The New Spanking - Mentality of Sterility - Bishops - CMP Corner

1- Child-rearing:
For Some Parents, Shouting Is the New Spanking

New York Times
Hilary Stout
October 21, 2009

"I've worked with thousands of parents and I can tell you, without question, that screaming is the new spanking," said Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions, which teaches parenting skills in classes, individual coaching sessions and an online course. "This is so the issue right now. As parents understand that it's not socially acceptable to spank children, they are at a loss for what they can do. They resort to reminding, nagging, timeout, counting 1-2-3 and quickly realize that those strategies don't work to change behavior. In the absence of tools that really work, they feel frustrated and angry and raise their voice. They feel guilty afterward, and the whole cycle begins again."

Amy Wilson, a writer and actress in Manhattan, used to give up shopping for Lent. That was before she had children, now ages 6, 5 and 2. This year she gave up yelling. Or tried to. "It didn't really work," she said, "but I definitely yelled less."

Ms. Wilson has written a humorous autobiographical book about parenting, to be published next year, called "When Did I Get Like This?" An entire chapter is devoted to her personal efforts to curtail her yelling.

A ONE-WOMAN show, "Mother Load," which she wrote and performed Off Broadway and will take on tour for the second time next year, opens with a yelling scene that draws laughs and includes the line "I have had it with looking for puppy" in a high-decibel lament that rings true to anyone who has searched for a favorite stuffed animal for the seventh time in a day.

Familial screamers have long been a beloved part of American pop culture, from the Costanzas of "Seinfeld" back to the Goldbergs of radio and early television, but they didn't yell at small children. And though previous generations of parents may have yelled in real life -- Dr. Spock called shouting "inevitable from time to time" -- this generation of parents seems to be uniquely troubled by their own outbursts.

"My name is Francesca Castagnoli and I am a screamer," began a post on Motherblogger.net earlier this year. "Admitting I'm a mom that screams, shouts and loses it in front her kids feels like I'm revealing a dark family secret."

"It's not kind," said Ms. Klein in Oregon. "When I'm done I feel awful."

To research their book "Mommy Guilt: Learn to Worry Less, Focus on What Matters Most, and Raise Happier Kids," the three authors, Devra Renner, Aviva Pflock and Julie Bort, commissioned a survey of 1,300 parents across the country to determine sources of parental guilt. Two-thirds of respondents named yelling -- not working or spanking or missing a school event -- as their biggest guilt inducer.

"What blew us away about that is that the one thing you really have ultimate control over is the tone of your voice," said Ms. Pflock, a child development specialist.

Parental yelling today may be partly a releasing of stress for multitasking, overachieving adults, parenting experts say.

"Yelling is done when parents feel irritable and anxious," said Harold S. Koplewicz, the founder of the New York University Child Study Center. "It can be as simple as 'I'm overwhelmed, I'm running late for work, I had a fight with my wife, I have a project due -- and my son left his homework upstairs.' "

Numerous studies exist on the effect of corporal punishment on children. A new one came out just last month. Led by a researcher at Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy, the study concluded that spanking children when they are very young (1-year-old) can slow their intellectual development and lead to aggressive behavior as they grow older. But there is far less data on the more common habit of shouting and screaming in families.

One study that did take a look at the topic - a paper on the "psychological aggression by American parents" [PDF] published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2003 -- found that parental yelling was a near-universal occurrence. Of 991 families interviewed, in 88 percent of them a parent acknowledged shouting, screaming or yelling at the kids at least once (though it didn't specify how many did it more often) in the previous year.

"We are so accustomed to this that we just think parents get carried away and that it's not harmful," said one of the study's lead authors, Murray A. Straus, a sociologist who is a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. "But it affects a child. If someone yelled at you at work, you'd find that pretty jarring. We don't apply that standard to children."

Psychologists and psychiatrists generally say yelling should be avoided. It's at best ineffective (the more you do it the more the child tunes it out) and at worse damaging to a child's sense of well-being and self-esteem.

"It isn't the yelling per se that's going to make a difference, it's how the yelling is interpreted," said Ronald P. Rohner, director of the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center for the Study of Interpersonal Acceptance and Rejection at the University of Connecticut. If a parent is simply loud, he says, the effect is minimal. But if the tone connotes anger, insult or sarcasm, it can be perceived as a sign of rejection.

Professor Rohner noted that while spanking is considered taboo by the major medical and psychological associations, there are still some religious and conservative groups who support it as an effective disciplinary tool, believing that the Bible explicitly allows it.

But, he said, "There is no group of Americans that advocate yelling as a parenting style."

"My bottom-line recommendation is don't yell," he said. "It is a risk factor for a family."

Easier said than done. Strategies to stop yelling abound. Ms. Klein said she has a friend who gives herself a timeout by going into another room when she feels a scream coming on.

Experts suggest figuring out ways to prevent situations that make you most prone to yell. If forgotten homework sends you into the stratosphere, make sure the children have their books and notebooks packed and waiting by the door before they go to bed. If you're stressed and hungry after a long day at the office, make sure you grab something to eat in the kitchen before you tackle, say, a brewing disagreement over Legos.

Still, there are those moments.

"I'd like to think that most of the time we have a good interaction based on reason," Lena Merrill said of her 4-year-old daughter, whom she has never spanked. But then there are the times when "she's done something like poured milk on the floor or ripped a page out of a book," Ms. Merrill said. "I just lose it."

Usually, she says, she shouts something like, "Why did you do that? Why would you do that?"

"It's phrased like a question to make her think, but the tone scares her," Ms. Merrill said.

Still, Ms. Merrill, a travel consultant in Rutherford, N.J., finds that the threat of yelling can be a convenient stick, much the way the threat of a spanking was in her childhood. Even her husband has taken to using it to encourage good behavior, she said, issuing the warning:

"Don't make mommy mad."

Back to top

2- Marriage and Family:
Missouri bishop blames 'mentality of sterility' for crisis in family life 

Back to top

3-  U.S. BISHOPS ON MARRIAGE
'Love and Life in the Divine Plan’. Plenary assembly (Nov. 16-19, 2009)

The U.S. bishops discussed and and voted on a pastoral letter about marriage, entitled 'Love and Life in the Divine Plan’. It is another component in the bishops' National Pastoral Initiative for Marriage, which began in November 2004.

The bishops, also approved for release a new document aimed at helping Catholic couples facing the challenges of infertility. This document, titled "Life-Giving Love in an Age of Technology," is meant to give pastoral guidance on the Church's teaching regarding reproductive technologies.

"There is great confusion," Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, chairman of the Committee on Pro-life Activities, said, regarding the Church's teaching on morally problematic techniques such as in vitro fertilization, egg and sperm donation, and surrogacy.
Sometimes, he noted, "any method of making babies" is "understood to be pro-life."
Thus, there is a need to distinguish between the Catholic and secular understandings of human life, and how these lead to certain judgments about behavior, the prelate affirmed.
The document will include the testimonies of Catholics facing infertility as well as a section on those technologies that are accepted by the Church.

The document addresses the problem of "embryo adoption," in which a woman is implanted with a 'spare' frozen embryo that would otherwise have been killed.? The advancement of reproductive technologies has led to massive amounts of these frozen embryos, and some pro-life Catholics have argued in favor of their adoption.

Last December, in Dignitas Personae, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appeared to rule that the practice is unacceptable just as is artificial reproduction.
According the U.S. bishops' draft, "Serious moral concerns have been raised about embryo adoption, particularly as it requires the wife in the adopting couple to receive into her womb an embryonic child who was not conceived through her bodily union with her husband."
"The terrible plight of abandoned frozen embryos underscores the need for our society to end practices such as IVF that regularly produce so many 'spare' or unwanted human beings," it explains.
There are, however, licit ways for infertile couples to welcome children, the draft says, including adoption, which it calls "a wonderful way to build a family."
"Children begin to seem less and less as gifts received in a personal communion of self-giving, and increasingly as a lifestyle choice, a commodity to which all consumers are entitled," the draft says.

Children can be similarly harmed by cohabitation and divorce, the bishops say, citing "the findings of the social sciences ... that the best environment for raising children is a stable home provided by the marriage of their parents."

"Marriage is not merely a private institution," the letter adds. "It is the foundation for the family, where children learn the values and virtues that will make good Christians as well as good citizens."  The bishops acknowledge that divorce "may be the only solution to a morally unacceptable situation," such as when "the safety of a spouse and children is at risk," and pledge their support and assistance to those in such situations.

They encourage "those for whom divorce seemed the only recourse" to make frequent use of the sacraments, especially penance and the Eucharist. Even Catholics who have remarried civilly after a divorce should "participate in parish life and attend the Sunday Eucharist, even though they cannot ordinarily receive holy Communion," they say.  The moves to legally recognize same-sex unions pose "a multifaceted threat to the very fabric of society, striking at the source from which society and culture come and which they are meant to serve," the bishops say.  "Such recognition affects all people, married and non married: not only at the fundamental levels of the good of the spouses, the good of children, the intrinsic dignity of every human person and the common good, but also at the levels of education, cultural imagination and influence, and religious freedom," they add.

Some of the strongest statements in the document are directed against those who live together without marriage.  "To have sexual intercourse outside the covenant of marriage is gravely immoral because it communicates physically the gift of oneself to another when, at the same time, one is not willing or able to make a total and permanent commitment," the draft says.

Cohabitation does not improve the likelihood that a couple will have a stable marriage and can even diminish the possibility, it adds. The bishops said they addressed the letter "first and foremost to the Catholic faithful in the United States" but also offered it to others "in the hope of inspiring them to embrace this teaching."

"Today, more than ever, people are asking whether and how it is possible to make and keep a lifetime commitment in a marriage," said Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., chairman of the bishops' Ad Hoc Committee on Defense of Marriage, in a news release about the draft document.

"The Catholic Church has a vision for marriage that can sustain spouses in good times and in bad times -- one that can lead them to happiness and holiness in their relationship," he added. "This message is based on both reason and faith; it is God's plan for the good of the spouses, their children and family, and society as a whole."

Richard McCord, executive director of the bishops' Secretariat of Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, said in the same release that the pastoral letter "will be the launch for several new projects that will offer resources for local pastoral ministries." "We also plan to continue developing what has already been successful, especially a public service media campaign on the good effects of marriage as well as our popular Web site, www.foryourmarriage.org, that provides an abundance of practical materials for engaged and married couples," McCord added.
 
Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Back to top

The following link is to a new independent film which needs our support to expose the corruption of Planned Parenthood. The movie is called Blood Money and in order for the producers to get it into the theaters they need to show that millions of interested people have visited their website. You need only visit the website; there is no need to sign-up as a supporter unless you are compelled to do so.   The second link is the trailer for the movie.   PLEASE HELP GET THIS IMPORTANT FILM INTO THEATERS BY VISITING THE WEBSITE, then forward this to your family and friends! Americans NEED to see this...
http://www.bloodmon eyfilm.com/

Suggestions from homeschooled kids:
The following is an EXTREME CLOSE UP!
Wonders of the Universe and Creation
How big is a carbon atom compared to a coffee bean?
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/
Then grab the button at the LHS bottom of the illustration and drag it slowly to the right hand side.

Back to top