by James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
Dear Friends,
Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Focus on the Family is its interactive and personal nature. What began in 1977 as a ministry based on mass communication (primarily radio) quickly evolved into a complex organization that is highly sensitive to the needs of those who respond to us. We refer often to an imaginary sign that might well hang above the front door, saying, “We Care About Your Family in This Place.” It is true. Every person who writes, calls, emails or faxes us can expect to receive a personalized letter or telephone call representing our best efforts at providing whatever was requested or needed. This is the primary reason there are more than 1,250 people working at our headquarters in Colorado Springs and why our financial resources are always stretched to the limit.
Said another way, we are engaged in two very distinct functions here at Focus on the Family. The first is a high-profile ministry for which we are best known. It involves the production of radio, television, films, books, magazines, audio- and videotape, etc. The second ministry, however, is largely invisible except to those with whom we correspond privately. It is a one-on-one interaction that involves the giving of advice, information, counsel, materials, referrals, prayer support and whatever else might be needed by our friends. We sincerely weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Perhaps your family has been among the recipients of that compassion and assistance.
Focus on the Family, then, is not designed to be a monologue in the tradition of most radio or television teaching ministries. It is a “conversation” between us and millions of families in the 78 countries where we are seen or heard. Reports are prepared for me every few days that contain actual paragraphs from the letters sent to the caring professionals in our Correspondence or Counseling Departments. The purpose is to keep me informed about what people are saying and how the culture is changing. Much of this mail comes from people who are responding to a point I’ve made on the radio or something they’ve read in one of my books.
Let me share one of those letters sent by a teenage girl who wrote in response to a recommendation I made in The New Dare to Discipline. I had mentioned in that book that Shirley and I gave our daughter a small gold key when she turned 13 years of age. It was attached to a chain to be worn around her neck and represented the key to her heart. She made a vow to give that key to one man only—the one who would share her love through the remainder of her life. I suggested that parents might consider giving a similar key or a ring to their sons and daughters in early adolescence. It would then serve as a tangible reminder of the precious gift of abstinence until marriage and then lifelong fidelity to his or her mate.1 I still believe that is a very good idea.
The young lady referred to above, whom I’ll call Karen, had received such a symbolic gift from her parents. She wrote to thank me for suggesting the idea to them. Her letter was very meaningful to me. This is what she said:
Dear Dr. Dobson:
I am writing to share with you a most blessed experience. On my fifteenth birthday my parents gave me a surprise birthday party in which my ring would be presented. When my father put the ring on my finger I stood there looking at unsaved relatives and my peers. Suddenly I realized this was the opportunity I had been waiting for. Saying a quick prayer I said the following: “It is a great honor for me to wear this ring, because it symbolizes the commitment I am making to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future husband and my future children to remain physically and sexually abstinent from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship. I know it won’t be easy, but as long as I keep my eyes on Jesus, things will be easier. Temptations may and will come, but my heart’s prayer is that God will give me the courage and strength to stand my ground. And finally, may I always have the desire to serve, honor and please the Lord today and forevermore.” ... The people’s response was positively incredible. God had used my sincere statement to move even the most hardened of hearts. The purpose of my letter is to encourage you when you are in the valley or maybe even feel like quitting (like we all do sometimes); remember me and this letter; remember that because you have been faithful to the call, God has blessed you by helping you reach millions like me around the world.
Karen
This sweet letter from Karen was encouraging to me and to the staff at Focus on the Family. That’s why it is now included in my newest book, Solid Answers, which is a 575-page resource containing 495 questions and answers dealing with almost every area of family life. Before sitting down to write it, a team of researchers conducted an extensive review of several hundred thousand letters sent to Focus through the years, such as the one written by Karen. From that vast resource, I then selected the issues and situations most commonly raised that I thought families would find helpful and interesting. Solid Answers is the result of that two-year effort, which is finally off the presses and in stock at Focus on the Family.
Since this is the time of year when we especially need the support of our friends, I thought the availability of my new book might encourage some of you to write and hopefully include a contribution to the work of the ministry. Solid Answers might make a good Christmas gift to a loved one or family member. As always, I’ve waived royalties so that Focus could receive maximum benefit from books that are requested from the ministry. That’s about as close as I will get to fund raising, except to say that we definitely need a financial boost here at the end of the year.
To give you the flavor of what I’ve written, I’ve included a few questions and answers from Solid Answers. They are as follows:
Our family physician wants to examine my 13-year-old son without my being in the room. That’s OK with me, but I expect him to tell me what my boy says and what his medical condition is. That’s where we disagree. He says he must keep their conversation confidential. Am I right to expect to be informed and involved?
Teenagers are typically sensitive and modest about their bodies—especially when their parents are around—so I can understand the need for privacy during a physical exam. The larger issue here, however, is the physician’s accountability to you as the mother, and at this point, I agree entirely with the position you have taken. Other parents have expressed similar concerns to me.
I’m reminded of a mother who told me that she took her 14-year-old daughter to their pediatrician for a routine physical exam. She was aware that her daughter was beginning to develop physically and might be sensitive to her being in the examining room with her. She offered to remain in the waiting room, but the girl objected.
“I don’t want to go in there by myself,” she said. “Please come with me.” After arguing with her daughter for a moment, the mother agreed to accompany her to the examining room.
When the exam was over, the doctor turned to the mother and criticized her for intruding. He said in front of the girl, “You know, you really had no business being in the examining room. It is time I related directly to your daughter. You should not even be aware of the care that I give her or the medication I prescribe. Nor should you know the things that are said between us. My care of your daughter should now be a private matter between her and me.” The girl had been going through a period of rebellion, and the mother felt her authority was weakened by the doctor’s comments. It was as though he were saying, “Your day of supervision of your daughter has now passed. She should now make her own decisions.” Fortunately, that mother was unwilling to do as she was told and promptly found a new doctor. Good for her!
I have discussed this conversation with several pediatricians, and they have each agreed with the doctor in this case. They emphasized the importance of a youngster having someone to talk with in private. Perhaps. But I object to the autonomy demanded by the physician. Fourteen-year-old boys and girls are not grown, and their parents are still the best people to care for them and oversee their development. It is appropriate for a physician to have some private moments with a young patient, but he or she should never forget to whom accountability is owed.
Furthermore, if greater authority is to be granted to the doctor, the parent had better find out just what he or she believes about contraceptives for minors, premarital sex, spiritual matters and the like. Be careful whom you choose to trust with the body and the soul of your child. The pace of living is so frantic today that we have become dangerously willing to accept surrogate parenting from a variety of professionals who meander through our lives. Educators, youth ministers, athletic coaches, music instructors, psychologists, counselors and physicians are there to assist parents in raising their kids—but never to replace them.
How do you feel about homework being given by elementary schools? Do you think it is a good idea? If so, how much and how often?
Having written several books on discipline and being on the record as an advocate of reasonable parental authority, my answer may surprise you: I believe homework for young children can be counterproductive if it is not handled very carefully. Little kids are asked to sit for six or more hours a day doing formal classwork. Then many of them take a tiring bus ride home and guess what? They’re placed at a desk and told to do more assignments. For a wiry, active, fun-loving youngster, that is asking too much. Learning for them becomes an enormous bore instead of the exciting panorama that it should be.
I remember a mother coming to see me because her son was struggling in a tough private school. “He has about five hours of homework per night,” she said. “How can I make him want to do it?”
“Are you kidding?” I told his mother. “I wouldn’t do that much homework!” Upon investigation, I found that the elementary school he attended vigorously denied giving him that many assignments. Or rather, they didn’t give the other students that much work. They did expect the slower boys and girls to complete the assignments they didn’t get done in the classroom each day, in addition to the regularly assigned homework. For the plodders like this youngster, that meant up to five hours of work nightly. There was no escape from books throughout their entire day. What a mistake!
Excessive homework during the elementary school years also has the potential of interfering with family life. In our home, we were trying to do many things with the limited time we had together. I wanted our kids to participate in church activities, have some family time, and still be able to kick back and waste an hour or two. Children need opportunities for unstructured play—swinging on the swings and throwing rocks and playing with basketballs. Yet by the time their homework was done, darkness had fallen and dinnertime had arrived. Then baths were taken, and off they went to bed. Something didn’t feel right about that kind of pace. That’s why I negotiated with our children’s teachers, agreeing that they would complete no more than one hour per night of supervised homework. It was enough!
Homework also generates a considerable amount of stress for parents. Their kids either won’t do the assignments or they get tired and whine about them. Tensions build and angry words fly. I’m also convinced that child abuse occurs at that point for some children. When my wife, Shirley, was teaching second grade, one little girl came to school with both eyes black and swollen. She said her father had beaten her because she couldn’t learn her spelling words. That is illegal now, but it was tolerated then. The poor youngster will remember those beatings for a lifetime and will always think of herself as stupid.
Then there are the parents who do the assignments for their kids just to get them over the hump. Have you ever been guilty of doing that? Shame on you! More specifically, have you ever worked for two weeks on a fifth-grade geography project for your 11-year-old—and then learned later that you got a C on it?! That’s the ultimate humiliation.
In short, I believe homework in elementary school should be extremely limited. It is appropriate for learning multiplication tables, spelling words and test review. It is also helpful in training kids to remember assignments, bring books home and complete them as required. But to load them down night after night with monotonous book work is to invite educational burnout.
In junior high classes, perhaps two hours of homework per night should be the maximum. In high school, those students who are preparing for college must handle more work. Even then, however, the load should be reasonable. Education is a vitally important part of our children’s lives, but it is only one part. Balance between these competing objectives is the key word.
Many of our friends have begun home schooling their children with seemingly positive results. My wife and I are also considering this possibility, but aren’t quite sure it’s the thing to do. Our relatives and others have warned that if we teach the children ourselves, they will fail to be properly socialized. I don’t want them to grow up as misfits. Is this a valid concern?
This is the criticism home-schooling parents hear most often from curious (or critical) friends, relatives and neighbors. “Socialization” is a vague, dark cloud hanging over their heads. What if teaching at home somehow isolates the kids and turns them into oddballs? For those who see this issue as the great danger of home education, I would respectfully disagree—for these reasons.
First, to remove a child from the classroom is not necessarily to confine him or her to the house! And once beyond the schoolyard gate, the options are practically unlimited! Home-school support groups are surfacing in community after community across the country. Some are highly organized and offer field trips, teaching co-ops, tutoring services, social activities, and various other assistance and resources. There are home-schooling athletic leagues and orchestras and other activities. Even if you’re operating completely on your own, there are outings to museums and parks, visits to farms, factories, hospitals and seats of local government, days with Dad at the office, trips to Grandma’s house, extracurricular activities like sports and music, church youth groups, service organizations and special-interest clubs. There are friends to be invited over and relatives to visit and parties to attend. The list is limitless. Even a trip with Mom to the market can provide youngsters with invaluable exposure to the lives and daily tasks of real adults in the real world. While they’re there, a multitude of lessons can be learned about math (pricing, fractions, pints vs. gallons, addition, subtraction, etc., reading labels and other academic subjects). And without the structures of schedule and formal curricula, it can all be considered part of the educational process. That’s what I’d call socialization at its best! To accuse home-schoolers of creating strange little people in solitary confinement is nonsense.
The great advantage of home schooling, in fact, is the protection it provides to vulnerable children from the wrong kind of socialization. When children interact in large groups, the strongest and most aggressive kids quickly intimidate the weak and vulnerable. I am absolutely convinced that bad things happen to immature and “different” boys and girls when they are thrown into the highly competitive world of other children. When this occurs in nursery school or in kindergarten, they learn to fear their peers. There stands this knobby-legged little girl who doesn’t have a clue about life or how to cope with things that scare her. It’s sink or swim, kid. Go for it! It is easy to see why such children tend to become more peer dependent because of the jostling they get at too early an age. Research shows that if these tender little boys and girls can be kept at home for a few more years and shielded from the impact of social pressure, they tend to be more confident, more independent and often emerge as leaders three or four years later.2
If acquainting them with ridicule, rejection, physical threats and the rigors of the pecking order is necessary to socialize our children, I’d recommend that we keep them unsocialized for a little longer.
Why don’t you favor letting teachers and administrators pray with their classes and at school functions? That’s the way it was when I was a kid.
I know. My public-school teachers were also my Sunday school teachers, and they spoke often of the Bible and Christian concepts in the classroom. But the world has changed since then. Today, if school officials of every belief system are permitted to write and recite prayers, our children will be exposed to a wide variety of theologies—from New Age nonsense to Islamic rituals. In some cities, especially Los Angeles and other large communities with culturally diverse populations, educators might have to develop a kind of “affirmative-action” plan to assure fairness for everyone. A typical week might include prayers to Gaia, the “mother of the earth,” on Monday; prayers to Sophia, the feminist “goddess of wisdom,” on Tuesday; prayers to Allah on Wednesday; prayers to the “Unknown God of Nature” on Thursday; and prayers to Jehovah, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, on Friday. Some would say this approach is preferable to today’s creeping secularism, but there is another answer.
My vision is for a society that protects religious liberties for people of all faiths. I believe in the concept of pluralism, which acknowledges the widely differing values and beliefs among our citizens. What’s needed is a constitutional amendment protecting the rights of students and other citizens to voice their religious convictions and apply their faith to everyday issues.
It would require an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to protect voluntary school prayer and religious liberty generally. The wording should clearly articulate a principle of government neutrality toward religion and should explicitly restore student religious expression in public school. Accordingly, the proposal would prevent the government from forbidding students to mention Jesus in a classroom discussion, sing a religious song at a school recital, draw a nativity scene in art class, share their faith with other students, wear religious clothing or distribute religious literature. Legal experts on constitutional law have assured me that 80 to 90 percent of religious-liberty court cases could be won if such a measure were to gain passage. As I write, legislation calling for a religious-liberties amendment is being considered in Congress. Perhaps our leaders will soon give the American people an opportunity to vote on this issue.
My wife and I are new Christians, and we now realize that we raised our kids by the wrong principles. They’re grown now, but we continue to worry about the past, and we feel great regret for our failures as parents. Is there anything we can do at this late date?
Let me deal first with the awful guilt you are obviously carrying. There’s hardly a parent alive who does not have some regrets and painful memories of their failures as a mother or a father. Children are infinitely complex, and we can no more be perfect parents than we can be perfect human beings. The pressures of living are often enormous. We get tired and irritated; we are influenced by our physical bodies and our emotions, which sometimes prevent us from saying the right things and being the models we should be. We don’t always handle our children as unemotionally as we wish we had, and it’s very common to look back a year or two later and see how wrong we were in the way we approached a problem.
All of us experience these failures! No one does the job perfectly! That’s why each of us should get alone with God and say:
Lord, You know my inadequacies. You know my weaknesses, not only in parenting, but in every area of my life. I did the best I could, but it wasn’t good enough. As You broke the fishes and the loaves to feed the five thousand, now take my meager effort and use it to bless my family. Make up for the things I did wrong. Satisfy the needs that I have not satisfied. Wrap Your great arms around my children, and draw them close to You. And be there when they stand at the great crossroads between right and wrong. All I can give is my best, and I’ve done that. Therefore, I submit to You my children and myself and the job I did as a parent. The outcome now belongs to You.
I know the Father will honor that prayer, even for parents whose job is finished. The Lord does not want you to suffer from guilt over events you can no longer influence. The past is the past. Let it die, never to be resurrected. Give the situation to God, and let Him have it. I think you’ll be surprised to learn that you’re no longer alone!
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV).
I am a grandmother who is blessed to have 14 grandchildren. I often take care of them and love just having them over. However, I would like to do more for them than just baby-sit. What can I do to really make an impact on their lives?
Above all else, I would hope you would help lead your grandchildren to Jesus Christ. You are in a wonderful position to do that. My grandmother had a profound impact on my spiritual development—even greater in my early years than my father, who was a minister. She talked about the Lord every day and made Him seem like a very dear friend who lived in our house. I will never forget the conversations we had about heaven and how wonderful it would be to live there throughout eternity. That little lady is on the other side today, waiting for the rest of her family to join her in that beautiful city.
You can have that kind of impact on your family too. Grandparents have been given powerful influence on their grandchildren if they will take the time to invest in their lives. There is so much to be accomplished while they are young. Another of the great contributions you can make is to preserve the heritage of your family by describing its history to children and acquainting them with their ancestors.
The lyrics of an African folk song say that when an old person dies, it’s as if a library has burned down. It is true. There’s a richness of history in your memory of earlier days that will be lost if it isn’t passed on to the next generation.
To preserve this heritage, you should tell them true stories of days gone by. Share about your faith, about your early family experiences, about the obstacles you overcame or the failures you suffered. Those recollections bring a family together and give it a sense of identity.
I spoke earlier about my grandmother. There was another wonderful lady in our family, my great-grandmother (Nanny), who helped raise me from babyhood. She was already old when I was born and lived to be nearly one hundred years of age. I loved for her to tell me tales about her early life on the frontier. A favorite story involved mountain lions that would prowl around her log cabin at night and attack the livestock. She could hear them growling and moving past her window as she laid in bed. Nanny’s father would try to shoot the cats or chase them away before they killed a pig or a goat. I sat fascinated as this sweet lady described a world that had long vanished by the time I came onto the scene. Her accounts of plains life helped open me to a love of history, a subject that fascinates me to this day.
The stories of your past, of your childhood, of your courtship with their grandfather, etc., can be treasures to your grandchildren. Unless you share those experiences with them, that part of their history will be gone forever. Take the time to make yesterday come alive for the kids in your family, and by all means, pass your faith along to the next generation.
What do you consider to be the greatest threat to the stability of families today?
It would be a phenomenon that every marriage counselor deals with regularly. The scenario involves a vulnerable woman who depends on her husband to meet her emotional needs and a workaholic man who has little time for family responsibilities. Year after year she reaches for him and finds he’s not there. She nags, complains, cries and attacks him for his failures—to no avail. He is carrying the load of three men in his business or profession and can’t figure out how to keep that enterprise going while providing what his wife needs. As time goes by, she becomes increasingly angry, which drives him even further into his workaday world. He is respected and successful there. And thereafter he is even less accessible to her. Then one day, to her husband’s shock, this woman reaches a breaking point and either leaves him for someone else or files for divorce. It is a decision she may live to regret and one that often devastates her children—although by then the marriage is long gone. It was such a preventable disaster, but one that thousands of other families will be victimized by in coming months.
What has been your greatest challenge as a father? What did you learn from it?
Raising healthy, well-educated, self-disciplined children who love God and their fellow human beings is, I believe, the most challenging responsibility in living. Not even rocket science can approach it for complexity and unpredictability. And of course, the job is even more difficult today when the culture undermines and contradicts everything Christian parents are trying to accomplish at home. Fortunately, we are not asked to do everything perfectly as moms and dads. Our kids usually manage to survive our mistakes and failures and turn out better than we have any right to boast about.
I certainly made my share of mistakes as a father. Like millions of other men of my era, I often had a tough time balancing the pressure of my profession with the needs of my family. Not that I ever became an “absentee father,” but I did struggle at times to be as accessible as I should have been. As it happened, my first book, Dare to Discipline, was published the same week that our second child, Ryan, arrived. A baby always turns a house upside down, but the reaction to my book added to the turmoil. I was a full-time professor at a medical school, and yet I was inundated by thousands of letters and requests of every sort. There was no mechanism to handle this sudden notoriety. I remember flying to New York one Thursday night, doing 17 television shows and press interviews in three days and returning to work on Monday morning. It was nothing short of overwhelming.
My father, who always served as a beacon in dark times, saw what was happening to me and wrote a letter that was to change my life. First he congratulated me on my success, but then he warned that all the success in the world would not compensate if I failed at home. He reminded me that the spiritual welfare of our children was my most important responsibility and that the only way to build their faith was to model it personally and then to stay on my knees in prayer. That couldn’t be done if I invested every resource in my profession. I have never forgotten that profound advice.
It eventually led to my resignation from the university and to the development of a ministry that permitted me to stay at home. I quit accepting speaking requests, started a radio program that required no travel, and refused to do book tours or accept other lengthy responsibilities that would take me away from my family. As I look back on that era today, I am so grateful that I chose to preserve my relationship with my wife and children. The closeness that we enjoy today can be traced to that decision to make time for them when they needed me most. I could easily have made the greatest mistake of my life at that time.
I’m sure many fathers will read this response and find themselves today where I was back then. If you are one of them, I urge you to give priority to your family. Those kids around your feet will be grown and gone before you know it. Don’t let the opportunity of these days slip away from you. No professional accomplishment or success is worth that cost. When you stand where I am today, the relationship with those you love will outweigh every other good thing in your life.
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Thanks for letting me share a few excerpts from my new book this month. I pray that it will be helpful to families through this century and into the next. It’s been 16 years since I published my first question-and-answer book, which eventually resulted in a million copies in print. Frankly, this one is better!
Have a great Thanksgiving season with those you love.
Sincerely,
James C. Dobson, Ph.D.
President