John Rosemond - Parenting by the Book: Biblical Wisdom for Raising Your Child

My errors are mine alone, and any criticisms due this work are due to my own shortcomings, but for anything herein that is true, accurate, on the money, moving, and the genuine real deal, my thanks go to the following good people:

Lee Strobel, for scraping the scales off my denying eyes.

Chuck Colson and Philip Yancey, for helping me find my way to the salt mine.

Jill Rigby, for putting Denny Boultinghouse and me and Steve Laube and me together, and for being a good friend and a source of continuing inspiration.

Denny Boultinghouse, my editor-of-final-word at Howard Books and fellow blues traveler, for believing in me and this project; also for his faith, fellowship, musical selections, and wonderfully impish sense of humor, and for his patience as I felt my way into this ministry; as is the case with Willie and me, Dennys lovely wife, Philis, is obviously his better 90 percent.

John, Chrys, Linda, Susan, and everyone at Howard Books for their support through this project.

Steve Laube, my agent, for his support, encouragement, commitment to seeing that this book finds its audience, fellowship, and his faith in my ability to keep crankin em out, which is my intention, God willing.

Mary McNeil, my editor, for her affirmation, her corrections, her diligence, and her sense of humor; when I found out she rode a Harley, I knew I was in good hands.

Elizabeth Stevens, my bookings manager, for her patience, good nature, and commitment to the cause; my life on the road is a whole lot saner these days.

Bob Crittenden, the Reverend John Kirtley, and Dr. Timothy Scott, for reading pages-in-progress and sharing invaluable comments and suggestions.

Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family, for his patience and commitment to seeing that I got it right.

Dr. DuBose Ravenel, for his excellent help in getting me started on this project, and his invaluable advice along the way.

Willie, my wife and best friend, for her support during the writing of this book, which took lots of time away from our relationship, which she graciously gave, and for her steadfast love of this sinner man; you rock, and you are the rock, my love.

S everal years ago, a young mother told me that she rejected my philosophy of parenting. After an exhaustive search of contemporary parenting literature, she had decided that attachment parenting suited her best. Suited her? This was postmodernity (the mind-set that objective truth does not exist and everything is relative) talking. As The Rolling Stones, in what may be the most postmodern of lyrics, put it, Im free to do what I want, any old time. As I pointed out to this mother, the matter of how a child should be raised is not about the parent; its about the child. Furthermore, whereas there may be more than one way to skin the proverbial cat, there is but one correct way to raise a child. (If you think Im making this statement presumptuously, I encourage you to read on.) But in fairness, the mental health community has been anything but of one voice where child rearing is concerned, and each of the competing voices in the cacophony of psychobabble has claimed and claims superiority. Choosing to listen to only one may be the only way to maintain ones sanity.

One might ask whats different about John Rosemonds way of raising children, to which the answer is that John Rosemonds way does not exist. The way described in these pages is straight from the Bible. I am a messenger, and a somewhat paradoxical one at that.

I possess a license to practice psychology, issued by the North Carolina Psychology Board. In that sense, I am a psychologist. But unlike most of those who hold such licenses, I have major problems with the direction my once noble profession has taken since the late 1960s, when the American Psychological Association was hijacked by secular progressives who were focused more on advancing humanist ideology than advancing the human condition.

A number of years ago, I came to the realization that for all of its pretenses to scientific objectivity, post-1960s psychology is a secular religion that one believes in by faith. I had been slowly losing that false faith since the early 1980s, but I lost the last vestige seven years ago, when I submitted my life to Jesus Christ.

I am absolutely convinced that modern psychology has done more harm than good to the American family. Not family, mind you, the various alternatives of which the American Psychological Association has enthusiastically affirmed, even actively promoted, but family, as in heterosexual parents and children related by birth or adoption. The reason child rearingonce a fairly straightforward, matter-of-fact affairhas become so difficult, so emotionally taxing, so beset with problems, is that instead of going to their elders for child-rearing advice, American parents have been listening to mental health professionals tell them how to raise children for more than a generation. With rare but notable exceptionDr. James Dobson, Dr. Kevin Leman, and a handful of othersthe advice has been bad. Since the mid-1960s, when nouveau parenting began to displace traditional Biblically based child rearing, the mental health of Americas kids has been in a downward spiral, the end of which has yet to come into view. But children are not the only ones who have suffered the toxins of professional advice. The raising of a child, once a fairly straightforward, commonsense affair, has become the single most stressful thing a woman will do in her lifetime. The mothers I talk to around the United States concur when I suggest that raising a child is more anxiety-ridden than managing a large staff of people at a major corporation. Thats not the way God planned it, but then Gods way is not modern psychologys way, either.