Recently, I had the opportunity to sit in on a discussion between four 20-somethings. The topic: how their parents raised them. Of greatest interest to me were the two young ladies who observed that their parents never prepared them for adulthood.
What they shared were numerous stories about how their parents cared for them, protected them, made decisions for them, and in one instance even insisted that all pay checks be turned over to the parents because the parents didn't believe the child would make good decisions on what to do with the money. One of the young ladies described her college life as "brutal" because she was never prepared to handle attention from boys. The other spoke of the trouble she got into financially because no one ever showed her how to manage money. The longer they spoke and the more they shared, the clearer it became that the parents spent all of their time focusing on the journey (childhood) and never considered that all children are destined to become adults. In other words, they completely missed the point that as parents we need to be preparing our children for their destination - adulthood.
I understand the desire to keep children from what will harm them. Of course we are called to protect our children. I understand that we want to give our children the best, but when we seek to "bubble rap" our kids, either consciously or unconsciously, the law of unintended consequences takes hold and the children are harmed.
My wife and I always believed that one of the duties God gave us as parents was to take a child who was fully and completely dependent upon us, teach this child how to be independent in the hope that as adults we would be interdependent. I am always just a bit confused by parents who don't prepare a child for adulthood. Do they think they will be around forever to live and breath for their child? Don't they know that anyone or anything who/which doesn't learn to breath on its own cannot survive? Then there are the parents who demand a child stay subservient to them in diligent obedience all of his/her live. These parents cite the commandment "Honor your father and mother." But giving honor doesn't mean as an adult I still do everything my parents want me to do. Curiously, very few of these parents are doing everything grandma and grandpa want them to do.
There is no one size fits all answer to, "How do we prepare our children for the destination of adulthood?" Parenting, no matter how young or how old our children are, requires us to set an appropriate tension in the family. It is akin to setting the tension in a trampoline. Set the tension too high and the performer hits his head on the ceiling. Set the tension to low and the performer bottoms out. Manage every aspect of the child's life and the child is strangled by micromanaging. Manage the child's journey too loosely and the lack of structure will result in an undisciplined approach to adulthood. While setting tension in the family is critical and difficult, it is not impossible.
There are four primary areas one should pay attention to in the quest of preparing a child for adulthood. These areas are represented in the acronym S.I.P.S.
S piritually
I ntellectually
P hysicallly
S ocially
Every area needs an appropriate amount of attention and remember to do it in sips. It's awfully hard to drink from a fire-hydrant.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
Unconscious Parenting
There were -and still are- many times that I endeavored to teach my sons something. With each age came new and different adventures of teaching the boys what I thought they needed to learn at that age. The lessons started small -how to tie a shoe- and grew progressively more adult and complex -how to tie a tie; how to use a vacuum cleaner, how to use a lawnmower; how to ride a bike, how to drive a car (I'm still recovering from this one).
All of these lessons -and so many more- were of course important, but on the grand scale of what is important in life it was the unconscious lessons that our sons learned from me and my wife which proved to be far more important and impactful in the lives of our now-adult sons. I refer to this part of parenting as "unconscious parenting." It is what we teach through example and role-modeling. You see, even when you are not consciously trying to teach a specific lesson, you are still teaching your children. They watch, listen and learn 100% of the time. The list of what we teach through acts of commission, and even more so through omission, is enormous. Commission: handling the routine of life from grocery shopping to cleaning the house, etc. Omission: all the times I failed in the presence of my kids to be kind, loving, compassionate, etc.
Our children had us as an example of how a marriage should look and function. They had us as an example of what work ethic is. They had us as an example of how to problem-solve or resolve personal conflict. We realized very early on that this "parenting thing" is very hard, especially since we have so many imperfections. It's bad enough that they live in a crazy, sin-filled world that will influence them and work at destroying God's creation at every turn; how can I as a parent (regardless of how old my child is) not be a contributing force to that destruction?
The answer is not to be found in our own capacities. Try all you want to will yourself to be and do better; you cannot give that which you do not have. But God has created each of us with the capacity to receive from outside of ourselves, thus allowing us to be and do better than we could on our own. It is called potential. Think of a light bulb: it has the capacity to receive electricity and the potential to illuminate. We have the capacity to receive God's grace and have the potential to live Godly lives. Therein lies the help that we need.
The second chapter of Titus is a chapter that all parents should read and reread, again and again and again. It is only 15 verses long. Here are verses 11-12: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say 'no' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age."
One might argue that there are many parents who are "good" parents and they don't have God in their family/lives. I would contend that from a worldly point of view this might be what constitutes being a "good parent," but from God's point of view it falls enormously short. In Matthew 16:26 Jesus asks, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" If a parent does not try to impart the spiritual realities of God and this present life to a child, thus contributing to eternal separation from God, what "good" has this parent done?
Once again, we should go back to Paul's letter Titus. First Titus 2:1, "you must teach what is in accordance with sound doctrine." Next, verses 7-8 of chapter 2: "in everything set [children] an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us."
All of these lessons -and so many more- were of course important, but on the grand scale of what is important in life it was the unconscious lessons that our sons learned from me and my wife which proved to be far more important and impactful in the lives of our now-adult sons. I refer to this part of parenting as "unconscious parenting." It is what we teach through example and role-modeling. You see, even when you are not consciously trying to teach a specific lesson, you are still teaching your children. They watch, listen and learn 100% of the time. The list of what we teach through acts of commission, and even more so through omission, is enormous. Commission: handling the routine of life from grocery shopping to cleaning the house, etc. Omission: all the times I failed in the presence of my kids to be kind, loving, compassionate, etc.
Our children had us as an example of how a marriage should look and function. They had us as an example of what work ethic is. They had us as an example of how to problem-solve or resolve personal conflict. We realized very early on that this "parenting thing" is very hard, especially since we have so many imperfections. It's bad enough that they live in a crazy, sin-filled world that will influence them and work at destroying God's creation at every turn; how can I as a parent (regardless of how old my child is) not be a contributing force to that destruction?
The answer is not to be found in our own capacities. Try all you want to will yourself to be and do better; you cannot give that which you do not have. But God has created each of us with the capacity to receive from outside of ourselves, thus allowing us to be and do better than we could on our own. It is called potential. Think of a light bulb: it has the capacity to receive electricity and the potential to illuminate. We have the capacity to receive God's grace and have the potential to live Godly lives. Therein lies the help that we need.
The second chapter of Titus is a chapter that all parents should read and reread, again and again and again. It is only 15 verses long. Here are verses 11-12: "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say 'no' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age."
One might argue that there are many parents who are "good" parents and they don't have God in their family/lives. I would contend that from a worldly point of view this might be what constitutes being a "good parent," but from God's point of view it falls enormously short. In Matthew 16:26 Jesus asks, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" If a parent does not try to impart the spiritual realities of God and this present life to a child, thus contributing to eternal separation from God, what "good" has this parent done?
Once again, we should go back to Paul's letter Titus. First Titus 2:1, "you must teach what is in accordance with sound doctrine." Next, verses 7-8 of chapter 2: "in everything set [children] an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us."
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