Dear Barbara,

As far as which churches GFI attracts is concerned, I would see several
things in general: the curriculum tends to appeal to those who lean to
more structure, especially a strong authoritarian hierarchy; it appeals to
those who don't feel comfortable with their own parenting, are unsure of
themselves and are looking for a ready-made "scriptural" answer ; it
appeals to those who place high value on outward "obedience" and good
behavior in children very quickly; it appeals to those who are
control-oriented and who don't want children to be disturbances to their
lives, but rather to fit in to their lives.

The parents who choose this curriculum place their trust in the pastors
and teachers who back it, and place their trust in the scholarship, most
often without reviewing it. This grieves me because, as much as I want my
children to embrace our family's beliefs, they must do so of their own
free will and mind, and not just because we tell them to; they must seek
truth for their own. I recently had a chance to dialogue in a now-defunct
GFI folder on AOL and the one interesting thing that I noted was that,
while several very astute questions were posed to GFI families, very few
were addressed with individual thought. Rather, the few answers that were
given were almost verbatim from the book and tapes, and were both
familiar and unsatisfactory in addressing the issues. Original thought to
support their embraced philosophy was conspicuously absent.... to the
point that the GFI families fell silent, stopped answering questions, and
the folder died.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that we cannot generalize as to the
particular churches who GFI appeals to; I have seen some in the same
denomination embrace it, while others have banned it completely. It seems
to fall more to the realm of who is in charge, their own personal
experiences, their own leadership style, etc......

-Lisa

*************************************************
Lisa Marasco, BA, LLLL, IBCLC
[log in to unmask]  /  [log in to unmask]

*************************************************