Chewymom

Part 6 in my series on GFI
For parts 1-5, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red Flags with GFI
Disassociating Myself from the Ezzos and GFI

I have tried to write this blog several times, and it keeps getting jumbled up. I think I am going to just make a list and see how that goes:

• DS7 (as an infant) began to sleep in our bed. He had severe reflux which he was aspirating into his lungs. He had almost constant asthma symptoms, and he had frequent pneumonia. His medications made him extremely irritable, and we did NOT discipline him for his temper fits, knowing that he could not control himself. (So much for going into a restaurant and being complemented on my childrens’ behavior!) This was probably the first change we made, and it was huge for us!!
• We moved our children over to the public schools! No longer paranoid about outside influences, we allowed them to make friendship choices and have been thrilled with the result! We have watched them work through some hardships that never would have crossed their paths before. And we have been able to guide them through their choices and decisions, and they have learned to listen to us and consider what we say because they trust us.
• DS13 went through some angst as he began to have the freedom to (and be forced to) make choices and decisions for himself. In 4th grade, he still was finding it too stressful to decide what to wear in the morning and asked me to start picking out his clothes again. (Red flag!!) He has since learned and grown and now has more confidence as a person because he has been given opportunities to make choices.
• DD2 is a COMPETELY different ball of wax. Let me just say, if anyone thinks boys are hard, they’ve never had a girl. She came out of the womb, self-confident, knowing what she wanted, and determined to get it. She was nursed pretty much on cue. I say “pretty much” because scheduling my babies had become second nature to me, and so even though I fed when she cued for food, I did find myself taking a second look at the clock and doing the math in my head to see when she had last eaten. I also would discourage her, as a newborn, from falling asleep at the breast before I thought she had gotten a good meal in. As a toddler, we see a whole lot more humor in her “terrible twos” behavior than we did with our first children. With them, we were almost on the lookout for disobedience so we would have training opportunities. With DD2, we shake our heads about a lot of stuff and know that it is a normal stage of development and she’ll grow out of it.
• Some of you might want to shut your eyes or go past this one. I’m not looking for a debate here. But we do still use spanking as a form of discipline. It has changed though. As I mentioned above, we are no longer looking for disobedience in our children, and it is not our first choice, but when the behavior warrants it (which in our opinion is rare), we will spank.
• God has changed me. I am learning to be a merciful parent and person. It is not a natural thing for me, but as I have learned to show mercy to my children, mercy is becoming more and more of a character quality in my life.
• Our family is more joyful. We enjoy one another as equals. That isn’t to say that DH and I are not the authorities–we are. But when we are just “hanging out” as a family, everyone’s input, chatter, and opinion is equal. There is no fear on our children’s part that they might say or do the wrong thing. And DH and I are less stressed, because we don’t feel the need to constantly be on the lookout for bad behavior, lest our children start down that rocky slope.
• We parent from the standpoint of being sinful ourselves, now. Before, we were very prideful and self-righteous. Not just toward other parents, but also toward our children. We find ourselves doing a whole lot more apologizing to our kids now, and asking their forgiveness, whereas before we spent hours having them apologize and ask forgiveness for things. Hopefully now they are learning to be humble by our example, not by our force. We are very aware of our own shortcomings.

Last, can I end with a question? Or something for people to consider if their desire is to have godly children who love Christ above all else and who love others as themselves (and isn’t that the goal of any Christian parent?). Do you really want your example of a godly family to be a man who has been “disciplined out of” at least 2 churches and still hasn’t repented; a man who can be SO charming in person (believe me, I know–after meeting him in person, my dh and I offered to take him out for dessert just to get to spend more time with him), yet so unkind and mean-spirited to anyone who disagrees with him (please see Ezzo info for numerous examples of this), a man who has no further relationship with his b-i-l, and at least one dd? Isn’t your goal to have a harmonious family? One that loves Christ? Where your love for one another is deep and beautiful and where you love nothing more than to spend time together? Don’t you want to be able to call your children your friends when they are grown? Then why in the world would you let Gary Ezzo be your example, for goodness sake?!?! Find somebody whose family resembles what you want, and immitate them! That’s how Gary got started in the first place. But it fell apart when he pulled out from under the umbrella and authority of Grace Community Church and turned GFI into a money-making, for-profit venture.

Thank you so much for reading all of this. It is my hope and prayer that it is of some use to others. And if encourages one person to look outside of GFI for biblical parenting advice, then it has been worth it to share this long tale of our family’s journey over the last 15 years.

To read the history behind this post, please see:
How I Got Involved with GFI
Why I Loved GFI
Becoming a Contact Mom for GFI
Red Flags with GFI
Disassociating Myself from the Ezzos and GFI

CM

P.S. There are so many people out there who have tirelessly advocated for a “kinder, gentler” parenting method than Ezzo. I know at times you must grow weary. Or think nobody is listening, nobody cares. You argue for months or even years with a person, and they never listen, and they never get it, and you just want to give up. I wanted to mention all of those who had an impact on me. For most of you, I did not listen to you in my “arguing-for-Ezzo” days. But as lights came on in my head and red flags were raised, snippets of conversations or posts came back to mind. I had many “ah-hah!” moments. I want to list many of you here. I know I’ll leave some out, which makes me hesitant to do this. But as many as I can remember, I want to acknowledge so that YOU do not become weary. (Some of you may even be on here twice, if you used a pseudonym on debate forums!)

Steve Rein
Rebecca Prewitt
Lois Honeycutt
Liz
Laurie Moody
Taketime
Robin Metcalf
The Abels
Ann/Amy Maughan
Metachoi
Mumble
Debra Baker
My friend “M”
Frank York

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 11:39 am and is filed under GFI/Ezzo/Babywise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.