1970
In 1970 James Dobson was a thirty-four-year-old school psychologist in southern California, unknown to the rest of the world. He had his Ph.D. and had been named associate clinical {161} professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine.
But then his first book, Dare to Discipline, came out and that changed everything. The public response was so favorable that he developed a series of workshops on the subject and then a video series based on those workshops. The video series spawned the Focus on the Family radio program, and in 1977 Dobson founded the organization called Focus on the Family.
Dare to Discipline has sold more than three million copies, Dobson's Hide or Seek has sold over a million, and he has written a dozen other books, each one of which broke into the bestseller ranks on publication. His first film series, Focus on the Fam-Hy/ has been seen by more than seventy million people. The · next film series, Turn Your Heart toward Home, was released in 1986 and continues its international circulation. A third series,
Life on the Edge, released in 1984, was designed to help late teens bridge the gap between adolescence and young adulthood. His radio programs are heard on more than 2,900 radio facilities in North America and in seven languages on approximately 1,300 facilities in more than seventy other countries.
Besides Dobson's own works, the Focus organization and radio show often throw their weight behind other books as well.
If an author gets an on-air interview with Dobson, that's as sure a mark of success in the Christian world as a guest spot on Oprah is in secular publishing. Focus has clout. Today the organization, located now in Colorado Springs, ranks as one of the largest parachurch organizations in the world.
And it all started in 1970 with a book. The title, Dare to Discipline, has led to some willful misunderstanding among Dobson's critics. Some say he advocates child beating, and that is certainly not the case. The book merely says that children need love, trust, affection . . . and discipline. Parents face the enduring challenge of helping children grow into responsible adults, and that means maintaining order and developing responsibility in children. Dobson maintains that discipline is part of the package and cannot be neglected by responsible parents.
Dobson's book hit the scene just as the influence of permissive-parenting experts was cresting. Parents had been told to withhold discipline, to let kids choose for themselves. Dare to Discipline found an audience with parents whose homes were in chaos, parents ״ , who sensed that there must be a better way. On the subject of dis-' ^ cipline, Dobson was a lonely voice in the wilderness for about a
decade, but then others started echoing his cries. Even now, wh en so many parents seem to be neglecting their children and when there are so many conflicting influences on children from media, school, and peers, Dobson's message finds a ready market.
Because of his fame in the evangelical community and because of his political views, he was appointed to several di jj ferertt commissions and study groups during the Reagan White House years. Those who don't share his political views may criticize the mixing of politics with his Focus on the Family ministry, but he believes that public policy, as well as the moral climate set in Washington, certainly has a strong effect on the families of the nation.
Whether you agree with James Dobson or not, you cannot disagree that the publication of his book in 1970 had tremendous implications on the evangelical scene for the last thirty
years of the century.