By Bill Reeves
This is the proper name, abbreviated to SBH, given by educators to a certain problem some students are having in school. Being interpreted, it actually means: “having big trouble with authority,” and the reason for this is that said students never had any authority over them in the home; they were never taught authority! Now they are having a severe problem dealing with authority from the teachers.
The humanistic educators want to relegate such problems to some kind of “handicap,” “disease,” or “deficiency.” How convenient! The student himself has no responsibility in the matter because he is handicapped by his deficiency which he got, who knows where! No, he is not behaving (obeying instructions) because his rearing has been one in which he was not taught to respect authority. This is no new problem: “disobedient to parents” (2 Tim. 3:2). A child who starts out life being allowed to disobey his parents, will continue such ungodly conduct throughout his life outside of the home, because he has learned that he gets by with disobedience and accomplishes his goals by rebellion. He was not restrained, as were not Eli’s sons (1 Sam. 3:13).
Jesus was an obedient child, “subject” to his parents (Luke 2:51). Was he “lucky,” being free of SBH? Was subjection to parents in his genes, and so he escaped SBH?
The humanist wants to give a fancy name to different phenomena (from the Greek word meaning, “a happening, appearance, or event”), a name to cover for the person so described, but what he refuses to do is to go to the cause of the problem and deal with that! Often, when listening to the news, I note that the news media describe what has happened, but do not touch the subject of why (the cause or causes) it happened!
Return discipline and authority to the schools and the problem of SBH will all but disappear. In the cases in which a student insists on rebellion to authority, let him be summarily dismissed from the privilege of public education (which he now no longer deserves), and that will be a deterrent for others who might be contemplated catching the “disease” of SBH! Then there will be tranquility again in our public schools.
When I was in grammar school (in the 30s) there was one “bully” (no one knew that he had “SBH”) but he wasn’t a hero. He was often in the principal’s office for corporal punishment. Today, the bully is a hero among his fellow students. Then there was peace in the schools (to say nothing of prayer and Bible reading which were also there), but now there are shootings, metal detectors, and police officers, but no peace, prayer, Bible reading, and corporal punishment. The humanist does not want the solution; he simply wants to create a euphemistic name for the problem, which will give the patient more benefits and attention than ever.
The humanist denies the God who said: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him,” and, “The rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left to himself causeth shame to his mother” (Prov. 22:15; 29:15). A “child left to himself” will .
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Truth Magazine Vol. XLIV: 4 p9 February 17, 2000