1:14 says “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. ”

Our parenting encompasses both rules and relationships. Rules are rooted in truth, relationship is rooted in grace. We see that in the life of God our Heavenly Father. The Truth that we are sinners reveals our need for a savior, God’s grace reveals our hope in the salvation the Savior brings through his death. Elevating grace above truth, or relationships above rules leads to a moral vacumn where there is no right or wrong. Elevating truth above grace creates a rigid set of rules and legalism. Which COULD be the father, but we don’t know.

My point being, we cannot know the mind of the father nor the heart of the child. Was this a time when the child needed to know the reality that truth reveals or was this a time for extending a bit of grace. Karen took the position that the father was bragging and his wrongful actions broke her heart and provided a cause for the son to stumble. That COULD be the case, but it could also be the case that this was the “truth” that the son needed to hear at this point in time. . And because we really don’t have all the facts and Diana chose not to tell you what else she might know about this story, it is just not possible to say exactly what would have been the right response.

We rightly are critical of legalists who tell us how to parent based on their rigid set of rules, but we run the same mistake of telling others how to live by our own parenting standards and thus turning “grace” into a set of legalist rules to be followed.

Spunky,

I didn’t see your post before I hit the submit button. I see what you’re saying about not knowing the mind of the father, etc.

But it was used as a jumping off point and was not associated with a specifically identified person or group. It was couched in very general terms to make a point. I could say the same thing of the universal expression of “There was a little girl who had a little curl… when she was bad, she was horrid.” How dare we talk about the little girl when we know nothing about her…?? How do we know there was a girl? What kind of curl did she have and was this meant to imply that her whole head was curly… Who are we to say she was good? By whose standards was she bad and how do we distinguish bad from horrid? But we would only be concerned about that if this pertained to a specific girl. (Maybe it did at one time, since many rhymes like this were actually once disguised political protests.) But as it’s commonly used, and I use it myself, does that mean that to use it to illustrate a general principle that it is improper.

Are you saying that it is wrong to use general illustrations like this to demonstrate a point? If the arguments built from the example take a turn that draws steriotypes or something or creates false dilemma, that’s a whole different matter. Is that your concern that we have done this to a fault here?

“Are you saying that it is wrong to use general illustrations like this to demonstrate a point?”

Not necessarily. But we have to be very careful how we tell them. Ascribing a “bragging” and “controlling” demeanor to the father in the beginning of this story predisposed the reader to arrive at only one conclusion when there is more than one conclusion that could legitimately be drawn from the story. That’s what this post did. No parent wants to be thought of as “controlling” but there is a time for even reasonable requests to be denied. And the way this blog post was written it didn’t seem to provide for that option lest we be a accused of being overly controlling and create a stumbling block in the path of our child.

I guess I might be more sensitive to it because a lot of the parenting/marriage books that I’ve read over the years use illustrations to validate the authors point of view. Debi Pearl’s book was a classic example of this. She provided stories and illustrations based on letters she’d received about how this or that marriage was saved or lost and used that as evidence to support the “truths’ she was attempting to teach younger women.

Patriarchy writers are prone to using illustrations to validate many of their teachings. The illustration itself becomes the evidence for the “truth” not a support for a point that was already sufficiently expounded upon and supported with Scriptural evidence. For example, a girl goes off to college and loses her faith therefore girls going to college is wrong and leads to sin. Thus appealing to the reader on an emotional level rather than a reasonable level of critical and thoughtful analysis based on Biblical truth and wisdom.

When Karen ascribed a “bragging”demeanor and a “controlling” attitude to the father she appealed to the reader on an emotional level even though Corrie now admits she didn’t include that fact when she told the story. She said, “I don’t think Diana used the word “bragging” nor did I.” But this story was set up in such a way that made the reader biased against the father’s decision not to give in to his son and that the son is now forever at risk of stumbling and sinning because of his father’s “error” in a restaurant.

The fact is that this father’s decision could have been wrong, but it could have been exactly what that son needed to hear. Lest the father end up with a child like the one I mentioned earlier who led the parents around the restaurant until they finally left because the parents were too afraid to deny their child’s “reasonable” request.

“Parenting is dynamic and there isn’t always ONE right response. As parents we consider a lot of factors. The way this post was set up predisposed us to think that when a parent ignores a child’s request it is from a controlling spirit and the child irrepairably harmed. ”

If the story is true then making the kid sit there with a glass of water while the rest eat in front of him can breed hatred and ‘exasperate’ the child as the scriptures tell us not to do. At home, one can send the kid to their room or something. But here, the humilation has to go on and on in public before strangers, too. Even the waitress knows what a ‘bad boy’ he is. That lacks Grace.

My daughter pulls stuff in public where I have to say, Sweetie, remember what we discussed before we came here? That is code for do you want to go to the car for a spanking? She knows exactly what it means because I have practiced it.. I do not have to humiliate her in front of anyone. That is the worst and kids don’t forget it. And they grow up and do the same to their kids. If they know the code means business you never have to humilate them.

It is not either/or here. There is a vast chasm between a kid that leads their parents around by the nose and gets their way all the time and a kid pointing out that french toast is on sale, too.

But, I will tell you this. I was raised that when my mom said jump, I was to ask, ‘how high’. ) But she NEVER humilated me in front of others. That is simply teaching a principle to be carried out in LIFE. Punishment was always in private and never discussed outside of family. My goodness, I was not even told why my brother was being punished for something. It was none of my business!

Karen,

I think you made a very important point. We shouldn’t treat our children, especially making them a public display, differently than we would want to be treated if we were in their shoes.

A private correction in the child’s ear would have been much better, imho.

Last year, I heard Diana Waring speak up in Peoria, IL. She spoke about how a lot of rules cause rebellion. That parents should have a few rules. That parents should be flexible, considering each child’s individual bents and strengths and weaknesses and talents.

Her story goes right along with this.

What are we teaching our children? What did this little boy learn? I am no softie when it comes to parenting nor is our family led by children. But, I do try and treat my children the way I want to be treated.

French Toast sounds much more appetizing than pancakes any day. I would have asked the very same question. If that happened to me, the next time we went out as a family, I would rather stay home ALONE.

I think I see Spunky’s point, but I certainly see everyone else’s point a bit more clearly.

We made some difficult parenting decisions with our oldest son. There were times when I felt compelled to “nip things in the bud” and restrict his choices or his freedom in expressing opinions that contradicted ours. We never had to adopt this hard line with any of our other children. It’s not something I recommend except, perhaps, in extreme cases after much prayer and complete desperation. (This was the ultimate strong-willed child that made more than one relative say, “He could argue the hind legs off a donkey.”)

This same son has grown into a wonderful young man who is extremely thankful for those very difficult choices we made and how we handled him.

But I never went around telling those stories. I still don’t. I don’t want anyone to think that we are advocating parents do the same thing, which could be crushing to any other sort of child. Nor did we, as a rule, adopt such a hard line with this particular child…only when we felt it was necessary.

So maybe this father had a reason to restrict his child’s choice. IMO, then he should have done so. “Buford, I said we were eating pancakes, not french toast. We’re not going to argue about it. Maybe we’ll have french toast another time.”

And, if Buford then objected, insisting he only wanted french toast, I could see the father saying, “Well, if you don’t want pancakes, maybe all I should order for you is a glass of water. Is that what you want?”

To me, that is teaching the child something far more valuable than, “Don’t ever point out a restaurant special to Daddy or he won’t let you eat.”

It’s true that we weren’t sitting at the table with the father and his children, so we don’t know exactly what happened.

When my son would temporarily lose the privilege of making choices or expressing contradictory opinions, he knew why — and he knew what he needed to do in order to regain that privilege. And we didn’t tell the whole world about it. It was just between us and him.

We did these things with a certain measure of regret and sorrow — over his struggle and over our need to discipline him — and I really don’t have any desire to tell the stories to other to “prove” what wonderful parents we are. In fact, writing about this whole thing makes me feel somewhat sad. Disciplining children is, IMO, a sorrowful thing!

“But I also believe that relationships without rules also makes for ineffective parenting as well. ”

Maybe I am dense but I do not see how that was implied in the story or the comments.
It is a huge leap. We have tons of rules in our home. I am no liberal parent and I do not think Karen or Corrie are, either. I do not think any of us have kids who rule the home. I thought that would be implicit from reading Karen and Corrie for a while.

But publicly humiliating kids as a way to enforce rules is not loving at all. Unless of course, your kid is a Pharisee. )

Well, the other issue emerges in an earlier comment and the is revisited in other comments. Why is grace and can grace ever be apart from truth? Are they mutually exclusive. We do not choose between grace and truth. Is truth automatically authoritarian and ungracious? There seems to be an admonishment that by using this example that we are creating a false dichotomy to support a narrow view, but what are we doing if we pit grace and truth against one another as mutually exclusive concepts? The more this unfolds and the more it is restated, the example keeps popping up and I dont’ understand. Grace is not the same as mercy but neither are or should ever be apart from truth. Or does truth here really mean discipline?

Wow…way for this dad to raise his son to have no independent thoughts so that he will be a prime target for anything down the road!