My long-term readers know just how much I renounce Gary Ezzo and all his works. Not only are his parenting philosophies ugly and dangerous, but he’s a hypocrite as well, one who has left several churches under ethical clouds. I have big feelings about Gary Ezzo. This can best be seen in my Official Gary Ezzo Webpage, inspired by the Official Ninja Webpage. For a more serious critique of the man and his methods, pop over to Ezzo.info.
Now I’ve had some harsh things to say about Gary Ezzo over the years, so here’s an olive branch. I thought I’d suggest some parenting aids to his very active marketing department. Here are a few products that I thought really captured the spirit of Growing Kids God’s Way:
Yikes! Sadly, I know people who would actually want to purchase these items and a few more who would turn them into a home business to sell at a homeschooling convention!
Exactly. Some groups are weird beyond parody. . .
[...] more subtle, but leads to other struggles in faith and family. Why all this crud in our churches? Sometimes you just have to laugh at it all, so that you don’t [...]
I appreciate you exposing this harmful and legalistic parenting program. I suppose it’s great for dog training, but not for children. I say this as a loving parent who recently witnessed the birth of my 5th child. “Shepherding a Child’s Heart” seems to be a better fit.
Barry-
That’s a very astute remark. A lot of the training methods of Ezzo (and more so Pearl) are basically operant conditioning — less suited to children made in the image of God than to dogs.
Really?? May I ask why? Because I’m actually trying to figure how Tripp gets so many accolades when he sounds pretty much the same as Ezzo et al. He still insists that there’s a “battle” between parent and child in which the parent must win. Granted, he says that there are times when the parent must apologize for not being “biblical” enough in his parenting. But Tripp still insists that there is one way to parent and his method is it.
I’ve been so intrigued by this widespread assumption of Tripp’s superiority that I actually got his 1990 dissertation from Westminster (a proto-version of his book) and I’m reading Ginger Plowman too . . . just so that I could see every iteration of his ideas.
So, in other words, go on. . . .
I don’t see much difference between Ezzo and Tripp either.