ZT: How the Bible Can Help Chinese Parents To Rear Children

How the Bible Can Help Chinese Parents

To Rear Children

            By Dan A. Myers, MD, Child Psychiatrist

 

   All over the world, cultures are seeing their trusted child rearing traditions weakening. Political, economic, and technological events are permitting parents to abandon some of the work of parenting; to the detriment of their children.  Immoral, criminal, violent behaviors, addiction, mental illness, homicide, and suicide are increasing in young people. Many studies see the breakdown in effective parenting as the cause of these disturbing social ills. 

 Traditionally, Chinese parents through trial and error from generation to generation chose certain values to teach their children. They learned what worked and taught it. However, modern times have left a gap in this process.  China’s explosive economic expansion has created a culture that is very different from the previous generation. The migration of people from rural to city lives has drastically changed living styles.  Child rearing principles usually passed from one generation to another to another rapidly become out of date. Modern Chinese parents badly need a parenting guide that can return family order, and show the way for parents to protect and nurture their children while shaping the children’s developmental skills, character and moral values.

Western culture faces many similar parenting challenges. However, a high percentage of Americans parents rely on the Bible for child rearing direction. Its teaching has been tested by parents for 4,000 thousand years. Christians found that the Bible, the word of God, leads parents to rear successful and happy children.

Learning more about Chinese history and culture convinces me that our Christian Bible teaching share many similar views with Chinese tradition. Chinese feel parents should be honored. Western parents agree. Respect for authority is fostered in both cultures. Confucius taught, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you,” The Christian Bible teaches this same principle, known as the “Golden Rule.” 

Christians, the prevailing religious group in America, worship one God. Some scholars feel the “Unknown God,” worshiped by the emperors of ancient Chinese dynasties, is the same God that is described in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

The Chinese people are known for being practical. There are practical reasons for considering the Christian Bible for a parenting guide:  

·        Parents have used the Bible as a guide for over 3000 years. 

·        Christianity is the world’s largest religion. 

·        Two billion people would not be using the Bible if it didn’t work.

·        The Bible is readily available in English and Mandarin.

·        A Bible is relatively inexpensive.

·        The Bible is a single reference. All instruction is in this one book.

·        There is no one Chinese book recognized as authoritative.  

·        The Bible applies to every race.

·        The Bible applies to every culture.

·        The Bible applies to all current and past events.

·        The Bible is a moral guide accepted all over the world.

·        Children reared by the Bible adjust more easily to western cultures.

·        The Bible shaped the growth and prosperity of the US.

·        Others trust people who are reared by Biblical principles.

·        Historically, nations that practice Bible teaching have prospered.

·        Historically, nations that abandon Bible teaching collapse.

·        One can follow the Bible and still be a patriotic citizen.

·        The Bible does not condone disobeying the government.

·        The Bible is not like the Koran. No jihad, no subjugation of women.

·        The Bible is the most popular book that has ever been written.

·        The Bible is the most influential book ever written.

·        No literate person is fully educated who has not read the Bible.

·        Judge for yourself whether the Bible has value.

·        Never rely on someone else to tell you what it says. Read it yourself.

 

For 30 years I practiced Child, Adolescent Psychiatry and Neurology with no religious guidance, using only scientific direction. After more than 50,000 parent/child interviews and therapies I concluded that the most loving, effective parents were using the Bible as their guide. I decided to read it myself. I discovered that parenting advice, which I had assumed was modern or original, had been recorded in the Bible thousands of years ago. Using the Bible as a guide for child rearing allows parents a healthy course. It is safer than relying only on current psychological instruction. The Bible’s teachings have been used to guide lives for 4000 years. Child psychiatry has existed as a medical specialty only since 1957; and its theories are regularly being challenged and updated.

My experience as a child psychiatrist convinces me that the directions for child rearing given in the Bible are sound, regardless of one’s religious beliefs and cultural background.

The foundation for respect for authority is children honoring their parents. Chinese parents, newly immigrated to the U.S., are at risk of abandoning their strong cultural respect for authority, to adopt the currently popular self-indulgent, child-rearing ways of American parents. Such a parent/child dynamic handicaps a child from reaching his/her true potential, and can cause the child rearing experience to be miserable for both parent and child. 

Biblical based parenting, the foundation of the opulent heritage that America enjoys, can remedy the curse of permissive parenting, while maintaining an emphasis on morality and brotherly love. Chinese Guanxi, a philosophy directed only at achieving worldly success, is not a comparable alternative.           

There is no book of child-rearing instructions for building character that is so specific, so concise, so well tested, or so available, as the Christian Bible.

 

The Bible As A Child Rearing Manual

 

 Reading the Bible cover to cover is easier than you might expect. It may surprise you that it is so short. The entire New Testament, which chronicles Jesus’ life on earth and the early history of the Christian Church, is only 323 pages.  The Gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, containing almost all that is known about Jesus’ life while He was on earth is only 146 pages. 

Although there have been thousands of commentaries written about Jesus’ life, the source of all of them is these same 146 pages. For me, regularly facing the challenge of keeping abreast of reams of medical and psychiatric information, it is refreshing to find that by simply becoming knowledgeable about 146 pages, I can critically evaluate whatever any expert or preacher proclaims about Jesus.

The Old Testament, a sacred text for both Jews and Christians, is filled with drama and adventure, recounting two thousand years of history from Abraham to Christ. It records God’s laws, describing punishments for disobedience, and rewards for obeying.  Most of the stories (books) have lessons, morals, and instruction that are readily applied to modern day life.

The Old Testament is 1053 pages in length. The entire Bible is 1373 pages. The majority of the Bible is written in a “story” format, much easier and enjoyable to read than the Koran that is written in a “poetry” format.  

Parents who are not familiar with the Bible may be disappointed that child rearing instructions are not grouped together conveniently in a particular book or chapter. Although my book, Biblical Parenting, Chinese Christian Edition sorts through the Bible and lists those verses that are most pertinent to child rearing, this is no substitute for reading the Bible yourself. My view is that the Bible is written with no specific child rearing chapters to give us perspective. Although child rearing is important, parents putting their own lives in order comes first. The most effective way for parents to teach good behavior is for the parents to manifest it. “Do what I say, not what I do,” doesn’t work well for teaching children.

 

 

Using the Bible in Modern Times

Biblical child rearing directions are not rigid. Through the years, they have been applicable to other times and cultures. Neither the Bible, nor life, is always black or white. Parental reasoning, and common sense is required. 

             Parents are regularly confronted by situations that come in shades of gray. For example, which television shows should be off-limits for children and should restrictions be lifted as the children become more mature? If the parents’ belief system includes moral standards as described throughout the Bible, countless judgments they will make on behalf of their children may be positively influenced. 

It is not possible to completely screen children from all the immorality in our world. However, regular exposure of children to immorality does not better prepare them for adulthood. Their homes should be havens where they can grow and strengthen with a minimum of noxious influences. The more fixed children become in their value system, the better they can withstand an immoral world. 

A psychiatry professor explained it this way: Suppose a man has a job where every day he is ridiculed, and humiliated by his boss. Do you think that, to prepare him for work, his wife should hit, curse, and snub him at home? No, he needs respite from the cruelty and harshness. The confusion and immorality we too often see in our world does not mean that protecting our children through Biblical direction is irrelevant; it causes us to need the Bible more!

              Modern discoveries about human development and behavior can help in understanding a child, and can provide guidance or treatment when problems occur. For example, counseling for parents in marital turmoil may prevent a divorce. Recognizing a child’s learning disability and providing remedial teaching and schooling can expand his or her educational potential. The diagnosis and treatment of attention deficit disorder, depression, drug abuse, obsessive compulsive disorder, and other disorders during childhood not only result in better adjusted children, but treatment may also prevent mental illness when they become adults. Suicidal adolescents and children can be identified, protected, and successfully treated. Out-of-control children and teenagers may be hospitalized to interrupt dangerous, self-destructive behavior.

            When psychiatric theories and treatment are supported by the words of the Bible, it increases my confidence in applying them. This does not mean that medical treatments not found in the Bible are suspect or invalid. The Bible does not mention insulin, antibiotics, or chemotherapy, yet we use them feeling no conflict with Biblical teaching. A proper perspective would be for parents to be cautious about accepting an explanation, recommendation, or treatment for their child if it contradicts Biblical teaching.

I have come to appreciate that living with no spiritual guidance handicaps families. Don’t penalize yourselves by remaining ignorant of the Bible’s potential to improve your lives.

My book, Biblical Parenting, Chinese Christian Edition, uses scientific and Biblical references, as well as my personal experience as a father of six children, to provide Chinese parents with practical advice and child rearing direction The book is available through Amazon.com, ISBN: 9781461076698 or through your local bookstore.

           

Dan A. Myers, MD, Child psychiatrist