I wrote the book, Professional Parenting – Raising the Hope For America’s Future, Publish America, LLP, 2007, for the purpose of disseminating important information – not just to parents, but also to anyone with the propensity to have an influence on children. That just about covers everybody.

Why do I consider myself an authority on the subject of child rearing? Simply because I have successfully done it and I have carefully researched and analyzed the methods and their results, I believe the term “expert” is applicable from a technical point of view.

The volume of articles I will write to further explore the important subject of child rearing will not be a regurgitation of the book, so I would advise anyone who wishes to continue the exploration of professional parenting with me to acquire and read the book. It will not be time wasted.

America’s Future? You’re Looking At It!

Deborah Venable

01/20/10

This is the “raw” picture I submitted to the publisher to be placed on the book cover of, “Professional Parenting, Raising the Hope for America’s Future.” My husband took the picture back in 1976 soon after the birth of our second daughter, Heather. He was an excellent amateur photographer among his many other talents.

He was also an educator, and as the title of this site implies, education is an absolute imperative to the future of America. Everything we do here is an attempt to encourage individual education. The above picture, I believe, conveys a message of the very beginning of human education.

Notice how my daughter is using every one of her senses to explore her new world. She is reaching out and communicating as she focuses in on her first contact with human life. It is said that babies can sense their mother’s identity through smell long before their eyes and ears can focus as accurately. Having been a mother five times over, I believe this is true.

The human connection that means more than anything else in the world is rightfully between parent and child. To deny that is to deny that the earth is round.

Why then does any government think it is right to supplant parental rights to this connection with government mandated formal education? That is what we have seen happen, and that IS the one true stumbling block to America’s bright future.

We might say that it has happened because most parents have no idea how to educate their children, therefore, the government is the logical substitute. We might also say that education is a “right” and therefore it follows that government should guarantee this right. Then there are those who say that parents don’t want the job anyway and somebody has to do it. None of these things ring true in a spiritual sense, so I must conclude that they are all copouts to explain a much more sinister reason.

Let’s compare the issue of mandated public education with the latest affront to our American individualist sensibilities, shall we? That of mandated healthcare coverage – does that one ring a bell? Proponents of this attempt at government takeover of this very personal issue have said that most people have no interest in providing for themselves, nor could they because of expense, the personal commodity of healthcare. They also say that healthcare is a “right,” don’t they? While this seems to be touching a nerve in the fraying fabric of individualism in America at present, some folks are saying that eventually we will all lie down and let the bus roll over us – just like what happened with mandated public education.

I implore you to read The Yellow Prison Bus and the Future Of American Healthcare – by Voddie Baucham. If you are an individualist instead of a collectivist and this well-reasoned article doesn’t scare you to death, then I guess you think the world is flat.

Education is so important that it cannot and should not continue to be mandated. That which is mandated does not hold nearly as much importance as that which is acquired through choice. I see very little educating toward choice these days. What I do see is an overabundance of educating toward acceptance of collective value. There is no collective value in a system that wipes out individual worth. Individual human worth is something that must be claimed and then defended with every fiber of one’s being. It is the secret to raising good children to teach them that they are important as unique individuals, and that every individual is important in the whole scheme of life. Responsibility for themselves and their individual attention to those around them naturally follows these lessons when they are well learned. This education cannot be mandated in a group classroom of collectivism.

The learning that goes on in such classrooms is directed by a consensus of whatever the group needs to think at the time according to those in charge. That could be anything but individual responsibility or for consideration of the worth of any individual.

Let’s take a look at Geoffrey Botkin’s overview, which succinctly answers the question, why revisionist history is being taught in public schools. This important article gets to the meat of what I am saying here with this quote by Sam Blumenfeld:

“The plain truth is that there has been in this country a deliberate plan to change the nature of American education so that the American people could be easily led into socialism.”

Sam Blumenfeld is a contemporary, an accredited and very credible educator and he has even likened the public school system to a criminal enterprise.

I hope you will read these linked articles and think long and hard about the implications they contain. I have been trying to draw attention and educate parents about these things for a long time now. Until more people take these evident truths seriously and decide once and for all that parenting children, and thus educating them, is the most important thing they will ever do, America’s hope for the future will continue to be in deadly peril.

My husband dedicated his professional life to making a difference in individual lives. Our children are a testiment and a reflection of his success in our personal lives. We still ache from the hole his passing left, but there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel a spiritual direction to continue educating and trying make a difference in the lives of individuals.

I could be doing other things at this point in my life. I have many interests, and boredom has never been a word in my vocabulary. I choose to use my twilight years to continue learning and imparting what I learn through researching and writing these little articles. There are many others who are better at it than I am, but mine is a unique perspective, and with the propensity to connect with an unknown number of individuals, I am glad to have the choice to try to do so.

“Teach your children well” is a recurring theme in the Christian Bible. I think it has been lost on much of modern society. In the secular and progressive attempt to segregate any Christian belief or teaching from the social mainstream, parents have been coerced into believing that they have no rights to discipline or direct their children’s education. The inescapable truth, however, is that they have every right and more importantly the sole responsibility for their children’s education. That they must now wrest it from the contemptuous shackles of government in our beautiful America is a shameful sin of the society that allowed it to happen.

Brett Heather Lacey Shannon Lori

Family Planning

Deborah Venable

12/05/09

These are my children. They are why I decided to pay more attention to just what’s going on, what’s being taught, what’s not being learned, and what they are inheriting from the world I grew up in.

The age difference between the oldest, Shannon, and the youngest, Brett, is 20 years.

Their father and I were excellent family planners. We believed in having children when we wanted them – and we wanted each and every one of them. They are all blessings from God.

We were young when we married, but we knew each other for 2 years before we married, and then waited 2 more years before having the first child. Then we spaced the children in such a way that we did not add a child before our “baby” was walking and talking, and ready for the “formal” learning process. Our babies had undivided attention during those first, formative years. That’s the way we did it, and it worked for us. I would have to say it is the best way, though I know many would disagree.

Career women, who listen to their “biological clock” ticking away sometimes choose to delay starting a family until circumstances are just right, and when they decide they want more than one or two children, they must cram them into an ever diminishing window of time. Then there are the youngsters, who do not necessarily “plan” the start of their families, nor the subsequent additions, but they want childbearing all out of the way before they get “tool old” to enjoy or keep up with their babies. I believe something may get missed with either of these options. You may not notice it until the children are all grown.

Camaraderie amongst siblings – that’s what may be missed. Note I said, “may be missed.” It doesn’t have to be.

My brother and I were very close, and seven years separated our ages. As we grew older, our camaraderie was steeped in the shared experience of our unique childhood. We appreciated many things about our parents and our upbringing that other people our age didn’t even think about. We came to many of the same political conclusions in our adulthood, far and away different from those shared by our parents, simply because of the times we lived in and the changes we saw. We always had great respect for each other in our adult years.

I see the same respect among my own children. They are all very different and unique people, but they enjoy each other’s company, they take care of each other, and they think of each other’s happiness. They are a family molded with great love and devotion.

The optimism with which they approach their lives and their futures, and the contentment they have with who they are – even their dreams for future possibilities mark each and every one of them with uniqueness. They’ve had hard times and good times, victories and losses, and they’ve seen kindness and cruelty, but they are good people and I am very proud of them.

One thing I would not abide in the raising of my children was fighting among themselves. I simply did not allow it. My brother and I had only a few run-ins in our youth, mostly due to my own immaturity and his wish to be shed of me for short periods of time. I see that now. One such incident involved my locking him is a wasp infested, dark storage shed and ignoring his pleas for help. Our mother rightfully punished me, but my own psyche punished me to a far greater degree. I came into adulthood with an enduring claustrophobia, which remains with me to this day. I empathized with his distress to such a degree that I even wrote a college paper on the experience some years later. The truth was, though, that I adored him and wanted only his respect and companionship. We achieved that mutual camaraderie and enjoyed it through our adult life.

I was the sickly one in childhood, and he was the picture of health. He worried a lot about that. I am enveloped in the irony that I have survived him, as he succumbed to one of the worst kinds of multiple cancers over four years ago.

His son now resides with my children – as one of them, loved and respected by them, and every bit a man his father and mother can be proud of. After a long stint in the U.S. Navy he came home to us.

Chris Kay

Home and family is something you have to build carefully, brick by brick, and you have to maintain the foundation of mutual respect. Siblings who are allowed to bicker with each other never know that epitome of mutual respect. Oh, they may love each other, even be willing to die for each other, but it will be out of duty – not respect, that they remain an intact family. The glue of mutual respect is the strongest bond in the world. I emphasize this opinion throughout my book about parenting. Mutual respect is as necessary between parent and child as it is between siblings. Building it is the most important component of family and family planning. That foundation will survive when nothing else can.

The social attitudes surrounding family in the current state of moral crisis is causing more chaos than humanity was ever meant to bear. Accepting and labeling aberrant behavior as normal, defining family simply as a “consenting” group of two or more temporarily cohabitating human beings instead of the rock solid foundation for society that it really is, and placing less than animal importance on the act of procreation has led us to this chaos. Respect for anything akin to family values is virtually dead in such a society.

Progressives would have us believe that change in attitudes toward family values is necessary in order for mankind to evolve in the modern world. Elitist academics have infested our halls of higher learning and the rest of the education system in this country to expound on their ideals of peace and social justice through acceptance of nonsensical theories of equality while they sweep away any adherence to faith and values the country was built upon. Family planning is not in their curriculum, except that which puts young people in touch with their sexuality and bids them to “feel good” about themselves no matter how they act.

I’m shocked and appalled at what passes for family values these days. But then I’m shocked and appalled at the ever-growing government infringement on personal liberties and the worship of man-made laws to fix moral decay. Perhaps it is time to look to those building blocks, which are the foundation of human society, for answers. If mutual respect is the glue that holds families together, it certainly couldn’t hurt to employ it in the rebuilding of our great country, could it? Mutual respect works both ways in government too. Instead of electing people who do not respect individuals to think for themselves, do for themselves, and govern their own lives, let’s look around for those who know that government should always be smaller in power than the individuals it would rule. Those are the kind I could respect, how about you?

So, here’s to my family and the friends we have chosen to enrich our lives. May God continue to bless us all, and may that foundation remain intact forever.

Lori Virginia Venable

The Real Danger Of Indoctrination

Deborah Venable

09/28/09

It is nothing new. The public school system has been using the tool for a very long time unfortunately. I fought against it for the almost thirty years that I had children in the public school system. I find it more than a little amusing that irate parents are coming out of the woodwork now to either blast or defend the video tapes that surfaced recently showing very young school children singing songs worshipping President Obama. That’s right – I said “worshipping” and I meant it.

The reason I find it amusing is that many parents are claiming ignorance of the existence of such blatant indoctrination. Hey, folks, I’ve been there and done that for a very long time now – the whole parenting thing, ya know.

The young lady pictured above is my youngest daughter. She will soon be twenty-four years old. I vividly remember a run-in I had with one of her teachers over the subject of multicultural education. That particular teacher was very dismissive of my views when it came to whose culture was being elevated. She was shocked that I would have a problem with her encouraging her students to “explore their roots” (specifically those roots that originated on foreign shores) to the subjugation of America’s own very real cultural roots. Since my children are one-quarter Lebanese because their grandmother’s family came over from Lebanon early in the last century, this teacher was making a big deal out of students such as Lori with easily linked “foreign” culture heritage. I took exception with her attitude because her charges were elementary school age and very easily influenced to see such heritage as superior to purely American heritage.

Now, this all happened pre-911. Since then, Lori has noticed quite another attitude at times – specifically whenever she boards an airplane. Since she inherited a lot of the beautifully exotic Mid-Eastern looks from her father, she is usually singled out for scrutiny, (believe it or not) at airport security. But that is neither here nor there at this juncture.

Indoctrination can take many forms. The current push seems to be directed toward (here come those “talking point” buzz words) the culture of personality. Hence, the Obama worship. God help any conservative who tries to point out the striking resemblance of those tapes to other well-known examples of youth worship of historical tyrants. We are all seen as hysterical racists instead of historical literates!

This is America, folks. Need I constantly remind too many parents of that fact? We do not worship our political leaders in this country. We do not lift them to regal status, because, if you’ll remember, George Washington wisely declined the designation of king all those years ago, settling instead on president. I’m sure there have been several of his antecessors who would have preferred the royal distinction, but perhaps none more than the current occupant of the office. As a complete aside, if we could “explore his roots” we might find a more recent occurrence of some sort of royal blood, which may account for some of this attitude – who knows?

The indoctrination of American school children has taken on various cloaks over the years, from shedding any allegiance to God, to embracing unproven theories of such subjects as radical environmentalism. Politically correct compliance with social progressivism has marched boldly into America’s classrooms and taken a stand at the podium of overwhelming influence on young minds to such an extent that parents are literally left to wonder if they have any hand in determining the direction their children’s futures will take.

Not satisfied with requiring mandated education begin at younger ages now, progressives have decided that even more time in the classroom is necessary, with some pushing the idea that children need not have a summer vacation from school any more. Indeed as much as a whole month has already been shaved off that vacation over the past few decades, but now the proposal is to keep kids in school year round. It’s that pesky parental influence that public educators would really wish to curtail, if the truth be known. They will tell you it is because the whole summer vacation thing was originally based on the agrarian calendar, and that modern times do not require the help of children in the fields, etc. Excuse me. Who buys that?

Of course too many parents will sign on to it for purely selfish reasons and justify it by taking that bait hook line and sinker. With the continuing attack on the traditional family, more mothers in the workplace and out of the home, summer will be simpler to handle if the kids just stay in school year round. If I sound cynical, prove me wrong! The one thing that children do NOT need is more time under the influence of the mandated public education system.

The real danger of indoctrination in the education system is the sheer amount of power that is relinquished to an inept system that proved a detriment to society a very long time ago. The system is not getting better, nor is it likely to. If you read last month’s installment of these professional parenting articles, then you know that this is true, and you know why.

Heather Lynn Venable with P.J.

The Sleeping Giant

Deborah Venable

09/06/09

If the sleeping giant is indeed awakening from its slumber due to the worsening of stench from the rotting body politic, perhaps this is the time to gently remind everyone how we got to this point. One needs look no further than the education system in this country.

Seven years ago I wrote an article titled, The Case Against Socialism and Public Education. The article starts out thus:

The case against public education was made almost 120 years ago with data over 200 years old at that time. Painstaking research had been compiled that supplied undeniable proof of the damage to our society being caused by mandated public education. Those who tried to bring this material to public attention were maligned and discredited and even persecuted. Think about this: the proof of the total ineffectiveness and even detriment of spending more and more money on public education had been collected, verified, brought to the attention of the government, and subsequently tossed aside as even more public money was coerced from the American people as control of their children was taken from them and placed in the Godless, greedy hands of public educators – almost one hundred and twenty years ago! Download this book and read it.

I recently found that the link to download the book I recommend was dead, so that has been updated and the link is now active. I would highly recommend every parent read the book titled, “Poison Drops In the Federal Senate” by Zach Montgomery, (Third Edition) published in 1886. If possible, download the PDF version of the book because relative tables and graphics are absent from the other versions. You will be given a choice from this source.

The book is written in the tone of that day, which often times was tediously repetitive, but equally meticulous in conveying a greater understanding of the author’s meaning than much of what passes for ambiguous modern knowledge. Since I have always been a lover and collector of old books, I find this delightful, but I must beg for tolerance of less appreciative readers of this style to see this book through with patience and open-mindedness. The rewards are undeniable in greater understanding of the shameful predicament we find ourselves in today.

In just the last seven years, since my article was published, we have seen an ever greater decline in morality, freedom, and parental rights, while staggering proof is presented that mandated public education is doing nothing but promoting it all! We are slip-sliding ever closer to communist totalitarianism as we give up our American heritage of individualist constitutionalism. A greater percentage of Americans are ignorant and governmentally illiterate than ever before, yet mandated public education is worshipped as the god of infinite wisdom and success, while a greater portion of America’s hard-earned wealth is placed on its altar.

I must impress on as many people as possible, parents and non-parents alike, the importance of reading this thoughtful book for an eye-opening understanding of what went wrong in America. If you’d like to know just who this Zachariah Montgomery was, click here for a concise biography of this man, who also was Assistant Attorney General of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. Not only was he a life-long Democrat, but also a transplanted San Francisco Bay Area California statesman.

Excerpt from Poison Drops:

"Communism," as defined by Webster, means "the doctrine of a community of property, or the negation of individual rights in property." Now, if the man who has earned, or otherwise lawfully acquired, property has no individual right thereto as against his neighbors who desire to use it for the education of their children, why may not these same neighbors with equal justice declare that he has no individual right to the same property against those who choose to take it for the feeding and clothing of their children?

Another excerpt:

Indeed, according to our humble way of thinking, there is no kind or degree of communism so utterly revolting as that which, for educational purposes, virtually asserts a community of title, not only to the property, but also to the children of the private citizen. Yet, this, unfortunately, is the communism of America; a communism having for its main trunk an educational system the most ruinously expensive and the most demoralizing that the world ever saw. A communism whose poisonous roots have spread far and wide, and struck deep down into the soil of American literature, American politics, and, we may say, American religion.

Remember, these words were written in the 1880s. Mr. Montgomery died in 1900, so I can only imagine how he would view today’s American communism. If we continue to deny such truths as this man brought forth so long ago, how can we make claim to such a lofty idea as the awakening of a moral, sleeping giant? If we are the “giant” we claim to be, we must know that the heart of the evil monster we must slay beats in America’s education system. This is the monster that will devour us all if we continue to let it!

As I look around at the present day state of the educational system, the continuing clamor of parents demanding that something be done, the choke hold that government has on parental rights, the damnation of our religious roots, and the only proposed solutions to “fix” the system being that of continuing to throw good public money after bad, I have to shake my head in amazement! Much like health care, education is not a right to be demanded of government via public coffers! For those who cannot afford either, these things would be available from charitable sources if government would just step away from the free enterprise production and regulation of both.

Nationalized education has failed, just as surely as nationalized health care would. Until the “giant” fully wakes up to that fact, America’s problems will continue to compound, thus getting much worse at a faster rate than ever before. This is simple logic backed up by self-evident facts, reason, and indisputable data.

Fighting For A Child

Deborah Venable

07/23/09

When you have to go to bat for your child, you are on your own, regardless of policy, government or otherwise, and you certainly do not need chains restricting your every move as you go into battle.

The subject is health care. The slope is slippery. The stakes are high. All the regulations on health care in the world will not insure success in the personal struggle to secure quality medical care when it is needed. Anyone who believes that government or anyone else can fight your personal battles for you better than you can is a total idiot at best and a pitiful shell of a human being at worst.

Restrictions and regulations on health care in this country – the whole industry of health care, which includes insurance companies, have, in my opinion, done a lot more harm than good to the overall quality of health care. The only way one can argue against that statement is to believe that individuals owe more to a collective than they do to their individual needs or wishes. They also must believe that government should “take care” of them. This is an unrealistic and impossible desire, and it shatters the whole concept of individual rights.

Instead of demanding more regulations and restrictions on health care in this country, we should be demanding fewer. No one seems to be saying this as the president and congress seeks to implement a monstrous piece of nationalized health care legislation.

Now for the personal experience – the anecdotal testimony – to support my views stated in these first paragraphs:

When my middle child was fifteen-years-old, she awoke early one morning crying in pain. She was also paralyzed from her waist down. She was fine when she went to bed the night before and had sustained absolutely no injury to cause this. We lived in Livermore, California, an East Bay community of the San Francisco Bay Area.

We reacted by picking her up and carrying her to the car and driving her to the nearest medical facility, an urgent care unit in Livermore. The closest hospital was in Pleasanton, some fifteen miles away, and we were directed by the staff at the urgent care facility to take her to Pleasanton immediately before we even took her out of the car. They knew they could not help her and that time was of the utmost importance.

I have nothing but the greatest admiration for the way these people and the staff at the hospital in Pleasanton handled my daughter’s case. The emergency room at the hospital wasted no time evaluating my daughter and making her as comfortable as possible. The doctor there issued an extremely rare and difficult initial diagnosis and ordered the proper tests to confirm it – all within the space of a couple of hours. He put out an immediate call for a surgeon, one of only a very few who has ever treated the condition and who practiced and resided in the city of Fremont, located about thirty miles away.

I thank God to this day that we happened to live there at that time, and that the medical facility and those doctors were the ones that took care of my daughter. I do not think she would have survived otherwise. She had a condition previously unknown to us called, AVM, (arteriovenus malformation), and suffered a sudden rupture or bleed out from the blood vessels surrounding her spinal chord. A blood clot formed in the spinal column and put pressure on her spinal chord – literally choking it to near death.

Within a few hours, the surgeon had rushed to the hospital, consulted with the emergency room staff, patiently explained her situation to us, and scheduled her for immediate surgery. We were told that without surgery, she would die, with it she still had a fifty-fifty chance of dying, and a very real chance that if she lived, she would be permanently paralyzed. Within six hours of arriving at the hospital, our daughter was on the operating table. The surgery required that her back be opened up into her spinal column where the clot could be removed and the mass of malformed blood vessels be removed while the blood supply to her spinal chord was rerouted. She was in surgery for over five hours.

During this entire time, neither the doctors nor hospital staff was concerned in the least about how her treatment would be paid for. I was not forced to fill out mountains of paperwork or answer any questions about our ability to pay for her care. Only when our daughter’s life had been saved, after the surgery, did we get to the bottom line talks. I’m not sure that would be the case today, but it was then and there.

We had what would be considered very good medical insurance provided by the group plan of my husband’s employer. Our daughter remained at the Pleasanton hospital for a week after her surgery. Her doctor ordered that she be moved to the best rehabilitation hospital in the area, Golden State, in San Ramon. He had said that she would have a long way back to “normal” but gave her a very good prognosis if she received the proper care.

With the insurance in full swing now, the problems began.

I guess the company was already a little miffed because the “visiting” surgeon from Fremont had been called to perform the surgery at Pleasanton. Our daughter could not have been safely moved and there was no surgeon on staff at that hospital qualified to perform that surgery. The surgeon and the rehabilitation hospital he recommended, Golden State, were not on our insurance “list” of choices to choose from for medical care. They did not balk so much at paying the surgeon, but refused to send our daughter to Golden State.

She was moved, instead to UCSJ Medical Center in San Jose. This happened on Friday before the Fourth of July holiday weekend. She was placed in a multi-bed room that had been used for storage of medical equipment and looked more like a storage room than a hospital room. The staff we encountered there were less than sympathetic or caring about our daughter, what she had been through, or what she would still have to endure. It was a “teaching hospital” and her privacy was not valued or even considered. Her recovery was immediately set back for weeks at least, due to her levels of stress and unhappiness at her situation. She was in constant pain and for the most part still a paraplegic.

If the term, “mama bear” means anything at all to you, it will describe my feelings at the time. Time to “go to bat” for our child. My husband was every bit as livid as was I, and was in constant contact with his employer’s insurance representatives and top management of both employer and insurance company. We brought pressure to bear on the hospital staff to leave our daughter in peace until we could get her removed from that facility, but it fell on deaf ears. The move could not happen until after the weekend, because the insurance offices were offline, so to speak. So we spent every available moment there with her. This meant a difficult commute from our home about fifty miles away, and it meant putting everything else on hold.

Her “care” in that facility was almost non-existent. They did nothing for her except force her to endure repeated examinations by student staff – both physical AND psychological! They said she would need extensive psychological therapy because she was “pulling away” from the reality of her condition. Meanwhile, the daily physical therapy begun at Pleasanton was brought to a screeching halt at UCSJ. They would not even get her out of bed. We did that for her ourselves so that she could escape the gloom of her surroundings in the “storage room” and get outside in the sunshine. When we were not there, she did not even get the mildest of pain medication or any caring word or smile. Before that awful weekend was over, she had a roommate – an elderly woman with a large family that crowded the room and blared the television. To say that she was miserable and getting worse is a gross understatement.

I know that if you have never had to face a problem like this, it would be easier to dismiss the excruciating agony we went through, first by nearly losing our daughter, and then having to watch while her recovery was arrested and her health put in grave jeopardy because we were trying to work within the health care and insurance system. If we had continued to be hamstrung by the system, our daughter may never have recovered.

We promised our daughter that she would be out of that place the day after the holiday – as soon as we were no longer dealing with the skeleton crews at the hospitals and the empty offices of administration everywhere. We would have taken her home immediately if it would not have jeopardized her life that soon after such a major surgery. After a full agonizing day, and a demand that our directions and those of her doctor be followed to the letter, an ambulance was dispatched to take her to Golden State Rehabilitation Hospital. We checked her in about 10:30 that night.

The difference was immediate. Our psychologically “bruised” child responded instantly to the warm, caring staff and the beautiful surroundings. Her private room was spacious and fully wheelchair accessible. Her physical therapy began at once, and psychological therapy was deemed unnecessary.

Our insurance company fought us tooth and nail about paying for some of her care, but ended up paying for the greatest bulk of it anyway – about a half million dollars before it was all said and done. That is what medical insurance is supposed to be all about. If you enroll in the program and pay the premiums, it is supposed to prevent catastrophic financial loss if the need for such medical care arises. It cannot and is not supposed to insure that you will always be healthy, therefore, “health care insurance” is a misnomer.

You cannot let a faceless entity, like the administrations of healthcare facilities or insurance companies determine what is best for you or your child if you are a parent. You must hire doctors you trust to help you make decisions of life and death and recovery based on the individual case – not some set of rules and regulations. The only thing wrong with the health care system in this country is that people and these entities have abused it in so many ways. The result is that too many people think of the system as “broken” and in need of reforming.

People’s attitudes are what need reforming! Demands for what never was or can never be – health security – are ridiculous and unnecessary. I am ashamed of the attitudes of people who would make such demands.

My point is this: some of the very best medical care is available to everyone in this country. Sometimes you have to look for it, and sometimes you have to go to battle to obtain it. We were willing to suffer extreme financial devastation to save our daughter if that had been required, but it wasn’t. We had purchased a product – medical insurance – that was supposed to prevent that, and we did what was necessary to see that it did.

Our daughter was in recovery for the better part of a year. She came home in a wheelchair after weeks at Golden State, and was walking with a cane and a brace soon afterward. She missed an entire year of high school, during which we enrolled her in the California Home School program. She returned to graduate with her class the next year – healthy and fully recovered. She is currently 27 years old and has only been to a doctor once since then, for a case of strep throat several years later. She paid for that visit in cash

What’s In A Birthday?

Deborah Venable

06/27/09

Today is the anniversary of the birth of my oldest child. Her birthday is replete with memories for me because I became a parent for the first time while her father was in route from an overseas eight month deployment in the U.S. Navy. He left immediately after she was conceived – first stop, Vietnam.

In those days, they did not hurry new mothers out the door of the hospital as soon as possible like they do now, especially not when there had been complications at birth. My daughter was fighting for her life after having been resuscitated from a stillborn birth. I was fighting for my sanity at not being able to hold her or even see her, except through the glass of the neonatal nursery, only when I was able to walk there on my own the next day. Things were a lot different back then – especially in a military hospital.

Throughout all that frightening day I was in a fog of emotions and I felt the new weight of responsibility – parenthood. I was pretty much on my own with that feeling because the Red Cross would not notify my husband since they could not tell him that we were both fine. That, I was told, was SOP back then whenever sailors were in the middle of the ocean.

I was discharged from the hospital four full days after she was born, but I could not take her home with me. I still had not held her or even touched her, and I could not make the long drive to the hospital to even see her. My daily calls to the hospital were met with negative news until a week after she was born when the second miracle happened. (The first had been her resuscitation in the delivery room.) The long awaited positive answer came when they said, “she will be fine.” They had detached her from life support and were discharging her.

Since she had arrived ahead of schedule, and I had spent almost everything I had to set up a new home in the ship’s homeport for us, I could not even afford a bed for her. I brought her home to a large dresser drawer as a bassinet, but I had made sure that I would be able to nurse her, and my mother had carefully washed and ironed an entire layette of hand-me-downs that friends had contributed. I cannot express the sheer joy of holding my baby and taking care of her for the first time. It was pure magic!

My husband arrived in homeport just days before my daughter’s actual due date, and I met the ship at the pier with her in my arms. I will never forget the look on his face as I saw him seconds before he had picked us out of the crowd. He had his buddies helping him look for a very pregnant wife because he still did not know she was born.

The first thing we did that day was go shopping for a “proper bed” for our daughter.

We had four more children during the twenty years after that, and my husband was present for all their births. Each birthday was miraculous and each one was magical, but the birthday of Shannon Elizabeth, June 27, 1970 was the birthday of this Professional Parent and the beginning of my greatest achievement.

Birthdays are a big deal. They deserve celebration for the continuing miracle of life, which they represent. That is in our culture and our American heritage. We celebrate life.

If you’ve done the math, you will realize that my daughter came home from the hospital on July 4, 1970 – a full week after her birth, and less than two hundred years after the celebrated birth of our country.

We celebrate both events in our family.

Happy birthday, Shannon! You are a shining example of the best promise God ever gave a mother!

This is a picture of Shannon with her father, shortly after her third birthday. I took it from the crown of the Statue Of Liberty with the newly completed Twin Towers in the background.

What’s in a birthday? For one thing, an awful lot of history, and a big reason to celebrate each and every stage of life. Children truly are the Hope For America’s Future, and it is a parent’s job to make sure that they are full with it.

Parenting Sense

Deborah Venable

05/15/09

Common sense has been removed from the accepted parenting method model. There can be no other explanation for some of the goofy stuff that make up headlines on the subject of parenting problems in today’s America. Here’s just a few:

Psychiatric Problems Of Fathers May Be As Important As Those Of Mothers In Child Outcomes

Wow! This is groundbreaking news, folks! Let’s DO pay a little attention to the carriers of that Y chromosome, shall we?

New Moms Find Both Support and Anxiety As A Group

Where’s that Mommy Club? If you are all about “fitting in” then you’d better join now!

Children Bullied At School At High Risk Of Developing Psychotic Symptoms

How about those “bullied” by participating in these stupid studies?

I shouldn’t be at all surprised in a world that has decided traditional families should be marginalized to the point of extinction. With an educational system that has decided man rules- God drools, common sense does not meet the criteria for common values any more.

In the book, I spend some time discussing the different roles of Mothers and Fathers in successful parenting because, traditionally, they ARE very different. Common sense should tell us that, but modern society has unraveled so that too many people refuse to believe the truth. Also, society must keep a watchful eye on the phenomena of “expected” psychiatric problems brought about by becoming a parent. Good grief, we’d better all take our couches with us everywhere we go – ready at a moment’s notice to be psychoanalyzed!

In the first place, common sense would tell us, (if it was still being employed) that if we want “normal” child outcomes, we should not look for abnormalities in every parent. Rather, we should expect parents to be “normal” or the closest proximity to it. One way of doing this is to refrain from plugging in a psychiatric diagnosis to parental behavior.

Segueing into the “group” theory of parental support, common sense, (that unemployed outcast again) has been tossed in the same trash heap as individualism as we seek to understand the “anxieties” of group dynamics associated with parenting. Since when do parents have to be categorized to “fit in” with other parents? No wonder kids have a harder time fitting in these days! As an individualist, I would naturally see this as a big problem that gets little press, but unless more people of childbearing age begin to agree with me, reproduction of the species may as well be confined to the lab!

Now, on to understanding the “bully complex” we find that psychotic symptoms are likely to be more prevalent in the bullied than the bully . . . huh? Oh yeah, I recently saw a television drama that carried that theory forward in the form of a young man who took a gun to school and went after his tormentors specifically. The author of this particular drama saw fit to end the whole thing with the needless death of the bullied young man via well-placed bullets from one of the bullies’ father. Makes me wonder if any of these folks were among those participating in the studies on bullying.

From the article:

“Parents have completed regular postal questionnaires about all aspects of their child’s health and development since birth (Apr 1991- Dec 1992).

Since the children were 7 and a half they have attended annual assessment clinics where they took part in a range of face-to-face interviews, psychological and physical tests.”

Not something I would want to go through as a parent OR, more importantly, put my child through – but, hey, that’s just me.

If common sense has really been buried in the accepted substitute for parenting these days, perhaps the headstone should appropriately read: Here Lies Humanity – R.I.P. in a Godless Land.

Rights Or Leftovers?

Deborah Venable

03/19/09

The vulnerability of parenthood is showing as liberal courts dictate more and more decisions out of the hands of caring, concerned parents. Morality isn’t governing these decisions. Neither are traditional values. The philosophy of collectivism is. Individual rights and responsibilities cannot survive if collectivism is to flourish.

Good parenting requires the maintenance of liberty through individual rights and responsibilities and it requires that parents embrace and demand individualism. We do not have children for the purpose of donating them to the collective state to do with what it will as it grooms them to accept the slavery of collectivism. So many of our current social ills can be laid at the doorstep of bad parenting and coercive state policies that interfere in good parents trying to do their job.

The surge in home schooling and its proven favorable results cannot be overstated as the continuing decline of education in this country is bemoaned throughout both the right and the left. Make no mistake, though, home schooling is in the crosshairs of liberal thought, for the vast majority of home schooling parents are individualists.

While public schools have become more dangerous places for children, physically, mentally, and emotionally, parents must risk their individual rights just to keep their children out of them and in a safe, home environment. Something is very wrong with this reality. All the collectivists want to do is throw more money into the schools and make it harder for individual states and communities to control these educational environments.

The caveat, the bribe, the seducer is the almighty dollar.

The idea that parents need government permission to educate their own children is worse than absurd in a free society. Children being raised in a happy, moral, traditional family setting are members of an endangered species these days. While the left tries to do everything in its power to wrench traditional and religious values away from families, our individual rights are demonized, via the government school system, as selfish and insensitive to the global community.

From global warming/climate change – call it what you will, to the homosexual agenda and political correctness that gets preached in public schools and the institutes of higher learning, parents are told that these subjects are necessary to complete the well-rounded education of their children. How you feel about that doesn’t matter to the moral relativists that make up the philosophical left in this country.

If YOUR ideas of a well-rounded education include moral rules, especially those dictated by Judeo-Christian values, those are shunned and prohibited in today’s educational system. I ask you, what is well-rounded about that?

What do you think harms a child’s psyche more - being told that promiscuous sex, abortion, and homosexuality is wrong, or that the child’s very existence on the planet is harmful to the environment? What do you think makes them stronger – learning to defend themselves and others against evil, or learning to accept evil as normal?

What do you think is more important for you as a parent – to demand your individual rights, or accept leftovers from obvious socialism?

Suffer Little Children

Deborah Venable

11/26/08

The responsibility of parenting is the single most important responsibility that anyone can ever undertake. That is my belief and I do not state it lightly. It is an individual responsibility that carries over into every other facet of life. From the family of one’s origin, to the family one builds and the community he joins or associates with, the importance of good parenting cannot be understated.

Teaching responsibility is perhaps the most debated subject among parents and experts alike. The lessons should begin at the moment of cognizance, but some would put them off until much later – too late, in fact. The first lesson is a simple one and oh so important for the rest of a person’s life. Each individual is responsible for his or her own happiness. That is the lesson, but how do you teach it in an environment that often does not accept the fact?

Self-discipline can actually breed happiness and contentment with one’s self. The knowledge that you can somewhat control how you feel about yourself and those around you is empowering to say the least. But does this lesson get taught when childhood misbehavior too often goes undisciplined? Or, what’s even worse, when expectations for good behavior are absent in the eyes of parents and society alike, the lesson of irresponsibility becomes the replacement.

Let’s face it once and for all – raising children with moral responsibility requires a moral compass rooted in natural law and inspired by faith. Faith is, after all, the wellspring of happiness. Religious faith is taking a beating in our evolving socialist society, however. Parents who try to teach lessons rooted in their faith are overruled by society that is hell bent on marginalizing the “religious right” and enabling secularism whenever it can.

People of faith are constantly asked to compromise their beliefs to feed the socialist beast, but there can be no compromise. Tolerance exists on only one side of this debate, and tolerance does not mean complete capitulation. Parents must stand firm in their beliefs and fight for the very heart, soul, and happiness of their children.

I would simply remind those of Christian faith especially that they do have a responsibility to see that their children are not “shielded” from learning from the teachings of their own faith:

But Jesus said, “Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come onto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”

- Matthew 19:14

Conceiving a child should never be viewed as a “punishment” but that idea has taken root in our society and has continued to blossom into the poisonous mentality that overrules reason and debases humanity. We could be on the brink of destruction if this deranged punishment theory is exploited for the purpose of stripping the last attempts to protect innocent babies from the brutal judgment of selfish immorality.

Aren’t fifty million plus legal mutilations and murders in thirty-five years enough?

Scientists who would seek to build the more perfect human through the slaughter of innocents should beware of a soulless society that may one day demand a price too high. Parents, the future is truly up to you.

Quick Fix Parenting

Deborah Venable

09/29/08

Some folks approach a parenting manual from the desperate position of needing a quick fix for their problem child or children. They have identified behavior in their child that is undesirable and believe that someone else may be more qualified to “straighten out” their child than they are. This is truly sad and troubling – especially since there are those who seem to think they have all the answers and can readily supply parents with these quick fixes.

Like anything else worthwhile, successful parenting requires time and patience. The quick fix of “quality time” will not replace the tireless hours of quantity time that parents should spend with their children as a matter of course. Parents and children learn to depend on each other, trust each other, and genuinely enjoy each other’s company without the hype of special circumstance that surrounds the quality time concept. Making appointments to put children first is not more desirable than evolving to that conclusion early on in parenting.

Love is undoubtedly the main component in a happy, stable family, and the loving feelings of parent for child and child for parent should come quite naturally. Whenever there are problems in the relationship, we seldom hear that love is an absent ingredient. The troubled parent may say something like, “I love my child with all my heart and I’m sure he/she loves me, but we just can’t seem to communicate.” Believe me - there is no quick fix for that because love is spelled, TIME in any relationship, but especially in this one.

I’m not about to pretend that I have read every book on parenting ever written, but I have read enough of them to know that I do not agree with much of what most have to say. I’m always suspicious of the “if you do this, then this will be the result” approach to parenting. It was only when parenting became a science instead of a natural instinct handed down through culture that the job became too hard for some and resulted in failure far too often. I think it is safe to say that most well known “authorities” on parenting turn out to be doctors or teachers at least. This probably explains the “science” of parenting techniques that is so abundant these days.

If there is one thing that children need more than anything else it is a consistency and normalcy from their parents. Oddly enough, this turns out to be the very thing that parents also need from their children. In other words, if we can count on “knowing” our children and having them also know us, half the job of successful parenting has been accomplished. If you do not or cannot spend the unhurried time for your family, then your brand of love will not insure that all-important successful outcome.

Navigating the Maze

Deborah Venable

09/10/08

Setting up a successful parent/child relationship requires that parents learn a new language – the language of parent/child communication. It is a difficult and unique language to master – unique for each and every child and parent. It is all at once a tactile, auditory, and visual language bolstered by acute awareness of taste and smell as well. It takes all the senses you have, along with a healthy dose of common sense, to serve as a dependable guide through that maze of childhood. (If you are unfortunate enough to be missing a sense or two, you can, of course, still be a great parent the same way you are a great person – by utilizing the senses you have to their fullest potential.)

Here’s the deal – communication is a two-way street and as stated before, a multi-sensory undertaking. If parents make the mistake of thinking that their outgoing line of verbal communication is more important than any of the others in navigating the maze of successful parenting, they will eventually hit a brick wall before the child makes it through. Long before a child can speak, he is feeling, watching, listening, tasting, smelling, and voicing his opinion. Many of the pathways that will eventually make up a child’s intelligence and behavior patterns are already formed before he masters the auditory language and his very life may depend on the perceptions he forms before he ever says “Mama or Dada.”

If humans could remain as in-tuned to the world around them as they are in the beginning of their lives, humanity could prosper far beyond anything we can imagine in social communication today. The reason they usually don’t is a combination of neglect and selective sensory overload that literally can shut down the lines of communication for both parent and child. Modern parents have been told that they must keep a child occupied, introduce every imaginable stimulant for his eyes and ears and fingers, and force an artificial social environment on him at an ever-earlier age in order for him to reach his full potential. Academia almost totally overlooks the necessity for a child to learn to occupy himself in a quiet but happy environment.

Childhood imagination is a wonderful thing in its ability to transport a child along any scenario to any situation he chooses, but too many child experts seem to think that imaginary “friends” are the first sign of a problem reality for a child. An imaginary friend is the only true friend a very young child can have, because it is the only relationship that allows flawless communication. He is, in essence, getting in-tuned to himself before he projects a personality to the rest of the world. He is deciding whether he will project happiness, sadness, anger, fright, or defiance to his real world. In this decision, he will ultimately reflect what he learns from early parental communication.

When a child begins to speak he will immediately know whether he is being received with interest. An old adage goes something like this: Parents spend the first year or so of a child’s life teaching him to walk and talk, and the rest of his childhood telling him to sit down and shut up. Isn’t that the truth though? But here is the kicker – children set the stage for communications with their parents. They call all the shots in the beginning. They will come to you at the most inopportune times and babble a mile a minute about subjects that you may not see the importance in, but if you send them away or fail to listen intently and respond intelligently, you are communicating negatively. If this pattern is set in the beginning, don’t count on “being there” for them when you expect them to come to you with their “real” problems. They certainly won’t count on it either.

Many a parent has felt powerless to help a child through the maze because of this unconsciously constructed brick wall.

Guiding Through the Maze

Deborah Venable

08/26/08

If you have decided to go against the grain of some of the accepted thought on child rearing, you have responded and not ignored your crying baby. You are there. He is still crying. Now, what do you do?

You provide the resistance to his crying by looking for that one magic thing that will stop it. If it isn’t your mere presence or attending to any noticeable physical needs, i.e. hunger, thirst, dry diaper, his need may still be physical. Upset stomach perhaps. More often than not, his need is emotional – fear, anger, or general unhappiness. Of one thing you can be absolutely certain. The need is driven by selfishness. You cannot, therefore, match that selfishness with any feelings or actions of your own selfishness. This is a hard thing for some parents to accept. That is why I say, the path of least resistance is to allow the baby to cry until he stops on his own or cries himself to sleep. You can find this advice everywhere and rationalize the use of it.

I could go into a litany of anecdotal evidence of the many techniques I used throughout my many years of parenting my own children to find “the magic” but it is much more important that parents find their own magic. It’s there if you look for it.

The next big stumbling block to parenting is dealing with that thing the experts call, “separation syndrome” – the indignant reaction of a child being left – anywhere – by his parent. Justified separation of parents from the presence of their children abounds in the normal setting, but none of it is justified or normal to a child. Period. Parents who refuse to accept this will be lead on a guiltless path of least resistance. They will walk away time after time from their crying child.

For those times that separation absolutely cannot be helped, when the child cannot accompany the parent for good reason, the separation should not be accented. In other words, the child should not witness the actual separation. The selected caretaker in your absence should be a more than willing accomplice in occupying the child while you slip away unnoticed. Remember, a young child’s needs are totally selfish. If he is getting positive attention, that is really all he cares about. When your absence is noticed later, the caretaker’s job of occupying him will be easier if your leaving was not witnessed. You have supplied resistance to his selfish nature in the most harmless way possible.

The fewer instances the child has to deal with this separation syndrome at an early age, the better – no doubt. Parents cannot justify letting others raise their child on a regular basis and have any hope of positive influence over that child’s formative years. The experts certainly do not always agree with that one, but common sense will bear it out as the child turns his back on you at a time when your influence is desperately needed later in his life.

The Path Of Least Resistance

Deborah Venable

07/09/08

Exploring the subject of parenting in modern times can be hazardous to one’s health. If taken seriously, the job of being a good parent can overwhelm anyone with doubt and worry, but those are feelings that must not rule the heart or order the mind when dealing with our children. We must exude more happiness than sadness, more hope than despair, and certainly more confidence than fear if we are to make a lasting impression on the young lives in our charge.

The same thing can be said of any profession one hopes to succeed in, but all too often parents can forget that parenting is indeed a profession. Anything else you engage in after having assumed the role of parent is secondary. Oddly enough, that is another point that many modern parents refuse to take seriously.

In doing much of the research for Professional Parenting, Raising the Hope For America’s Future, I found that academic thought on the subject tends to lead parents down the path of least resistance when dealing directly with their children. Parenting is too often thought of as conducting an artificial power toward a willing reciprocal instead of guiding an entity of resistance through a maze of obstacles. The latter is the true nature of the job.

If parents wake up one day to problems with a previously “good” kid, (oddly enough about the time that kid reaches puberty), they should consider the possibility that their parenting techniques have been following the path of least resistance. By the time a child reaches the age of puberty he should have all the tools he needs to find his own way out of the maze – tools supplied by his dedicated guides who met his every resistance head-on. Those last few years of dependent childhood should be a joy for parents – a time to watch the flower bloom and the roots take hold in the solid ground you have provided.

Let’s take a look at one of those flowers that fail to bloom. Rewind to the beginning. Taking care of a newborn is an awesome responsibility because he is totally dependent. He is also born totally selfish. At first, his selfishness is satisfied by all the immediate attention he receives from his adoring parents. It doesn’t take long, though, before the new wears off for the parents and the perceived drudgery begins. Academic thought kicks in and parents can begin to rationalize a setting aside of the child’s center of attention status as an attempt to prevent “spoiling” of that “sweet natured” baby.

Number one: the baby is not sweet natured! That is something he must learn from his parents and he starts taking notes from the very beginning!

Number two: the right kind of attention never spoiled a child. Ignoring that child will definitely spoil him.

So, one of the very first decisions that parents must make is whether to follow the path of least resistance when a baby cries out for attention. Academics will more often than not advise that babies should be allowed to cry themselves to sleep and that parents should not feel guilty about walking away from a crying child. If you follow that path, just be prepared for the possibility of a “wake up” later in that child’s life. You may find that the child has learned not to confide in you or expect you to be there if he needs you. He will have replaced you with something or someone else that could be at the root of his “problems”.

Book Review For Nightmare

Deborah Venable

06/08/08

The Nightmare That Is Public Education is the indictment brought by the most credible of accusers – Dr. Renato C. Nicolai, ED.D, in his new book by the same name. Subtitled, An Expose of What Really Happens In Public Education, (publisher iUniverse, Inc.) the book is an in-depth study of the system, as it exists, with suggestions of how it should exist all along the way.

Dr. Nicolai brings the unquestionable credibility of 38 years experience working from inside the public education system as both a teacher and a principal – not to mention various positions throughout the system as counselor, advisor, negotiator, and teacher training expert. His analysis of what makes a good teacher is spot on if you know anything at all about the profession or care anything at all about the education of children.

While I do not know Dr. Nicolai personally, I have known examples of every teacher he describes, and I was married for over thirty-seven years to an example he calls, “Excellent” so reading this text did not introduce me to “new ground” or unimagined revelations.

His mastery of the English language shines as he relates his personal observations and opinions about the reality of our public education system, but this is not an easy text to read. Dr. Nicolai moves seamlessly between anecdotal language and “educationese,” professional terminology for the language of educators, to an extent that probably he doesn’t even recognize. He is by no means condescending to his audience, but I am sure that many might well perceive him in that fashion. (This can be considered my own personal indictment of “many” readers who might pick up this book with the intention of being somewhat entertained or sophomorically informed.)

This book has been needed for decades. That is the bottom line. Going into any of the specifics of the information contained in it here in this review could not prove that statement to a greater extent than this: the importance of enthusiasm in teaching, the necessity of competition throughout any system of learning, and the absolute dedication to seeking and living the truth for students and educators alike are the seeds painstakingly planted by the author.

Every parent, teacher, and citizen concerned for the future of America’s generations should take the simple initiative of reading The Nightmare That Is Public Education. Thank you, Dr. Nicolai for writing it!

I recently read and reviewed this book at the author’s request. I decided to place the review here and archive it with my Professional Parenting articles, since it fits well within the parameters of this feature. Please feel free to visit Dr. Nicolai’s website and read some excerpts from his book there. While you are at it, say a prayer for his son, Matthew, an Infantryman in the U.S. Army, who is awaiting almost certain deployment to a hostile zone. Dr. Nicolai also maintains another website here where he offers a valuable service.

Setting Up Normal

Deborah Venable

05/10/08

I spend a lot of time trying to convince parents of small children just how important it is to maintain consistency in the home environment they create for their children. Lord knows these days that can be a tall order contrasted to the upheaval we see around us in society. But the important thing to remember is that whatever you set up as “normal” will be grounding for children – the constant that they will use to compare to the world around them.

How many times have we heard interviews with people who have survived some crisis in their lives, or even criminals who have gone on to commit atrocities themselves reflect on their childhood experiences and make a reference to those experiences being what they considered normal? Specifically in cases of long-running child abuse, we find that the abused end up being abusers in adult life in so many cases. Of course there are exceptions, but the “normal” response to parenting is to draw upon your own experiences as a child. These experiences may affect your parenting positively or negatively depending on what you have worked out as right or wrong – and depending on what you perceive to be normal.

The very salvation of future generations depends on the parenting of each generation. It is as simple as that. A mistake in “setting up normal” for the majority of only one generation can have a devastating effect on the future “health” of a society. I believe that we are on the brink of that majority mistake.

Too many parents have given their children over to a public education system that has continually lowered the bar for “normal” and is insisting on being the main influence in the lives of children. Normal for these children will reflect the collective thought of government mandate – not the individual value influenced by moral decency and the cherished traditions of strong family building.

We have two choices where the deplorable public education system is concerned. We can either change it or abandon it. I’ve been waiting for evidence of positive changes for decades now, and have witnessed only negative ones. I abandoned it for the completion of my youngest two children’s education via home schooling and have never regretted that choice.

The normal education of children must begin with loving parents who promote real family values. As clichéd as that sounds, it is at the heart of our national decency and our unequaled success. Setting up normal for families in these trying times requires a strong moral character that knows what is right and is not afraid to make that crystal clear to children.

For example, it is not normal for children to perceive sex as a recreational right, but adults have continually modeled that behavior to the extent that we have children selling themselves short and putting their lives and futures in jeopardy to follow the example of indecency. The recent spate of children sending and posting to the internet pictures of themselves immersed in sexual innuendo is anything but comforting. Where are the parents telling their children that this is wrong – not normal behavior?

Silent Protest

Deborah Venable

04/05/08

April is a gold star month for socialist educators’ agenda.

It devotes a full week, (National Environmental Education week – April 13-19 this year) to the theme of “Carbon Footprints” – that ridiculous idea that a third party transfer of guilt can be purchased and stave off man’s disastrous effect on planet Earth. This study in carbon footprints includes a whole “new math” instruction complete with “calculators” that measure personal carbon consumption and output. Never mind that real math and science courses have produced less than admirable results in public education for decades now, children are being taught the questionable science of global warming, (recently renamed “man-made climate change”) and the fantasy math of carbon footprint calculations.

Next on docket for priorities in socialist education is the controversial “Day Of Silence” – (April 25^th) now being promoted in schools all over the country to bring attention to the “bullying” and “harassment” of homosexuals that goes on in schools. That’s the stated purpose anyway. The desired effect is simply to normalize the homosexual lifestyle and teach it as gospel through the fun use of silence. They really don’t mind the bullying of Christian thought on the subject though. Of that you can be sure.

These two events are so deceptive at their core. I have absolutely no problem with teaching children to be kind and considerate to everyone around them when they are in school. I have no problem with punishment for those who are not – but to insist that children be taught to accept the homosexual lifestyle as normal, (and that IS the agenda) is morally repulsive to me. Likewise teaching questionable scientific theory as fact and forcing a sense of guilt about the human race’s impact on earth is also morally repugnant to me.

Should parents be concerned about these events taking place in their children’s classrooms? I think so, because the liberal agenda will attempt to bulldoze any parental priorities on the handling of these subjects. They are not harmless subjects to a free-thinking, capitalist society. And the specifics of both subjects should be hands-off to educators because they are not supposed to teach children what to think – they are supposed to teach them simply how to think. All points of view must be applied to accomplish that, and you can rest assured that will not happen.

That schools would even attempt lessons in these subjects punctuates the educational system’s attitudes towards parents. They loathe parental influence that refutes the socialist message. Better that children learn these lessons from parents – even if they embrace the socialist message – than from a public system that presents only it.

Make no mistake, if the socialists are wrong on either or both of these subjects, as I most certainly believe they are, the negative effects on future generations will be unfathomable. If they are right, our government as it was originally conceived could do nothing to stop global warming or negative attitudes on open homosexuality. Not without becoming a much worse tyranny than any nation before it.

A healthy respect for the environment and human understanding of sexuality are subjects that must be trusted to responsible parents – not misconstrued by standardized collective thinking.

In “silent” protest, I will leave you with these two thoughts:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.”

Charles De Gaulle

Raised In A Barn

Deborah Venable

03/16/08

Impeccable manners would seem to indicate to the world that a child had received excellent parenting, and accepting that premise, the opposite, (bad manners), would be just a strong an indicator. Manners training, after all, involves fine tuning social graces that will always help more than hinder a person’s interaction with the rest of society.

My mother had a favorite saying when admonishing my brother or me for the occasional slip in our normally good manners. She would say, “Were you raised in a barn?”

Since rudeness is the natural human condition, raising well-mannered children requires a conscious effort on the part of parents to alter nature. (I get raised eyebrows on this one all the time, but the truth of it is undeniable none-the-less.) One point I make in the book is that babies are born totally selfish because that is built in to the survival instinct. My mother’s admonishment makes sense because it equates a rude, selfish person to an animal without “proper” upbringing. Teaching a child to consider the feelings of others is perhaps the hardest lesson to teach and to learn. Bucking nature is always tough.

If you have a tendency to be a selfish person, then parenting will be the hardest job you will ever undertake, and your chance for success is greatly reduced. A child learns much more from watching your interactions with him and others than he will ever learn from what you tell him.

The tricky part in removing the natural selfish tendencies from the human instinct of survival is to do so leaving the rest of that survival instinct intact. Unselfishly dealing with others and using good manners must not leave a child vulnerable to harm. The wonder of humanity is that ability for humans to grow a conscience and still maintain emotional and physical stability. I believe that the driving force in the goodness of humanity can only be explained by an inherent spiritual influence. Animals can also be trained to have good manners, but children are by far the greatest challenge.

Humans are much more apt to get through childhood free of most rude behavior if they think of it as their idea to act unselfishly most of the time. Good manners, the “please”, “thank you”, “yes sir” and “no ma’am” is learned by rote and good habit, but the sensitivity to the feelings of others part is most successfully learned by example. The first “feelings” a child can identify are naturally his own, therefore the way a parent attends to those feelings can make or break the rest of manners training forever. The hard part is teaching the child how to identify his effect on the feelings of others. That is why I believe that discipline must be done without the absence of emotion. This flies in the face of time out or cool down theories of child rearing. Children must always know what emotion their actions will spark, and that sparking “good” emotions will always be preferable to causing sadness or anger in their parents and others around them.

Patience and tolerance are necessary ingredients to good character, and these things are not naturally occurring in the human child – so, they had better be the backbone of parental character or their children may as well be raised in a barn.

Conscientious Objections

Deborah Venable

02/24/08

Not only will the liberal philosophy seek to destroy the soul of free individuals, it regularly shoots poison darts into the conscience of parents who would try to preserve their rights while saving some freedom for their children to inherit. It is a travesty to believe that liberal politicians, educators or other self-proclaimed societal “leaders” are the least bit interested in the welfare of your children no matter what philosophical thought process drives your actions and beliefs. Strong statements I know, but 100% truthful!

States on both coasts of America and all throughout the heartland are battlefields for parental rights, and those ongoing battles are producing a collateral damage with the potential to destroy any semblance of this “free” nation of ours. Most “battles” in our history have made allowances for conscientious objectors, (COs for short), but this one is making no such allowances! If you refuse to arm yourself, your children will pay the price, even as they watch their parents lose their lives or their freedom to the “big guns” of government control.

The fate of the innocents depends entirely on how quickly we can defeat what some have called “liberal fascism”. (See Jonah Goldberg’s new book.)

More than one front exists in this battle for our children. Here are just two:

Phyllis Schlafly’s recent article, It Takes a Village. . . To Undermine Parenthood, speaks mainly to the effects of state laws’ insistence on controlling medical decisions (both physical and mental) concerning children. If you are uninformed enough to believe that the rush to “insure” all children under government provided health care is a good thing, get ready for a rude awakening! If you have no conscientious objections to any vaccine that the state mandates your child to be “shot up” with, then you probably won’t mind having your child submit to regular mental evaluations either. Better keep the kids “happy” though, or they may have to wear a label of mental and emotional deficiency for the rest of their lives!

I hate to have to keep reminding parents that THEY are responsible for their children, but God help us all, too many just don’t get it!

Here’s the second front: You would have to be deaf, dumb, and blind, or curled up in a fetal position to not be aware of the battle for your child’s morals today. This is just one source of information on how far a state is willing to go to wrest your child’s morals from your careful tutelage. An abundance of evidence exists if you are willing to do your homework. The “sexual revolution” begun in the sixties has progressed much farther than those hippy soldiers of change could have possibly foreseen.

It’s not just a hate America, hate God crowd any more – it’s a hate man, hate woman, hate normal crowd that will not be happy until no one remembers what right and wrong or good and evil are!

Let me just stick my neck right out there now and state this: Men and women are different, but they are the ONLY two sexes that were created to inhabit the earth! Any other identification of “gender” or “preference” is abnormal and should not be taught as normal!

If a child is born with a deformity – a birth defect – it is truly sad. It happens. I wholeheartedly believe in supporting the victims of such unfortunate circumstances with compassion and understanding. It is heartbreaking when someone has to go through life with an extra burden to bear, especially if it is disabling. That is how we should explain homosexuality to children if we believe that homosexuals are born and are not the result of a “lifestyle choice”. Hey, I didn’t dub homosexuality with the “sexual preference” label, but for those who assume it, they must be willing to admit that they are NOT normal!

What is so hard to understand about that? Why must we tread on eggshells around the subject, subvert our feelings of pity or disgust for such a “choice” and ignore the very real religious and other conscientious objections to accepting these people as normal? Why? Because government is telling us that we MUST! Not only that, but government is also telling us that we will be prosecuted under unjust laws if we fail to teach our children all about the various lifestyles they may choose for themselves – including homosexuality!

I am sick to death of the pussyfooting on this subject! I’m a CO here, and I’ve got rights too – don’t I?

Gaining Trust

Deborah Venable

02/08/08

My philosophy of successful child rearing is built around the absolute necessity of parent/child trust. In the book, I go into great detail of exactly how I apply all the components of building that trust to the ultimate job of parenting, and explore possible effects any lack of trust, (by parent or child), can cause. Parents mistakenly assume that children must earn trust to gain privileges as they get older, and that by removing privileges when children fail, lessons can be taught. In this world of ours where everyone seems to be so concerned with environment, it is truly amazing to me that any thinking individual could believe that good lessons could be learned from authority figures trying to artificially control another’s individual environment. The withholding of previously given privileges attempts to do just that, doesn’t it?

So, you are really going to tell me that “grounding” punishments teach a child trust? Grounding is something we adults do to individuals who commit crimes against society. Otherwise known as jail, prison, incarceration, and that all-time favorite “house arrest” – you get the picture. Now, we all know that “criminal” behavior is more likely to be repeated by those previously punished for it than by people who do not commit crime in the first place. History is replete with examples of the “repeat offender” syndrome, (otherwise known as “once a criminal always a criminal). Our “correctional facility” mentality of rehabilitating criminal behavior has a long way to go in proving the effectiveness of punishing criminals via the “time out” theory.

I hope I haven’t lost any of you at this point because there is a purpose to my correlation here. Privileges are attained with age. That is the standard that society has set up and followed for a very long time now. They are not, therefore, earned through behavior, nor do they wait for parents to decide when a child can suddenly be trusted to interact socially with the rest of society within certain limits. Most parenting experts are trying to influence child rearing with the same standards that apply to the criminal justice system. They expect “crimes” to be committed, but they think that stripping privileges of the “offenders” will rehabilitate criminal behavior. Does it work? Of course, in some instances – but in far too many cases the behavior is not rehabilitated at all.

So a child’s behavior, for some reason or other, disappoints his parents to the extent that they feel a punishment is in order. The most accepted punishment these days seems to be, “you’re grounded” for x amount of time, (until we can trust you again?) It is a punishment all right, and the child may even consider it a just punishment for whatever he has done, but will it result in the bond of trust being strengthened or weakened? Grounding removes the privilege of free movement within the child’s attained environment. Usually he can’t visit friends or have visitors. He can’t go to any previously appointed social events or perhaps drive the car if he has been used to that privilege. In other words, he can’t be trusted to behave within the expected parameters of his age. And then we follow this up with a time factor, which reinstates trust? But just as in the case of “rehabilitated” criminals, we know that mistrust is still there – even after the incarceration period has passed. Ex-cons have a record of mistrust, which prevents them from such things as legally owning guns or associating with other ex-cons or even voting. Should children in training to be responsible adults really be treated like criminals?

One point that I cannot stress enough is that trust is not a one-way street. If you want to be able to trust your child, he or she must be able to trust you first. Trust building starts from the moment of birth and continues until it is betrayed – if that should happen. Repairing broken trust is a lot harder than building it securely from the ground up. When you tell a child that you trust him, you had better mean it because you are always asking to be trusted each time you interact with that child. You should expect your child to be trustworthy because you have gained his trust in you.

Changes in the moral standards and values of society have done much to erode the ability for parents and children to gain trust in each other. In the last fifty years we have gone from trusting until betrayed to insisting on insurance against betrayal. The “permission slip” and “truth test” mentality has relegated trust to the back of the bus. Everyone is truly guilty until proven innocent these days. One example: try to get a job today without having to pass a drug test, background check, (including a credit check probably), or any number of degrees “proving” your ability to do the job. Has this made our work force more reliable? Even more laughable if you figure the illegal alien influence on the work force, eh? But everyone has taken this all in stride and accepts it as progress! Children learn early on that they cannot and will not be trusted on face value, and the job of parenting has gotten much harder.

If this article has made you think from a slightly different angle than you have thought about parenting in the past, please let me know. Even if you totally disagree with my conclusions, I would appreciate knowing your reasons. The purpose of the book and these articles is to encourage thoughtful individuals to examine the subject of parenting from different perspectives than most do. I believe that the key to saving the future of this wonderful country is totally linked to our ability to reclaim and preserve our true American Heritage and the all important family values that built it.

Who Is the Target?

Deborah Venable

01/19/08

Even though I have written reams about parental loss of rights in this country, I have the feeling that many just do not take the problem seriously. I seldom get feedback, and it is almost as if parents are asleep at the wheel. I certainly don’t mean this as a blanket indictment because I’m sure that many are concerned about parental rights, but just don’t consider themselves to be “in the crosshairs” of government control – yet.

After all, the government isn’t about to break down your door and forcibly remove your child from your home just because someone else has decided that your decisions concerning your child’s well being should be overruled – right? That wouldn’t happen in this country to caring parents.

Think again and read this article!

I have been a parent for almost forty years now, but my youngest child is not quite an “adult” according to “the law”. I’ve never backed down from anything in my life, never let fear rule my actions – in other words, I refuse to be intimidated. But my comfort level will be greatly increased as soon as my child’s birthday rolls around this year – because then he will be an adult! Of course I still have underage grandchildren, but they have capable parents to fight the battles for their future.

When my husband passed away I felt totally alone in the battle to get my son all grown up and educated without the impact of any socialist attempt to usurp my parental rights and authority. My daily prayer has been that God will allow me to get this job done right. You may think that I suffer from undue paranoia, but remember, the only reason I left a state I loved – that we had planned to live out our days in – was the oppressive change we witnessed in the social climate there. Had we not had any young children, it would not have mattered as much. We were very happy in California, but Alabama offered us more freedom.

In much the same way that those long-ago European ancestors packed up and risked their lives and everything they owned, leaving behind lands that they loved, to search for freedom, so we made the modern day trek back to breathe freer air. If that sounds a bit pretentious, it is still the truth. But even here, I see things going down the tubes. This state is falling into lockstep with the suffocating onslaught of socialism. I noticed the signs almost immediately with the attack on Chief Justice, Roy Moore, soon after we arrived here. The public school policy of “zero tolerance”, (what an oxymoron!) is alive and well here, as is the global warming, anti-self defense, behavior modification via drugs, etc., etc. mantra that has so invaded the government school system everywhere else.

I know why all this is happening. With each year that passes, the U.S. Constitution and particularly the Tenth Amendment to it is being buried deeper and deeper under apathy and ignorance. States’ Rights means little and individual sovereignty even less. On the national level, America’s sovereignty is being herded closer and closer to the abyss of globalism and international law.

Man’s law has overtaken and bypassed man’s unalienable rights – nature’s law – for so many years that it will take a miracle to reverse the damage. The miracle does exist, though. Every time a child is born to caring parents that will provide a loving and secure family environment for that child to thrive in, the miracle gains momentum.

God bless those who have received His greatest blessing! It is up to you to take the target off your child’s back.

The Purpose Of Schools

Deborah Venable

12/17/07

Anybody care to give this one a shot? I mean put a “what is” in front of the title of this article and proceed to answer the question. What kind of answers are we likely to get?

The purpose of schools is to educate individuals beyond their current knowledge. If you come up with anything else for an answer, I would probably have a problem with it. You see, the education of children falls squarely on the shoulders of their parents or guardians. Period. Look it up - in any free culture and you will see that this is correct. But this responsibility has been shirked by too many parents and assumed by too much government. In some cases it has been confiscated from parents – along with ungodly sums of money to pay for it!

You might say, but what about specialized schools, adult education, college, for goodness sake?

All should still fit the above definition, and all are very big business in the modern world. And that is the bottom line. Schools are very big business, huge sinkholes of money and power, and jealously guarded by those who benefit most. Where advanced schooling was once a choice pursued by a much smaller percentage of the human population, it has now become a necessary commodity and a coercive tool of control in the hands of godless governments.

So, what should NOT be the purpose of schools?

The first misconception about the purpose of schools must be directed at parents and guardians. Schools should NOT be used as babysitters. Their purpose is not to direct children’s attitudes, morals, or spirits toward any pre-defined agenda for any political or social goal unless all of those buying the services of the specific school want such a product included in the package. (Such as in the case of private religious schools.) Exposure to a full course of various political, social, and religious views should be available at any so-called public school however. Exposure does not mean beating kids over the head with any of it and it requires the teachers and the material to be honest about personally held beliefs.

Education should not be expensive in a monetary sense. If education were not such a big business, corruption would not be as prevalent within its institutions. This may seem like a too simple solution to a too complex problem, but it is a solution. I do not expect it to ever be employed. Society has been brainwashed to believe that teachers do not make enough money, schools are always in need of funding, and educational resources are scarce, while in truth, education is one of the most expensive drains on the public and private coffers this country has ever known!

Now I will be honest with you, I do not believe that the worst things about the education business can ever be eradicated, but the resulting products of the system can possibly be improved upon, if the problem is ever properly acknowledged. For instance, in a “for profit” private school the gap between the worker bees and the kings and queens of the business is not so large that mediators are needed to bridge it. Teachers’ Unions are the scourge of the whole public education process, and those “mediators” have gotten rich off the big business of education. Gung ho “members” in the “worker bee” class have grown lazy in their well-protected hives so that the product they are pushing is anything but sweet. A good first step toward improvement would involve letting the bees do their work on their own merit. Teacher proficiency testing was met with much disdain if I recall. School boards everywhere try to rule with an iron fist, which also proceeds to get in the way of quality comparisons for the resulting product of education. Politics has no place in a good educational system, but getting it out of a public one is quite impossible. That brings us back to private schools competing for private dollars. With all the philanthropy that takes place in this country, I would think that quality education funding for everyone that needs it could be had without government involvement to the extent that it is. The fact still remains that when we are directly paying for a product, the chance that we will insist on quality first is far greater than when it is offered up on the alter of government entitlement.

The real purpose of schools is to insure a quality future for the benefit of everyone. The product had better live up to that goal.

Competition vs. Self-Esteem

Deborah Venable

11/15/07

In a truly free society, self-esteem follows a prescribed course of learning self-worth through experience. It is a very personal learning experience that happens naturally and is certainly not dependent on artificial stimuli exerted by mandated protocols of social pressure or government education. Achievement is earned through effort and not necessarily awarded on a standardized scale. When these criteria are obviously not being met, competition is meaningless and freedom is being restrained.

In our current rush to endorse political correctness in all sectors of American society, American children are the first victims of the “frog soup” theory of social change. For some reason the current crop of educators in this country seem to believe that a child’s self-esteem is the “glass jaw” of his very existence. Children are not born with fragile or delicate psyches. A delicate psyche must be learned, and sparing a child from honest competition is the very best way to insure that he learns victimhood, entitlement mentality, and class envy. The only place these lessons would have any value would be in a slave society!

Survival of any species is instinctual and dependent on the individual’s ability to compete and in some cases even cooperate, but cooperation is not being encouraged when competition is deliberately demonized as demoralizing to “fragile psyches” and avoided as an intellectual growth tool. The ability to compete honestly is perhaps the most important tool a child will ever need to succeed and maintain a healthy psyche. The fact that modern educators and a politically motivated society would obfuscate such a valuable fact is proof positive that the darker goal of behavior modification is at work to bring about social change from that of a free society to the aforementioned slave variety.

The “soup” has begun to smell.

But here is a curious by product of this social experiment. A transference seems to be occurring at an alarming rate. Too many parents have taken it upon themselves to compete, not against other parents, but against children! They refuse to let their children fight their own battles, but they will insist that all the “equalizing” weapons they can get their hands on are used against the children of others. (Example #1: Since my child has been taught never to fight, any child who dares to disagree with my child is a bully!) Example #2: Since my child is just as smart as anybody else’s, the test is flawed and the teacher is prejudiced against my child.

The worst outcome of this whole deception is that we have an alarming percentage of children who will grow up handicapped in their struggle to survive. And they are growing up without the necessary discipline to handle any competition that comes their way, or any knowledge of what real cooperation is all about. We may think that we are growing a superior class of humanity that will strive for peace over violence and serenity over conflict, when in fact the only result will be a weakness of character that will not secure a bright future for our children.

Here’s the bottom line; children are the very best examples of this wondrous thing called humanity. They are born with free spirits, survival instincts intact, and totally open minds. What happens to them from the moment of birth until they suddenly find themselves in maturity either amounts to a job well done by those who have influenced their growth or a pathos of inhuman abuse along that way.

Real Child Safety

Deborah Venable

06/20/07

It doesn’t take much to get everyone interested in the subject of child safety – protecting the most vulnerable members of humanity. Trying to get agreement on the best methods to accomplish this is quite another story. It seems that common sense has given way to an almost mechanical and (maniacal if I may be so bold) way of approaching the age old question of, how can we best protect our children in a world turned upside down?

Here again I will beat a well-worn drum because it definitely fits in the formula for protecting children. We cannot continue to depend on a standardization process to accomplish such an important task. It just will not work! We, as parents, cannot turn the job of protecting our children over to government and social entities and expect them not to eventually wrest the total responsibility from us – whether or not we agree with their methods. No one in any government or social agency is more qualified to protect individual children than we are as their parents. Therefore, child safety remains defined by those who have the most to gain from securing that safety and the most to lose if our hands are tied in that attempt.

From the moment a child is conceived there are no guarantees that he or she will be safely ushered into a welcoming world and allowed to mature to adulthood totally protected from anything that can cause harm. We all are very aware of this fact. But the natural human nurturing instinct is the first and should be the most important safeguard a child has. That’s right – I said NATURAL INSTINCT. Every day I see indications that instinct is being downplayed, ignored, and deliberately destroyed in an attempt to standardize humanity.

Parental protective and nurturing instinct should kick in at the moment of awareness that a child exists. I certainly should not have to spell out the proof that millions of American children have been denied the results of natural protective nurturing – legally since Roe v. Wade. Anyone alive today, who willingly sanctions abortion, is denying the unalienable right of equality for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” to those precious aborted lives that are its victims. Since there are obviously many who deny this right to others, (which they, themselves enjoy) it concerns me that they would ever think they could be protectors of this right for anyone or any group of people. If we ARE all equal, then we are equal all the time – not just when it is convenient.

That will be the extent of my present comments on the subject of abortion.

The way that nature is supposed to work is that parenting bears the first right and responsibility for the offspring’s safety. In a climate that wrests more and more of this right and responsibility away from parents and places it in the hands of state and social agencies, we find all too often that parents are more and more willing to give up that responsibility and therefore lay the blame when things go wrong anywhere but where it belongs. Instinct be damned, it’s always somebody else’s fault when a kid goes wrong or gets hurt. The natural truth is that the first line of defense for a child’s safety is his or her parent. Society tries to have it both ways though and the results are sometimes disastrous.

Okay, so we do not live in an ideal world. Some parents should have never been blessed with the ability to reproduce, and others are forced to step in as guardians of their children. Anyone doing that should know that the mantle has been passed to them – and that includes bureaucratic agencies.

Now that we know who it is that I hold personally responsible for child safety, we can get to the most important component for securing the best chance for each child to grow and mature in the safest cocoon possible. If we look again to nature, to the animal world specifically, we find that from the beginning most animals are trained by their parents to be self-reliant as quickly as possible for their various species. Self-reliance is also the most important lesson that a human will ever learn. For some reason we find that many parents and guardians delay or completely withhold these lessons until children are far older than they should be before introduction to lessons of self-reliance.

Children are much safer with these lessons begun as early as possible – and that is almost immediately. These are not lessons taught at the convenience of parents and guardians, but rather lesson taught at the convenience of children. I don’t know how we ever managed to get that switched around, but we did.

Learning self-reliance requires an introduction to the role trust plays in human safety. Children must learn to trust and be trusted before they will ever learn to trust themselves. Learning to trust begins immediately. This subject is very well covered in my book, from infancy through young adulthood. We send messages to children long before we think they are capable of understanding them, but their perceptions are very acute when it comes to learning what they can expect from us. If a child is ever confused about whom he can trust he will be more vulnerable to danger of any kind. Just as important to his safety is his ability to know how much he can trust himself to accurately define and avoid or handle danger.

The hardest thing for parents or guardians to accept is that the only person who can be with a child, and thus offer the best protection every second of every day is the child himself.

So, how do you raise a self-reliant child, and when should your ideas about his safety overrule those foisted upon us by a sometimes overzealous society? We must be able to tap into two things to get the job done right. We must employ the natural nurturing instinct of parents and the natural instinct of all humans to protect themselves. An individual’s instinct is as identifying as a DNA profile - the first component of which will identify the “human” quality.

Trust is taught through modeling and observation – not through cute little stories describing it. Hypocrisy cannot be hidden in lessons not modeled or observed. A parent who tries to teach a child not to lie by the telling of the “cry wolf” story, but models behavior that does not support his words will not succeed in conveying trust. Likewise a parent who tells a child “nothing in my life is more important than you” and then proceeds to put personal desires or career responsibilities ahead of the child’s needs repeatedly may lose the child’s respect and trust. Parents must realize, “as ye sow, so shall ye reap” and make sure that the seeds of trust are planted with vigilance and honesty.

If the first line of defense is self-reliance built with trust, the second is surely physical, emotional, and spiritual strength to withstand disappointment and adversity in all forms. What we find all too often is that society expects children to be weak in these areas until they reach the magic age of adulthood. The character of a child is as strong in childhood as it will ever be in adulthood. There is no magic moment when a child’s character is suddenly mature. Granted there are physical aspects dealing with brain development that reach maturity (usually not until the person is in his mid twenties) but these need not affect character negatively or positively. By the time a child is five to ten years old, he has been exposed to the necessary components of character building, and the foundation is firmly set. Changing character afterwards takes a significant emotional event and a lot of work.

Protecting children is not accomplished through mandated blinders to the world around them. Evil exists in the world and children should learn early on to recognize its face. The fact that many adults refuse to look at evil and define it accurately proves that children are not learning the lessons of good and evil adequately. Children must be allowed to decide for themselves whether they will be activists or pacifists in their own safety. If they wish to defend themselves against danger and intimidation, it is a good thing, and the parameters for such active defense should be realistically reviewed by both parent and child.

A pacifistic approach to securing a child’s safety would require that someone else be assigned the role of champion for the child’s safety. That role naturally belongs to parents, but if they are substituted with someone or something else, ultimate influence follows this substitution. So the final question must be, do we want our children dependent on outside influences for their safety, (which could include dependency on government and society), or do we want to raise self assured, competent adults?

Society and government have already interfered in the parent-child relationship to the extent that certain tools of discipline are all but off limits to parents, hence children are far less disciplined than ever before. One only needs to observe the public behavior of children nowadays to know that this is so. Discipline in schools has deteriorated to a ridiculous extent. I certainly can’t blame the parent who tells the school NOT to administer a swift discipline to a misbehaving child, since parents themselves have been restricted in their use of certain measures of discipline. However, the only alternative has been to “diagnose” a misbehaving child with a psychologically treatable disorder, and to assume that all parents will be abusive without government restraints. Is this what we really want?

Real child safety does not equate to circumventing parental authority and expecting anything but negative results from doing so. It also does not result from teaching children that they are not to defend themselves against bullying behavior from their peers and expecting them to know how to handle evil, intimidating adults as they grow older. It does not follow that a child raised in an atmosphere of his own mistrust will be able to make sound decisions for his safety in other normal activities of life. Children must learn lessons of personal safety early on in order to achieve for themselves a more secure future. Government and society will not always “have their backs” as they venture out into the real world.

If you have comments on this article, email me and I will be glad to post them here and respond.

Home Rant Page