Chapter 1

I want to encourage everyone to read this book.  It has hundreds of bad marks on Amazon.com, but I think those people probably didn't even read the book...  If there are things in the book you don't like, then just take what you can from the book and leave the rest.  As Mr. Pearls says, by the grace of God and through the simple, biblical principles and with determiniation and an open heart, you can train up children who bring you joy and honor.  I hear a lot from people who say that babies can not be trained.  I dissagree.  We have an 18-month old and around 10 months old, I knew that he understood the word, "no" and certain other commands.  Training at such a young age is necessary to eliminate the need for disicpline later.  Two things we've used frequently from this chapter are giving commands in a normal voice, and NOT child-proofing our home.  Mr Pearls says, "If you raise your voice when giving a command to your child, he will learn to associate your tone and sound level with your intention.  If you have trained him to respond to a bellow, don't blame him if he ignores your first 13 calm "suggestions" while waiting for your fevered pitch to reach the point where he interprets it to be a real command."  This is hard to do of course, especially when you're frustrated.  It also goes along with the, "I'm going to count to 3 and then you're getting a spanking!"  I hate it when parents do that, it trains the child that they have three more seconds that they can be disobedient!!  : )  On training not to touch, Mr. Pearl gives a great analogy of the Garden of Eden.  When God wanted to "train" Adam and Eve, he didn't put the forbidden tree up on a shelf or back in the corner of the garden where it's out of sight, He put it right in the middle, where they would see it and be tempted by it.  When you child-proof the home, the child is lead to believe that the only objects that are off-limits are the ones that are out of reach.  This becomes a problem when you're at someone else's home, the grocery store, etc.  When our son was about 11 months old, he just couldn't keep his hands away from the light sockets, of which we have many in our house.  The first time he tried to touch it we told him "no."  Then every time after that if he went to touch it we swatted his hand.  It did take him several days to get the picture, but now we can leave the room with the assuarnce that he won't be sticking his finger in the light socket!