Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
The Gardener, who watches for emotional growth and makes decisions based on careful listening, assisting tweens in making plans that take the whole family's needs into account Perhaps somewhere in the subterranean chambers of your life you have heard the call to deeper, fuller living. You have become weary of frothy experiences and shallow teaching. Every now and then you have caught glimpses, hints of something more than you have known. Inwardly you long to launch out into the deep.” —Richard J. Foster I consider discipline indispensable, but it must be inner discipline, motivated by a common purpose and a strong feeling of comradeship. Show them that their personal and professional conduct and behavior represents more than just themselves and is representative of the U.S. Army. Lastly, help them develop the intestinal fortitude to make on-the-spot corrections when necessary as this is essential to the standards and discipline of an organization. All of these and many more need to happen while allowing subordinate leaders the maximum latitude to operate. This is accomplished by assigning them responsibility and holding them accountable without overly managing their work. Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian (1520), M. Tranvik, trans. (Minneapolis: 2008), pp. 71-72
The author says this is better than consequences (paraphrasing): “I see you keep saying no to cleaning up. Let’s take a break from cleaning up and do it later” (72). That’s more of a child victory than any of the tried-but-failed-consequences! The child “will be relieved by this change of energy” (72). No, the child will be happy because she’s getting her way about not cleaning up. Not to mention, sometimes it’s not possible to let the child do something later, so it’s unrealistic advice. Spiritual discipline, then, is developing soul reflexes so that we know how to live. We discipline ourselves to develop soul memory in normal times so that we’ll be equipped for the times of high demand or deep crisis.” —Douglas Rumford So it’s no wonder that troubling behavior surfaces more and more often at home and at school. As parents, we want to shield our children as much as possible, to provide a safe haven for them from the unrelenting buzzing and booming, the fever-pitched pace of modern life. In this regard it would be proper to speak of ‘the path of disciplined grace.’ It is ‘grace’ because it is free; it is ‘disciplined’ because there is something for us to do.”
Navigation menu
You may never have thought much about disciplining yourself spiritually, however. But the same immutable laws that underlie all other pursuits in life, underlie the growth and development of your soul.
If you desire learning, forsake ease. How can the man at his ease acquire knowledge, And how can the earnest student enjoy ease? The Soul of Discipline: The Simplicity Parenting Approach to Warm, Firm, and Calm Guidance - From Toddlers to Teens by Kim John Payne, who is a school and family counsellor for more than thirty years, is a path-breaking resource book most parents with toddlers and teens will find extremely useful. The book is designed to provide children with well-defined boundaries and save parents from the feeling of free fall when confronted with challenging disciplinary situations. Like Simplicity Parenting I do not think his advice is sound for all kids and families and I do not think there that there are only "disoriented" kids. Children, like all humans, are very, very complicated and there are biological, genetic, psychological, environmental factors that account for it, besides that there is so much we do not even know or understand. Despite that caveat, I think that this is a good guide, a solid framework in which to hold parents through typical challenges. This book will be a keeper for me and I thank NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book. As I walked by a group of eight-year-old children one sunny morning in May, I overheard them chanting a jump-rope rhyme. It went something like this:
This site requires the use of cookies
Kim Payne provides a useful model for choosing our parenting stance-Governor, Gardener, or Guide-depending on the situation. Most powerfully, Payne begins with the radical view that children are not disobedient but rather disoriented. The upshot of this shift in perspective is that discipline is about helping children orient themselves effectively, not about controlling or chastising." -Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., author of Playful Parenting The Blue Book remained the official guide to military training and maneuvers until it was replaced in 1812. (U.S. Army photo) Kids can disobey even if they have no school and no obligations. They throw a tantrum simply because they’re not getting what they want, whether it’s candy, a toy, or whatever! It’s popular these days for people to say they are “spiritual but not religious.” What this usually means is that they still see a deeper, even transcendent meaning in life, but don’t want their views and pursuit of it to hemmed in by institutional rules and calcified dogmas, doctrines, and traditions. Personal spirituality, the thinking goes, should be completely untrammeled and free, left to roam and explore wherever an individual wishes. Spirituality should be spontaneous.
Telling rather than asking my child to do something. Example, instead of politely asking, "Can you get your coat on?", I politely tell him, "Go get your coat on." The author's theory here is that by asking, your child thinks he has some say in the matter, when he really doesn't because he needs to go get his coat on. So when he refuses and then you get angry, he gets confused. More often than not, now, my child will actually go get his coat on without me needing to tell him twice. There is some more in the book on connecting with your child before giving a directive. I was already trying to do this, and will continue to try to remember to do this.
Success!
Give two-by-two instructions (issue with two feet on the ground and your child no more than two feet away from you) Over the course of our 237 year history, it has been proven time and again that discipline is the difference between winning and losing, between average and exceptional. Once standards are established in an organization, it takes discipline to follow and enforce those standards both individually and collectively. Although this might seem straight forward and relatively easy to accomplish, it can be much more difficult to achieve in practice. Using a brigade combat team (BCT) as an example, it is easy to see how difficult this can be. Ask me not where I live and what I like to eat. Ask me what I am living for and what I think is keeping me from living fully for that.” —Thomas Merton Just like a single workout at the start of the month won’t sustain your strength for the rest of it, you must exercise your soul on a regular basis. The average age of first sexual intercourse for an American is 17” (194). The author’s recommendation is for you to talk to your teen about different kinds of love. But not what to do if your kid ignores your talking and sleeps around anyway.
If there’s a part of you that feels strangely attracted to a life of ascetic monasticism — that yearns to become something of a warrior monk, though you don’t actually want to go off and live in a cloister — the spiritual disciplines are most definitely for you. What Are the Purposes of the Spiritual Disciplines? When Suzanne told Danny about the Pinging Principle, it made perfect sense to them both, but it upended their ingrained attitude toward their son and his behavior. “This new way of seeing the problem was scary and hopeful all at the same time,” said Suzanne. “But the one thing it did immediately was to shift us away from taking Forrest’s antics personally. You just can’t take it personally anymore when your son has a meltdown if you’ve found a place within yourself to ask, ‘What does he need to orient himself? What can I do to help?’ In the few seconds we spend asking ourselves these questions, we move from being reactive and taking it too personally to seeing the underlying forces and staying much more centered, to becoming the kind of parents we always wanted to be.”
You have chosen not to accept cookies
When a poor choice is made we can meet with the child and talk about it. What can we do so that better decisions are made in the future? We can notice these things and create these guidelines together. In this way we are truly preparing our teenagers for adulthood when they’ll have to make these choices completely on their own. Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another. We have chosen eight of these spiritual disciplines as being the most vital for men in the modern day and inclusive of varying belief systems, and which incorporate several of the other disciplines within them. This series will explore these eight as four complementary pairs: Keep your talking to a minimum (123). “Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, and will it help my child feel safe? Unless you can answer yes to all four of those questions, don’t say it” (264). Guess that means don’t tell them Santa is real. That’s unnecessary, untrue, not kind (because it’s lying), and it wouldn’t make a kid feel safe to believe they’re being watched everyday and that the watcher is going to break into their house once a year.
Great Deal 
New Comment