a PCG Stepford wife asks:
Thanks for these details! Was wondering: how do you teach a 4-6 month old not to make noise in services? You mentioned doing this before starting blanket training. It’s probably simple but I have found this quite a challenge.
When discussing the subject of training children it should be agreed that it is an important responsibility and not be treated as something that comes naturally. It should also be recognized that “book learning” and education does not guarantee success.
I speak from experience when I say each child is unique and must be respected as an individual. There is no “one size fits all” in parental responsibility anymore than there is a “one size fits all” in religious belief systems.
The parents must have a “self-discipline” that takes a personal responsibility that is not “controlled” by external forces (the devil or the church) and the sincere desire of seeing their children reaching a healthy maturity.
It should also be noted that children who have not experienced “real life” experiences will often find It difficult to function in the ever changing world that supports our human existence.
This is my personal opinion on the subject.
A. Boocher
Discipline them. At six months.
The reign of terror continues, only under a different name.
It is mind-numbing how ignorant these people are, even as they prop themselves up as experts.
Dogs get trained more humanely than children do at PCG.
Hell, I treat my cattle better than PCG treats its kids.
Joe Moeller
Cody, WY
But the biggest baby in the room is the minister.
He cries for your attention.
WAAaahh! Me! Me! Me! I'm more important!
another seekeroftruth
I assume this would also apply to uncontrollable laughter as well. A cacophony of babies laughing would be hilarious!
A full onslaught of demonic attack!
lol
another seekeroftruth
Yes, and there are examples of animals having been trained to drive cars, and answer the telephone. Supposedly, Jerry Garcia, during the expanses of disposable time while not on tour with the Grateful Dead, had taught his cat to fetch. And there are examples of infants learning how to swim prior to developing walking or toilet skills.
Here's the basic problem with Armstrongish teachings on childrearing. Looking to apply their perfect legalism to every aspect of their lives, they take exceptional examples, and use them as their norm. Most functional adults have impulse control, developed over a lifetime of experience and education. Babies, born in tabula rasa state, do not. They respond to such things as hunger, pain, amusement, wonder, etc, au natural. An exceptional infant may indeed be able to interpret the pain of a spanking as being different from the pain of colic, or a too tightly applied diaper, and deduce that he or she needs to react by modifying behavior. But most will not. To expect that would be to establish an erroneous norm. Traditionally, the Jews have recognized attainment of the age of accountability, and it is certainly not even close to infancy!
I agree with Albert about the one-size fits all approach. When my parents met some of the Imperial Schools parents at some of our early feasts, my mom brought home lists of scriptures which their kids had to memorize, and believe me, this ruined every single sabbath and every single road trip thereafter. Maybe some people do have eidetic memory, so that six months after memorizing every word in the long form of the Ten Commandments, they can recite them on cue. We didn't. It was interpreted as rebellion, with spankings and automatic fasting until we rememorized them. This type of basic unfairness produces PTSD and extreme anger issues for years, to say nothing of underlying mean spiritedness. Anyone should have been able to recognize that, but once again, "Mr. Armstrong says....."
I would suggest to Mr. Leap that a separate room for families with infants, and piped in sound, would solve this problem once and for all. It amazes me that the ACOGs haven't figured this out since 1958 and are still having to have sermonettes about it!
BB
I am sorry, but this PCG and this Dennis Leap guy need to be shut down and disbanded by CPS or some branch of the federal or state government. They are putting their short-term desires above the long term good of others. They are prescribing abuse. They oughta be locked up. They are perpetuating the worst of Armstrongism from 50 years ago, when it was at it's shameful peak. They are demonstrating they incapable of learning from experience. They are merely fanatics with no checks and balances, common sense, or concern for the actual wellbeing of other human beings.
Yeah, start beatin' your kids early, get 'em used to the abuse so they can grow up to abuse your grand-kids with no telling how much ferocity.
A 6 month old infant doesn't understand from punishment. All anyone will get from hitting an infant is the infant going into scream mode every time the abuser enters the room.
I was a blanket child. Yuck.
What's funny is that I remember an old WCG film (was it a "Behind the Work"? I don't know) talking about how outsiders who saw WCGers congregating at the FOTs and what not noted how well-behaved the children were. Kind of frightening.
RSK,
I wonder if the unblinking blank stare of the children were also noticed by anyone. It was as if the children were not even there but off in a world of their own...too scared to even breathe out loud. This was from knowing that they were going to get the hell beat out of them if they did any little thing that irritated their tyrannical parents.
I once saw a deacon kick and slap his crippled son because he fell down trying to go through a spring loaded door. I almost did the unthinkable...and if I had it to do over, I would do more than what I thought of then.
I think it WAS the blank eyed stare being referred to, if you ask me! I was quite good at it myself.
COG kids have a bit of a quandary if they grow up to teenagers and find themselves disinterested or disagreeing with the group.
Once they voice that opinion, the end result is often that their parents start leaning on them to "improve", not realizing that the kids are already getting tapped on by various individuals in the group as it is. The parents think either they've made a mistake somewhere or the kid's being influenced by somebody, and to some degree (subconscious or conscious) they fear being called out for the kid's behavior - after all, they've probably seen others made examples of and kicked out of the congregation over their kids.
Add the seething-chemical-mixture of any relatively independent-minded teen to the mix and you can easily imagine the pressure cooker that develops upstairs in those circumstances.
Mind you, I saw plenty of teens trot thru WCG, happily doing whatever their parents told them, seemingly seeing absolutely no issue with anything around them, and they grew up to be likewise COG members. I don't know if those kids were just better actors, less emotional or plain stupid.
At 4-6 months old! ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!?
It was largely parenting children within the Armstrongist community that started me on the road to questioning. And don't get me started on "tabula rasa." That is such crap. I even got a UCG minister to admit that the teaching contradicted scripture and sounded like a pet HWA theory when I asked him about it.
