CONTENTS

• JUST VISITING
• FEATURE ARTICLE: THE TOUCHY SUBJECT OF HEADSHIP
• PARENTING WITH FEAR AND TREMBLING IN AN AGE OF "NO FEAR"
  Part Four
  "SHE WAS SPOILED, DELICIOUSLY"
  by Mikal Frazier
  

Mikal has been battling some respiratory problems recently. She tells me that she has been so exhausted at the end of the day that she hasn't gotten to answer some of her AAF correspondence. She's doing better and working on that now. If you have asked her to send you an e-mail response to a personal question, you should receive an answer within the next four or five days. If you don't receive an answer within the next week, please re-send your message. Her mailbox only retains old messages for about 30 days.

Speaking of health, many of you know that I've been battling anemia. I'm happy to report that I'm much improved though not exactly fully recovered. After collapsing at our breakfast room table on April 9, I've had to slow down my schedule some. One thing the whole ordeal did for me was to deepen my appreciation for every moment of life and every loving relationship I'm privileged to enjoy.

Howard Hendricks once wrote, "If Christianity doesn't work at home, it doesn't work. Don't export it." (quoted by James Dobson Straight Talk to Men and Their Wives. - p. 92). The Bible pictures the husband and father as head of the family. In today's feature article, we present a rationale in defense of that point of view. Hendricks is absolutely on target. I can't think of anything worse than a man attempting to impose his headship over the home if he is not yielded to Christ. Only a Christ like man will humble himself and love his wife and give himself up for her as Christ ". . . loved the church and gave himself up for her" (Ephesians 5:25).

Mikal agrees with Hendricks' view that Christianity and healthy family dynamics go hand in hand. In her fourth installment of her series on parenting, she says, "Mom and Dad, your most important goal for your child must be the reconciliation of that child to his Father in heaven." Quality family living and quality spiritual living run on parallel tracks.

Parental responsibility and leadership in marriage both require a certain amount of decision-making authority. There's no way to avoid that conclusion, but every Christian husband must recognize that with authority comes responsibility and accountability. Several years ago, I read Page Williams' book, Husbands, Do Yourself a Favor, Love Your Wife. He said flatly that if there is a breakdown in the home, it is the husband's fault. I thought that was a rather extreme statement, then I remembered how Harry Truman understood that principle quite well when he was President of the United States. I have seen the plaque that rested on his desk. It read "The buck stops here." So it is with the husband in the home. In making a case for headship, we are not suggesting that a husband can sit in his easy chair, bark out orders to the rest of the family and then complain when his orders aren't carried out. That's not the picture of Biblical headship. Please read our thoughts on the subject and consider their applicability to your home.

Norman

by Norman Bales

When you're in ministry, you sometimes get requests from non-church going people to perform weddings. I don't actually do many of those weddings because I require six hours of pre-marital counseling and when I say that to unchurched folks, they start looking for a less demanding officiant.

However, I recall one couple who were a little more serious than that. We didn't actually go through a premarital counseling regimen, but we did talk philosophy. These folks were particularly anxious to know what I believed about the husband assuming the role of headship. They were planning a headless marriage. There would be no chain of authority. The buck would stop nowhere. I shared some thoughts from Ephesians 5 with them. At first, they stared at me in disbelief when they heard me say that I accept Paul's conclusion that "the husband is the head of the wife" (Ephesians 5:23). They were a little relieved when they also heard me say that the Christ-like family head will love his wife as he loves his own body (Ephesians 5:28). They decided to think about it for a while. A few days later they called to say they didn't want me to do the ceremony because they couldn't agree with my ideas about headship.

In recent years an attempt has been made to reconcile these teachings regarding headship with the philosophies of feminism. Some feminists have advanced the theory that head means "source" (like the headwaters of a river). Recently, I had occasion to spend some time researching the meaning of kephale, the Greek word for "head." Most of the time it refers to that part of a person, which is attached to the shoulders by one's neck. In the context of Ephesians, however, it is a symbol of authority. In Ephesians 1:22, Jesus is "head over everything for the church." "Headship doesn't mean "source" in that context. It doesn't mean "source" when Paul uses the same term as he compares marriage and the church in chapter 5. In verse 24, the church submits to Christ and wives submit to their husband." Headship means authority.

Having said that, it should be noted that there is nothing in these verses or any other text of Scripture that permits a husband to become a domineering tyrant. The Christ like standard of leadership is always from the perspective of servanthood. In the Ephesians 5 text, the emphasis is on the sacrifice the husband makes for his wife, not on the exercise of dictatorial prerogatives. The model is Jesus "who did not come to be served, but to serve" (Mark 10:45). No Godly woman would ever resent her husband's headship if he truly served her the way Christ came to serve.

Part Four

by Mikal Frazier MA, MMFT, LMFT, LPC

I grew up in a fairly small church. In such a congregation, you know the people pretty well and you are certainly aware when new members move in. I was around twelve years old when one particular family came to be a part of our number. We were so thankful to have them. They had been members of the church for a long time, and were a welcome addition.

They had one child, a daughter, just two or three years younger than I. On several occasions, this little girl was a guest in my home to play with my sister and me. Our mothers carpooled us to summer camp and back. My mother visited with her about going to a Christian college and she began to consider that goal.

I had gone off to college, married and moved far away when I heard the news. My mother called to tell me that this little girl's parents had been killed, their throats slashed in their own home, and their daughter was the chief suspect. I still remember my mother's words, "She was spoiled, deliciously."

This young lady was charged and found guilty of conspiracy to kill her parents. The rumor was she wanted their life insurance. She served several years in the penitentiary. The shock of this event compelled those of us who knew her to try to understand how such a thing could happen. Many issues had to be present to accomplish this tragic outcome, but certainly the overindulgence perpetrated by her parents played a part. The spoiling of this child was only a symptom of deeper issues. From a family therapy perspective, I have to think Mother and Daddy had some serious difficulties in their marriage and throughout her life this child must have been caught in the middle, something we call triangulation. Some way the overindulgence played a role in this ill-fated family system, along with materialism and an obsessive desire for popularity for their child. Along the way the parents had lost sight of their "first love." (Revelation 2:4)

The difficulties in her parents' marriage, their own selfishness, materialism, desire for popularity and taking their eyes off the Lord all played a part. But for the sake of these parenting articles, I want to discuss the cost of overindulgence. I want you to know the importance of establishing standards and limits and enforcing these boundaries if you want to raise your children to the glory of God, if you want your children to inherit eternal life.

My own observation of how some parents dote on their children has led me to think that these parents believe if they just "love" their child enough, everything will be okay. The "love" is in quotations because this is not true love. I am astonished at their lack of holding their children accountable. As I observe Christian parents, it seems many have the idea that God is going to love their children the way they love their children. Hebrews 12:6 states: "For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives." Verse 10 tells us that the chastening is so that the chastened ones "...may be partakers of His holiness." You may not hold your child accountable, but God will.

Without learning accountability, your child will miss heaven. It seems the certainty of our children appearing before God on the day of judgment is too far removed for some parents to allow that fact to influence their parenting strategies.

There are also consequences here in this life. Russell A. Barkley in his text, Defiant Children states, "Research suggests that inadequate parental monitoring (establishing and enforcing limits) of children's behavior and activities is a major contributor not only to noncompliant and aggressive behavior by children toward others, especially peers and siblings, but also to the development of clandestine antisocial behaviors." Mom and Dad, "clandestine antisocial behaviors" is just as bad as it sounds. You do not want this behavior for your children.

Foster W. Cline, M.D., discusses the overindulged child, or as he calls it the overgratified child, in his book, Hope for High Risk and Rage Filled Children. He says, "The mother who overgratifies is unknowingly raising a child who will develop an oral personality. The overgratified child ends up expecting 150 points from the world, when the world only gives 100 points! Thus, an oral personality looks around and sees the world as a constantly depriving one. Compared with the goodies his mother gave him during the first years of life, it is!" Descriptive terms he gives to the overgratified (spoiled) child are: demanding, angry, suck others dry, narcissistic, clinging, "have difficulty achieving autonomy and developing healthy, interdependent relationships."

David Wilmes from the Johnson Institute is the author of some of the best material I have seen for prevention of alcohol and other drug use by our children. Wilmes reports parental permissiveness as a more important risk factor for children using destructive chemicals than even peer pressure. He says, "Parents are significantly more powerful than peers, and research with teenagers tells us they need their parents to take a firm stand..." The task: set limits and enforce them. Permissiveness and overindulgence will not get us what we want.

Further evidence that discipline, training and chastisement are beneficial comes from material provided by Focus on the Family. In a compilation of research on effective methods for teaching sexual abstinence to our children, the families who were at about the 75th percentile on a continuum from no rules to many rules, achieved the most success in obtaining the desired behavior. (After the 75th percentile there was a dramatic drop in the effectiveness of rules. My idea about this is that these parents probably had rules to the exclusion of relationship with their children, and when that happens the rules are ineffective and destructive. That is material for another very necessary article.) From the results illustrated on this continuum we must conclude that a good number of rules contributes to the behaviors we want in our adolescents. Most of us want sexual abstinence, academic success and abstinence from drug use. These are co-occurring behaviors, in that if you have one, you usually have the others.

Mom and Dad, your most important goal for your child must be the reconciliation of that child to his Father in heaven. In order to point him in that direction, you must be willing to establish clear boundaries for his behavior with sure and swift consequences when those limits are violated. First and foremost, you are "Christ's ambassador" to your child. Don't let Satan and the world fool you. Your influence on your child is unmatched by any other power.

2 Corinthians 5:18-20:

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed us to the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God."

(Mikal Frazier is a licensed family therapist with a private practice in Minden and Bossier City, Louisiana. She and her husband, Jim have three adult children and two grandchildren, whom they will gladly tell you about if you ask. Actually you don't even have to ask.)

If you have questions about marriage and family relationships, you can "ASK THE COUNSELOR." Address your questions to Mikal Frazier. Her address is mikalfraz@aol.com

Norman's e-mail address: nlbales@allaboutfamilies.org