Are you guys ready for Chapter II of Jack Hyles book:  “How to Rear Children”?

It’s OK, it’s not really that bad.  You’ll be fine.

Chapter two is about developing self-control in a child.  And I’m actually not too far off from Old Jack on this one, and in fact, you get a feeling of extreme compassion for him.  This guy had one screwed up upbringing.  Also, he’s kind of a control freak.  And he likes lists.  If you   read the original, you’ll see more of the list references.

Jack proposes that we teach children the value and rewards of self-restraint.  Some people call this delayed gratification.   You put off satisfying incidental wants for a certain amount of time, so that you have the resources to later satisfy large, longer-term wants.

Of course, Jack could have used a good editor and maybe a technical editor, because he makes such unfortunate statements as :

  How can one train a child to exercise such self-control? This is done by developing something on the inside that becomes more attractive than that which is on the outside. Then more pleasure is gotten inwardly by resistance than outwardly by yielding.

And of course, everyone who’s had an introductory course in psychology suppresses a collective shudder, as the news stories in a long string of fallen religious conservative icons flash through their memories.   Given the psychological profile of the average religious conservative embroiled in scandal, this is a very unfortunate (or perhaps telling) statement.

But one can make some allowances for Good old Jack when you realize that he’s pretty progressive for a religious conservative in the ‘60s.  Consider the model that he is replacing:

 The punishment should always hurt more than the pleasure feels good. For example, a young man stays out thirty minutes late with his girlfriend and all he gets is a scolding or a spanking. Now what young man wouldn’t be willing to trade a spanking for thirty minutes with a lovely girl! The wise parent will take the car away from the boy, ground him, and not let him be with his girlfriend for one week, Hence, he is trading an entire week for thirty minutes.  

Indeed, Jack is several giant mother-may-I steps above someone who would spank a child of dating age, and making the punishment fit the crime is an apt idea.  And speaking of mother…

Another internal competitor to outward attractions is that of pleasing and/or not hurting someone who cares. Here is a very strong internal pleasure or displeasure. If a close relationship can be developed between the parents and the child, the child will have an intense desire to please them. If he feels much displeasure and pain when he displeases Mom and Dad, then the external attraction will be limited by the thought of pleasing those he loves.

Sounds reasonable enough.  We want to make the people who are important to us happy.  That’s a good, social motivation.  Very healthy.

When I was a boy in grade school my report cards were marked either “S” for satisfactory, “U” for unsatisfactory or “N” for needs improvement. “N” was neither real good nor real bad. One time I came home with an “N” in conduct. My mother cried and cried and cried. You would have thought I had fallen into some terrible sin.

Lamentation and tears filled the house. During the next grading period every time I would start to whisper to the boys around me I could see my weeping mother and I would be a good boy.

Oh dear.

With that picture in my mind I worked hard for the entire period and sure enough, I received an “S” for satisfactory in conduct. When I brought the “S” home she was so happy she danced for joy and jumped for glee. You would have thought I had discovered a cure for leukemia.  She made it such a big thing that when I was tempted to misbehave in school I could see her both rejoicing and sorrowing. The desire to see her pleased overcame the desire to talk to the boy behind me. Hence, the attractiveness of the internal feeling exceeded the attractiveness of the external stimulus and I became a pretty good kid.

Well, at least there is symmatry.

And anyway, Jack didn’t turn out to be Sylar so I guess we can be thankful to random fortune for that.

The rest of the chapter consists of some pretty good principles:

1.   Teach your children to not waste time, energy, or money on short-term gratification at the expense of long-term goals

2. Don’t punish your children for your own emotions.  Punish them for deficits of character, not because they made you mad.  Reward them for doing good, not for making you feel happy.

And some silly ones:

3.   The child should be taught that “ought” and “can” are synonymous. Someone has said, “You can do that what you ought to do.” Emerson wrote, “So nigh is grandeur to our dust, so near is God to man, when duty whispers, ‘Lo thou must,’ the youth replies, ‘I can.’ “This is just another way to say that the wise young person is taught that he can do what he ought to do.  My mother used to have me repeat the following three words over and over again, “I ought, I can, I will. I ought, I can, I will. I ought, I can, I will. I ought, I can, I will.” Charles Sumner said, “Three things are necessary for success: first, backbone; second, backbone; third, backbone.” An old proverb says, “Kites ride against the wind, not with the wind.” Another say, “Only dead fish float with the stream; live ones swim against it.”

And once again, I have to point out the absurdity of so many fundies being so in love with quoting Emerson, especially a fundamentalist Baptist minister.  People that engrained with Calvinism SHOULD NOT quote Emerson.  If Calvin were alive, he would burn Emerson along with all of his works. Emerson was a universalist heretic, after all.

4.   Children should be taught to say “No!” A child should stand in front of a mirror and practice saying “no” in many ways.

Gertrude Atherton wrote the novel, RULER OF THE KINGS. In it a rich man sent his boy to be reared in a poor home. The person rearing him required the boy to say “no” twenty times the first thing in the morning and twenty times the last thing at night.

Plutarch said that the people of Asia became vassals largely because they could not say “no.”

My mother would get a bottle, put water in it, and pretend it was an alcoholic beverage. She then would say to me, “Son, would you like a bottle of beer?” My answer was to be an emphatic “NO!” Again she would say, “Son, how about a bottle of beer?” I would answer, “No!” Then she would say, “Son, do you want some wine?” My answer was “no.” She would repeat the aforementioned questions many times so that later in life when I was really offered liquor I had associated the word “no” with beer, whiskey, wine, etc. so long that I would again say “No!” She did the same thing with cigarettes. She would pretend that she had a package of cigarettes and would ask me if I would like to have one. I would say, “No!” This was repeated many times. The wise parent will list the things from which he wants his child to refrain and will train the child to associate the word “no” with this particular thing. My mother would hold up a liquor ad and say, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” She would then tear it up, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it, all the time saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no.” She would then give me a liquor ad. I would say, “No, no, no, no, no, no.” Then I would tear it up, throw it on the floor, and stomp on it saying, “No, no, no, no, no, no.”

Whimper.

But these are harmless, if a little obvious

5.   Teach your children to do right no matter what anyone else is doing.

6.   Teach them not to be afraid of being unpopular.

7.   Use punishment consistently

8.   Make sure the pain of the punishment exceeds the pleasure of disobedience.  (could possibly be used badly)

9.   Don’t make the punishment about you and your feelings, but instead about their behavior.

This next one, I thought was weird, and I didn’t understand it.  Is the point feed your kids bland food so they won’t mind eating healthy?  That seems strange.  Lots of healthy foods taste good.

10. Self-control in eating should be strongly emphasized from infancy. Parents are largely to blame for the appetites of their children. Instead of providing food on the basis of nourishing the body, building up tissue, supplying energy, etc., the supply food highly spiced that provokes appetite instead of satisfying it. Such food makes the child sluggish and dull instead of active, healthy, and vigorous. Hence, the child is taught he should eat what tastes good instead of what is good for him. If a family overfeeds a valuable horse, they are considered cruel. The purpose of food is to nourish the body. When eating is done just for the pleasure that results from the gratification of taste, the end is overeating, Overeating causes the body to perform its functions poorly and causes the person to be a slave to his appetites.

This one gives a lot to think about…

11. The will should control the temper. Controlling the temper means that one’s will prevents expression of his inner feelings and thereby prevents reaction.  Anger should be allowed or disallowed by the will. It is not wrong to become angry; however, it is wrong to become angry because we are annoyed or because we have been wronged. Usually our anger does not come from a hatred of wrong, but because we think we have been wronged. Hence, it comes from outside stimuli and this is why we “fly off the handle.” Children should be taught to hate injustice and wrong. They must learn to be angry not because they have been wronged, but because someone whom they love has done wrong.

But then there’s this weird bit about not venting…but I don’t get it.  Venting is just one technique in a host of tools people use to manage their behavior.  It’s not as though suppressing it should be the only way.

Oftentimes a person who exhibits his temper will make such statements as, “I just get it off my chest and get it over with.” This sounds very good but the truth is, it simply makes it easier for passion to follow the same path and to seek the same relief the next time his is offended. Hence, a habit is formed because the person has given way to anger. 

One reason anger is so deadly is that it defeats the one who is angry rather than the one who is the object of the anger. Someone said to me recently, “I was so mad I didn’t know what I was doing.” Such uncontrollable temper leads to murder, bad health, broken friendships, and perhaps worst of all, the breakdown of self-control which may be transferred into other areas until restraint is almost impossible and anger is an automatic reaction which divorces a person’s actions from his will. Because of this a child should be taught to count to ten before he gives in to his feelings, for the time that is gained in counting to ten or in the thought of the ritual gives opportunity to reason before hasty action takes place. It gives the will time to collect itself in order to gain supremacy over the reaction. The wise man said, “A soft answer turneth away wrath.” Another has said, “Govern your passions or they will govern you.” Franklin said, “What error is begun in anger ends in shame.” Jefferson said, “When angry count ten; when very angry, one- hundred.”

And then there’s the admonition to not allow your child to delegate, or (once beginning) re-assess based on new information and cost/benefit analysis.   I mean sure, the habit of persistence is a good one to cultivate, but I think the implications of this text dance flamboyantly into the realm of anal retentive.  A consistant theme of dear Jacks, if you haven’t noticed.  I’ve cut out several references to his almost pathological listing habits in the interest of space…but you get the idea.

12. Children should be taught to finish a task. Each job should be done completely and well. Never should the parent finish the task for the child. No food should be left on the plate and no satisfaction should be allowed for a job that goes unfinished. Napoleon once said, “Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools.” Hence, a task that is begun should be finished regardless of how difficult it is. The child who is allowed to let another finish a job that he starts does not develop self-control and later is found bouncing from one job to another, one school to another, etc.  This is especially true when a task is an unpleasant one. Teach him to fix his mind on the goal. Teach him the joy of accomplishing the goal and finishing the task. Teach him the shame of a task unfinished. Let him understand that he is being conquered when he does not finish an unpleasant task. Let the joy of doing a job well overcome the drudgery of the work itself.  I know one parent who listed all of the tasks that were unpleasant to his child.  The parent led the child to call the tasks “Goliath” and himself “David.” The child was taught to get angry at the tasks and refuse to be conquered by Goliath. When the child conquered a task the parent praised him, as David was praised when he defeated Goliath.

But let’s go ahead and bring this home, shall we?

In summary, character is habit and habit is formed by practice. When Becky, David, Linda, and Cindy were little children I listed all of the things I wanted them to do and do well. Such things as how to answer the telephone properly, how to meet friends, how react when an adult enters the room, etc. were listed. Each evening we would practice one of these things. The boy would practice walking like a boy and the girls would practice walking like girls. They would practice sitting, standing, being graceful, being kind, etc. We would act out a sample situation and repeat it over and over again until certain reflexes would cause the child to respond automatically to certain stimuli. May God help us to teach our children to have self-control.