The Parable of the Socks - Excerpt from Why Repentance Matters

Perhaps it is because I’m a marriage and family therapist that I find the marriage analogy of redemption through our covenant relationship with Christ so illuminating.... One example I often use in counseling others about the Atonement of Christ is the “Parable of the Socks and the Laundry Hamper.”

There was once a man married to a lovely wife. They had a great marriage in many respects, but one issue arose early in their married life. The husband had a propensity to take off his dirty socks and “shoot baskets” with those socks toward the hamper across the room. The problem was that he wasn’t as good of a shot as he thought he was, and (more often than not) the socks ended up on the floor near the hamper rather than in it. He also wasn’t the conscientious type to go over and pick up the socks on the floor when he missed making the basket. He just left them there on the floor near the hamper. His loving wife was kind, but firm in her boundaries. She didn’t mind washing the clothes in the hamper, but she wasn’t about to be her husband’s “maid” and pick up his scattered dirty socks when he missed making a basket into the hamper. She asked him to please pick up his own dirty socks so they would be in the hamper and not on the floor.

Well, the husband honestly tried for a while to be mindful of his wife’s wishes and tried to be considerate about getting his dirty socks into the hamper. But human nature being what it is, he was “foolish and unstable” in his determination to please his wife, and he eventually fell back into the habit of shooting baskets with his socks and leaving the missed ones on the floor.

What would you imagine the wife did in response? Did she divorce him? No, of course not. Instead she firmly reminded him of his promise not to shoot baskets with his socks and leave them on the floor. Essentially, she “chastened him” and “called him to repentance.” The husband responded penitently by promising not to do that again. Harmony in their marital relationship was restored. This went on for an even longer period of time where the husband ensured the dirty socks were in the hamper, but eventually the natural man within himself got the best of him and he “relapsed” into his old sock-shooting behavior. The wife once again was patient. Rather than divorce him, she once again chastened him and he repented of his ways. The cycle of behaving by ensuring the dirty socks were in the hamper followed by lapses, chastening, and repentance went on for many years.  Despite the seriously irksome behavior of the husband’s wayward sock-shooting, the wife never left him. Sure, there were times of relational discord, but they always worked it out as the husband sincerely repented.

One day something very significant happened. The husband was about to shoot baskets with his dirty socks and before he did so, with the help of the Holy Ghost, a few thoughts instantaneously popped into his mind. He first pictured his wife who was very pregnant with their fourth child having to bend over and pick up his socks. Despite her physical difficulty at having to bend over the large swelling in her abdomen due to the baby inside her, she picked up the socks anyway out of love for her husband and a desire to have a clean house. The second thought was of his three-year-old son watching dad shoot baskets and then mimicking dad’s behavior with his own little socks – leaving them on the floor for mom to pick up. The third thought was of the area of the room near the hamper covered with a mountain of smelly, dirty socks piled up against the hamper and knew that if it weren’t for his wife, the room would be an unpleasant mess. He realized in that moment that he really did value a clean room and should act accordingly. He actually did want a clean room in and of himself, not just because that was what his wife liked. Secondly, he realized what a poor example he had set for his children and how they were not learning to be responsible. Finally, he came to understand the great burden he placed on his wife through his thoughtless actions, how she’d been patient with his carelessness, how much she loved him that she would labor to keep the room clean, and also that she loved him enough to not enable him, but rather to have high expectations that he repent and change his ways. In that moment, he wanted the socks in the hamper as much as his lovely wife did and he changed his behavior to fit his new value. The couple never again had a problem with socks being left outside the hamper ever again.

            In what way is each one of us like the wayward sock-shooting husband? How does selfishness and thoughtlessness in our lives lead us away from closer, happier relationships with family members, loved-ones, and the Savior? How often do we go through the cycle of sinning, being chastened, repenting, and the relapsing back into sin? The answer to these questions is probably, “More often then we’d like to admit.”

            But the solution to our problems is the same as the one for the wayward sock-shooting husband. Just like him, we have to:

1.     Enter into a covenant relationship with One (Jesus Christ) who is more righteous than us and has the patience to extend forgiveness until we grow, develop, and progress.

2.     We learn and grow stronger - strengthening the spiritual resolve and capacity to completely forsake the sin – as we earnestly and sincerely engage in the process of recognizing our sins, enduring chastening, and repenting to the best of our ability (the sacrament is a great weekly tool to help us repent and grow stronger each week).

3.     We have to become converted to the principles of righteousness. We do this by yielding our hearts to God, seeking to desire what He desires, recognizing the impact of our sins on ourselves and others (including the Savior’s burdens He carried for us), correcting our actions to fit our values, and genuinely have a change of heart – thereby wanting what He wants and purifying our desires before Him.

----Excerpt from Chapter Three of Why Repentance Matters by Dr. Kyle N. Weir 

----available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Why-Repentance-Matters-Kyle-Weir/dp/1976846943/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1523944722&sr=8-1&keywords=why+repentance+matters

Reconstitutionalism

I want a party!  No, I'm not talking about a birthday party (though I don't mind those kinds of parties).    I'm talking about a political party - one that I can actually believe in.  A party that we all (or at least the majority of us Americans) can believe in that would actually solve some of America's (and several state and local) issues.

For me, personally, the party of choice was always the Republican party.  But the 2016 fiasco of Donald Trump as the GOP nominee is simply the final straw of a long list of disappointments and grievances with the GOP.  I'm tired of the "Grand Old Party."  I want a Grand New Party! --- A GNP that cares about improving our country's GDP, our American values, our national security, and preserving our God-given rights more than stuffing the coffers of their PAC and keeping themselves and their staffers in lucrative, powerful positions (and then collecting hefty pensions when their personal political game comes to an end or working for lobbyist firms willing to pay them for their connections to the continuing movers and shakers of political parties).

I have friends and relatives equally dissatisfied with the Democratic party.  Though I can't speak as eloquently about democrats who are frustrated with Democratic party (having never been a democrat), I do know those friends and relatives of mine expressing their dissatisfaction cite the fact that the democratic party supports abortion, higher taxes, sexual permissiveness (just recall Bill Clinton's behavior as one disgusting example!), gun control as a solution to radical Islamic terrorism, and the worst racial divisiveness in decades rather than the well-being and interests of the American citizens.  The Democratic party seems to have left most of its former members and became increasingly more radically leftist.  I hear (former) democrat friends and relatives say, "I didn't leave the Democratic party, the party left me."

Most Americans are not happy about our choices for the major party nominees. A Shoen Consulting firm poll shows that 61percent of likely voters are not happy about voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.1 Furthermore the poll found that:

"...80 percent of voters agreed with the statement 'it’s time to try something new' by electing a president who is 'committed to common sense, values, civility, and working to get things done.' Americans agree that the country is in trouble and that Democrats and Republicans have failed to solve any of the pressing issues that are hurting us...". 2

We have a political system that is not working for us - not because the Constitutional structure of government established by the Founding Fathers is flawed (it is the most inspired system of governance on earth) - but because the current elected officials of both major parties (and the citizens who elect, lobby, and uphold the politicians in their corruption) have put their interests above the interests of the country.  These elected officials have sought ways to circumvent the Constitution to suit their own needs and self-interested pursuits.  They are far more interested in playing politics to pursue personal power rather than focusing on the what is truly needed for the country's interests.  While it is true that Americans will always have differing opinions on public matters, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that politicians from both sides of the aisle are using differences to divide society in ways that serve the politicians' interests rather than society's interests.


We need a new party! We need a party that re-enthrones the U.S. Constitution as the core of our political system - one that uses the Constitution as the litmus test for their actions.

We also need to reset the political systems of our nation, states, and local governments, but we have to focus first on the federal level.  The state and local levels take a level of complexity to reset that would take more time and effort, but we can very quickly change the Leviathan that our federal government has become.  I'm not talking about a revolution or secession.  I'm not advocating an overthrow of the government.  I'm talking about using the system in place already granted by the Constitution:

1.  We vote out ALL the political incumbents - starting first with anyone who has served at the federal level.  "We the People"must exercise our right to vote.  If we all refuse to vote for any senator, representative, previous secretary, or other member of the the federal government who has served in the past or presently serve, we can rid Washington DC of all those who have failed us in just a couple of election cycles.

2.  We can seek a Convention of States under Article V of the Constitution seeking amendments like term limits, a balanced budget, and consequences for politicians (such as impeachment) for federal officials who violate the Constitution with executive orders that act as a law unto themselves, legislation that applies to the common people but not the lawmakers who make the law, and judges who create law from the bench rather than adjudicate it according to the Constitution.  Any politician who seeks to weaken our God-given rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights (Freedom of Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, Gun Ownership, Legal Due Process, States Rights, etc.) cannot be trusted to continue in office until the end of their term, let alone be re-elected.


Thomas Jefferson (with a modicum of help from John Adams and Ben Franklin) authored the Declaration of Independence.  In that remarkable, inspired document we are taught:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."3 

Our federal government has forgotten that it derives its just powers from the consent of the covered.  It has forgotten that its role is to secure our rights, not erode them.  Our federal government has become destructive to these ends.

Jefferson gives us a solution to our problems.  He clearly states that is "the Right of the People to alter or abolish (government), and to institute new Government..."  The time has come to re-institute our federal government.  The structure of our government is exceptional, but the players in the political part are corrupt.  Re-instituting government could retain (and re-enthrone) the same Constitutional system of government but create radical practical change if we wholly reconstitute the political leaders within the system.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "reconstitute"as: "to form (an organization or group) again in a different way."4

As we found this Grand New Party - the Reconstitutionalist Party - we have an opportunity to change our nation by focusing on things most Americans still hold dear:

1.  Return our focus to governing through the inspired U.S. Constitution.

2. Reconstitute our government by voting out all incumbents at the federal level over the next few election cycles and then pressuring our state legislatures to call for a Convention of States to consider amendments calling for term limits for federally elected positions, a balanced budget amendment, and stricter penalties (including impeachment) for politicians and judges who violate the constitution.

3.  Seek common sense solutions that put the interests of the nation ahead of the interests of the politicians.

4.  Defend our God-given rights as enumerated in the Bill of Rights and the remainder of the Constitution.

5.  Except for the Executive branch, we need a "part-time" government.  While we always need a full-time president and his cabinet and their respective departments to address the immediate needs of the day, we do not need full-time career politicians in the legislature (Congress) or Supreme Court.  We need those in office to see their service as a temporary, limited service, not a full-time career.

It's time to hit the reset button on our own government.  We need to reconstitute the government officers of the United States of America.  Help establish the GNP - the Reconstitutionalist Party!  If you want to join this party (we need to gather lists of names of voters to establish the party before you can register), email your first and last name, email address, and pertinent contact information to reconstitutionalism@gmail.com.  Thank you and God bless the USA!




References:


1. http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/05/26/clinton-vs-trump-makes-many-americans-unhappy-heres-what-voters-really-want-in-2016.html

2. ibid

3. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

4. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reconstitute

Parenting, Pain, Patricide, and The Power of Star Wars: The Force Awakens 

Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens, there is information in this blog that will spoil the plot-line.  Go watch the movie first, and then read my blog.  If you are one who hasn’t watched any Star Wars movies (Where have you been hiding all these years?), go watch all seven of them (in the following order: Episode IV, V, VI, I – yes even this one despite its flaws, II, III, and VII) and then read my blog.

I love Star Wars!!! Frankly, who doesn't? As the meme says, "You either love Star Wars or you're wrong." All joking aside, the original Star Wars: A New Hope (Episode IV) came out when I was a six year-old boy. In my mind's memory, vast portions of my childhood play were devoted to Star Wars in one way or another. It was the perfect blend of Space Opera meets "Coming of Age" saga for the children of my generation. Larger than life, and with the best cinematic technology for its time, Star Wars kindled the imagination and indelibly imprinted the quest for "The Hero's Journey" into our hearts and minds. Watching the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Episode VII) still evokes pleasant childhood reminiscence mixed with gleeful anticipation of new things to come. As a 44 year-old man, this new movie makes me feel like a kid all over again. That's a magical thing. But the greatest reason I love Star Wars: The Force Awakens (TFA as a short-hand moniker) has very little to do with my childhood and everything to do with my experiences in parenthood.

In most of the six previous Star Wars movies, parenting skills weren't prominent. Anakin has a mysterious paternal parentage (the midi-chlorian theory was atrociously bad – a sarcastic “Thanks, George” goes out to the “Creator” for that one). Anakin gets whisked away way too young. His mother's death after years of absence only makes things worse for Anakin. And Leia and Luke clearly weren't parented well by their dead mother (Padme) and their evil father, Darth Vader. Let's face it, the first six Star Wars movies relegate parenting to implied genetic inheritance of the mystical powers of the Force being "strong" in the Skywalker family with very little consideration given to the nurturing side of the Nurture vs. Nature debate. But TFA changes all that. For the first time we see midlife-going-onto-the-"Young Old" generation parents grappling with the consequences of their parenting decisions. Our heroes, Han Solo and Leia Organa clearly have felt pain and sorrow as a result of how their son Ben/Kylo Ren turned out. Indeed the entire Skywalker/Solo family has been wrenched apart by the product of their parenting efforts. Han alternately blames himself and Snokes. Leia likewise wrestles with self-blame and hope. Even Uncle Luke blamed himself enough to disappear for thirty-some years and hideout as a Jedi hermit on top of the Emerald Isle we see at the end of the movie (and which disappearance forms the central plot line of TFA). In this new movie, parenting choices and the impact of that parenting on their family (and their galaxy) lie squarely central to the story. We aren't given much detail. Ben was supposed to be trained by Luke, Leia regrets sending Ben away (whenever that was isn't given nor was the surrounding circumstances of that choice). We know Snokes somehow interfered and swooped in to lead Ben to the dark side. What we do know is that Ben is torn between the light and the dark sides of the Force, that Ben is torn between seeing Han as a "disappointment" as a father and still yearning for daddy's approval, and that in Jungian archetype fashion, the Father (in this case Han Solo) is seen as both powerful and impotent to sway or save his son. Leia has to remind Han that a father can be even more powerful than a Jedi in persuading a wayward son to mend his ways and straighten up. As a midlife father, I felt such an emotional connection with Han in this movie. How often I wished I could get my grown and nearly grown "children" to see things my way and do things the way I would do them, but to no avail. Life's not meant for it to work that way. Each child has been blessed and cursed with free will (or in other words "moral agency") to choose their path for themselves. It's a necessary double-edged sword (or in Kylo Ren's case triple-bladed lightsaber) that allows growth and joy or failure and heartache to be equally plausible but individually and solely accountable. The highlight of the movie comes when Han (at Leia's request) goes out on a catwalk to try and bring Ben/Kylo Ren home (and back to the light side of the Force).

Incidentally, Star Wars has taught me a very important parenting warning: Fathers and sons should NEVER walk out on a catwalk together and talk about their relationships. It doesn't end well - whether someone loses a hand or other limb, or possibly their lives - being out on a catwalk over a vast abyss with your father or son (or Jedi Master/Padawan learner) isn't a good idea.

Out on that perilous catwalk, Han promises he'll doing "anything" to help bring his son back and ease the struggle not realizing patricide was what Kylo Ren had in mind. But even after being stabbed, Han lovingly caresses his son's face as his final act in mortality. He loved his son to the very end, despite the betrayal and heartache. What pathos!!! What truth!!! Call it co-dependency or enmeshment, but our souls are inextricably intertwined with our children to the joyous or bitter end.

For the parents like me back in our galaxy, Star Wars: TFA teaches us powerful truths about loving our wayward children, reminding us that parenting doesn’t end when they reach maturity, and that even the best of parents have children who go astray despite our best efforts.  We are called upon to love them no matter what.

Though the parentage of the other main character in this rising generation, Rey, is still shrouded in mystery, we can also learn that children are resilient.  It will be interesting to see in the movies to come what further parenting lessons Star Wars will teach us all.  So to all parents out there struggling with their emerging young adult children, I bid you these two last words of wisdom: Avoid talking to your children on catwalks over a vast abyss and may the Force be with you!

The Back Door to Behavior Regulation

Virtually every parent, teacher, or caregiver wants well-behaved kids.  Theories abound how to achieve that goal.  My experience as a therapist has taught me that a “one-size-fits-all” approach isn’t effective.  Every child has unique talents and needs, therefore every parenting approach has to be tailored or personalized by wise parents.  But general patterns point the parents in the right direction. 

The four approaches I start with in teaching parenting is:

1.   Behavioral (e.g. Thomas Phelan’s 1-2-3 Magic)

2.     Love and Logic (e.g. Foster and Cline)

3.     Screamfree Parenting (e.g. Hal Runkel)

4.     Attachment (e.g. Theraplay, DDP, or Circle of Security)

There are many other approaches, of course.  But these are good approaches to start with. 

But in this blog I want to focus on just two – behaviorism and attachment.  There’s an extensive literature on the issue and if you like dry, academic writing I can point you in the right direction – just email me at drkyleweir@gmail.com or kyle@roubicekandthacker.com .  I’ll email you my book chapter called “Playing for Keeps” that extensively reviews the literature debate between the two research approaches. But here, I want to simply express a view you won’t see in academia. 

Let’s start with an example.  If you take a class of thirty kids and try to behaviorally regulate them.  Behavioral approaches (names on the board, red-yellow-green lights, token economies, time-outs) will work on about 25 out of the 30 kids.  But for the remaining children, giving consequences for bad behavior will likely increase their bad behavior.  Why?  Because, presuming these children have attachment issues, the child views the punishment in relational terms rather than behavioral terms.  To my friends enamored with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, consider it this way: The child has a cognitive distortion where instead of applying the consequence to their behaviors, they apply it to the relationship.  So when the teacher gives the consequence for an attachment-disordered child’s behavior, the child doesn’t think, “I shouldn’t have done that” (like most kids would think); rather the child thinks, “My teacher hates me.  Well, I hate her, too, so I’ll just be even worse for her.”  The same is true for foster children.  I’ve heard them say things like, “My foster mom hates me, because she punished me.  I’m not gonna do what she says.”

So with attachment disordered children you can’t go in the “front door” (meaning using behavioral techniques) to regulate behavior.  While the behavioral approach works for most kids, it generally exacerbates the problem with attachment-disordered children.  That’s why we have to go through the “back door” to behavioral regulation.  The back door is a path that starts with building safe and secure attachments first, then helping to regulate emotions, and finally the child will self-regulate their own behaviors in an attachment-secure, emotionally-regulated context. 

That’s why I start using a special form of play therapy called Theraplay®. Theraplay is a non-coercive, attachment-savvy form of play therapy developed by Dr. Ann Jernberg in Chicago, IL in the late 1960s.  It focuses on improving the parent-child relationship with play emphasizing the four dimensions of attachment: Structure, Engagement, Nurture, and Challenge.  The therapist helps parents and children learn to play and interact in ways that build a safe secure attachment relationship and helps the child regulate their emotions.  (For a full description of Theraplay see Booth & Jernberg, 2010 or www.theraplay.org - a future blog will give more detail.)

It’s amazing to me but after 12 sessions or so, the children generally feel safe and secure in their family relationships, learn how to regulate their emotions, and then self-regulate their behavior.  In a clinical study we conducted we found that children showed statistically-significant improvement in overall behavioral functioning after 12-15 weeks of Theraplay sessions (see Weir et al., 2013). 

There are many other good non-coercive, attachment-savvy approaches (I also utilize Dan Hughes’ Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy), but Theraplay’s empirical basis is strong and grower more respected every year. 

I’ve done the scientific research to show that Theraplay works.  A study I published in Adoption Quarterly (Weir et al., 2013) about adoptive families we used Theraplay with found that parents improved in some aspects (communication and interpersonal roles).  But the largest, most significant finding was that Theraplay led to statistically significant improvement in overall emotional and behavior functioning.  So now I can tell parents starting out in Theraplay sessions with me, we know the science behind the treatment – “there’s a method to our madness” – so to speak.  Theraplay really works for families. My hope is that if you are struggling with your child, it will work for you.

Kyle N. Weir, PhD, LMFT, is a Professor of Marriage & Family Therapy at California State University – Fresno, a Therapist at Roubicek & Thacker, and author of Intimacy, Identity, and Ice Cream: Teaching Teens and Young Adults to Live the Law of Chastity.