The church I grew up in (like many Evangelical churches) seems moderate from the outside, but regularly promotes extremist theologians, organizations and curriculum. They maintain a tamer image while subtly infiltrating the community with toxicity that is sometimes difficult to pinpoint. “Growing Kids God’s Way” by Gary Ezzo, is a fundamentalist Christian parenting class that is basically a manual on child abuse and you guessed it, promoted by many “moderate” Evangelical churches, including my family’s church.

My parents got sucked in and became obsessed. After taking the class, they even taught it for a few years. This goes to show the extent of the impact this class had on them, because neither my dad nor my mom are naturally inclined toward leadership. They prefer to be behind the scenes, but something about Growing Kids God’s Way compelled them.

Look at the one-star book reviews on Amazon and you’ll see many people warning others of the dangers of this curriculum and telling stories of the trauma and brokenness it wielded on their family. Some of the pillars of the class are “first time and immediate obedience”, promoting painful physical punishment even on babies, saying “I love you” after spanking, servanthood toward the father of the family, “couch time” as a way of instilling inferiority in children, and “appeals” instead of open communication. I’ll explain the lingo.

First time and immediate obedience requires an enthusiastic “yes Mommy/Daddy” within a few seconds of the command. A pause, delay, or even asking a question is disobedience and sin. Parents are told if they repeat a command, they are sinning by enabling delayed obedience. (I was told many times growing up that delayed obedience is disobedience). This narrow and damaging interpretation of obedience puts children constantly on edge. If you don’t hear right away or don’t understand, or if you’re feeling less than happy for some other reason, you can be punished for that. In this mindset children are not allowed to have emotions. They must always be eagerly compliant and submissive. They are not allowed to experience developmentally appropriate expressions of the full human experience.

Appeals are for when a parent asks a child to do something and the child might have new information for the parent. The child must first immediately and enthusiastically say “Yes, Mommy/Daddy” and pause (signifying acceptance of the command) and then they are allowed to ask “May I appeal?”. A “yes, but” from the child is not allowed. Only if the parent says “yes, you may appeal”, can the child then explain something their parent might not have known already, such as the other parent already asked them to do something different for example, or perhaps the food they are being told to eat has an allergen in it. If the parent doesn’t allow the appeal, no further discussion can commence, and the child must obey no matter the circumstances. This can be dangerous. Additionally, this model promotes very formal and limited communication between parents and children, which destroys feelings of intimacy and safety and hinders emotional development.

Telling a child “I love you” during or after physical punishment wires them to believe that love is supposed to hurt them and sets them up for being either the victim or the oppressor in future abusive relationships, often both.

This mindset teaches that even babies can sin. I’ve heard from parents who were instructed to hit their baby if it crawls off a blanket, teaching the baby to “obey” the limits of the blanket and stay put. If the child is curious and continues to crawl after being put back on the blanket, this is explained as sin and rebelliousness. Obviously babies are developmentally unable to obey or understand commands, but eventually the baby will become traumatized and afraid to move and then the parents think they’ve successfully taught obedience to their infant.

My parents were usually gentle people, but this class made them spank me hard (as the first option, not last resort) with a specially designed switch that they ordered from the class. The reason the class had a specially designed spanking switch was to ensure that the spankings hurt enough. And of course, I was always told “We’re doing this because we love you.” It should be no surprise I ended up in an abusive marriage as a young adult.

Growing Kids God’s Way teaches that the entire family should have a heart of servanthood toward the father and husband. He should be served meals first before the children are fed, to teach them he comes first. Thankfully my dad didn’t lean into these fatherly superiority ideas, but my parents did practice “couch time”. This means when the dad gets home from work, he is not supposed to interact with his children until after he and his wife sit down for “couch time” in plain view of the children to show them that children come last. The husband and wife will sit and talk on the couch for however long they want while ignoring the children and the children are not allowed to talk to their parents. While I do think it’s healthy for partners to spend time focused on each other and to teach their children to respect that, the way this class teaches hierarchy is toxic.

This might all sound like something straight out of the Duggar family, but these ideas and similar ones are hidden throughout many of America’s unassuming churches. Even Christians who don’t intentionally adhere to these teachings often are influenced by them and defend other Christians who do in the name of “different convictions”.

Growing Kids God’s Way changed my family for the worse. The meanest my mom ever was to me was for appearances, trying to look good in front of the parents she was teaching the class to. Once my sister and I were in the next room at church waiting for the class to be over, and we were occupying ourselves. At one point we were quietly dancing together, just having fun in a non-disruptive way. But apparently some of the adults next door heard a few of our footsteps and were curious what the sound was (because the rooms were separated by a curtain). My mom was furious and came marching over. She silently “yelled” at us (mouthing and flailing her arms and sneering at us) and she yanked me hard by my wrist. Apparently being heard at all as a child looked bad for their image. We had to sit silently after that.

My parents teaching this class put a lot of pressure on my sister and me to be shining examples of the “finished product” the other adults would get by taking the class. We became their marketing prototypes and we had to be a convincing advertisement, or we brought shame on the family. This experience gives me a lot of empathy for pastors’ kids who are in a similar situation, but for their entire lives and not just for a few years.

As an adult now over two decades later, I don’t totally blame my mother for her reaction that night. Yes, it was her responsibility to treat her children well, but looking back, I see now that the intensity in her glare wasn’t just anger, it was fear. If anyone had arbitrarily decided that she couldn’t “properly” control her children or that she couldn’t accomplish the things she was teaching other parents how to do, then her standing in the church could be destroyed overnight. I unfortunately know what that feels like, as I was unofficially excommunicated from that very same church at 19 years old for something innocent. The experience destroyed me and left scars that I’m still working to heal almost 15 years later. The trauma from that experience has effected every area of my life.

Being part of Evangelical Christianity means you’ve likely seen others go through this and then spend your life trying to avoid it happening to you.

So in an attempt to keep yourself and your family safe, it’s likely you’ll end up traumatizing your kids “God’s Way”. If you don’t like the sound of that, it might be time to leave.