"Give Them Space"
We often become over-involved in our kids’ lives because we feel responsible for constructing our children’s future, “one two-by-four at a time.” So, “to prevent even the tiniest mishap, we believe we should act as stage managers responsible for all production details: casting, costumes, scenery, music, script changes, and making sure no one ever misses a cue or flubs a line. And boy, does that keep us busy!”
It is our fear that drives much of our over-parenting—our fear that our children might stumble. We think it is our calling to keep our children blissful and successful. But as Dr. Alvin Rosenfeld has written, we have forgotten that both joy and sorrow are natural parts of everyone’s life: As the expression goes, into every life some rain must fall. Close friends spend wonderful sleepovers together; sometimes they fight. Sometimes they make up; other times they remain lifelong enemies. Some nights you have wonderful dreams; on others you have nightmares. Arms get broken; walls gets scaled. Challenges are overcome; life defeats you temporarily. Santa gets you just what you want; Santa gets it all wrong. Toys give great pleasure; sometimes a treasured one breaks. Pets run away and get run over. [Some dogs] have wonderful poppies that friends want for their own; some have pup-pies no one else wants so you have to take them to the pound. The new school is great and you make friends even though you miss the old ones; the new school that you thought was going to be terrific actually is terrible; teachers can be wonderful, inspiring; teachers can be unfair; some teachers simply ought to find an-other line of work.
Parents can not and should not protect their children from every painful experience. Our “compulsion to have our fingers in every mud pie our children make” is not healthy for our kids. Though they occasionally need our coaching, eventually they must develop the drive, the discipline, and the skills to depend on God, rather than us, to solve their problems. When they have a problem with a friend or a coach or their health, encourage them to turn to God first--He is certainly a better counselor than we are!
As I conclude this series on the over-involved parent, remember: You will find it easier to determine the limits of your job as a parent, when you put God at the center of your family life. What is your primary focus—your relationship with God or your relationship with your children?If we build our lives around our children, they will grow up self-obsessed rather than God- and other-obsessed. And what will we do when they are gone? We joke about the empty-nest syndrome but part of it caused by our over-commitment to our kids.
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label parenting. Show all posts
2010/01/05
2009/11/12
Wall-to-Wall” Parenting: Part 3
"Cutting Back (Continued)"
Divorce statistics suggest that parents have focused too much on their kids—the second highest divorce rate is found in the years just after the kids leave home. These parents over-invested in their kids and under-invested in their marriage. So, what other ways should parents scale back?
You aren’t shirking your parental duty if you let your child work out her own social difficulties. When psychologist John Rosemond’s daughter was in middle high, she experienced agonizing social rejection—primarily because she still looked like a little girl. Rosemond explained how he and his wife responded: “We wanted desperately to solve this problem for her. We thought of calling some of the mothers of the more popular girls and asking for their help. We thought of throwing a big expensive birthday party for Amy and inviting all of the popular girls.... We finally came to our senses. We could not solve this problem for Amy.” As a result, the Rosemond’s shifted their strategy from the short-term goal of helping Amy elevate her popularity quotient to the long-term goal of raising an adult who did not depend on other people’s approval in order to feel that her life was in order.
Instead of trying to solve the problem for her, they chose to give her the tools to solve it herself. They told her: “Amy, we know this is painful, but you will not be thirteen forever. Some day, you will be thirty, and all this will seem unimportant then. Furthermore, what you are experiencing today is helping you learn how important it is to never treat another person the way these girls are treating you. It’s also helping you learn to stand on your own two feet, to not depend on other people for a sense of well-being." Though Amy wasn’t thrilled by the speech, she later came to see the wisdom and rightness of her parents’ counsel.
You aren’t shirking your duties as a parent if you don’t help your child with her homework every night. Our culture’s worship of achievement has led many parents to assume a major role in their kids’ school work—checking assignments, reviewing for tests, searching for resources, editing papers, and more. This can be very effective in the short term (i.e., good grades) but what are the long term consequences? Ultimately it produces a de-pendent child and an exhausted parent. Parents justify their efforts by claiming their child would fail if he didn’t receive help. But what is so crushing about failure? A failing grade can be one of the most powerful incentives for change. Ultimately, a child has to learn to take the initiative and solve his own problems—unless you plan to be his roommate in college!
Divorce statistics suggest that parents have focused too much on their kids—the second highest divorce rate is found in the years just after the kids leave home. These parents over-invested in their kids and under-invested in their marriage. So, what other ways should parents scale back?
You aren’t shirking your parental duty if you let your child work out her own social difficulties. When psychologist John Rosemond’s daughter was in middle high, she experienced agonizing social rejection—primarily because she still looked like a little girl. Rosemond explained how he and his wife responded: “We wanted desperately to solve this problem for her. We thought of calling some of the mothers of the more popular girls and asking for their help. We thought of throwing a big expensive birthday party for Amy and inviting all of the popular girls.... We finally came to our senses. We could not solve this problem for Amy.” As a result, the Rosemond’s shifted their strategy from the short-term goal of helping Amy elevate her popularity quotient to the long-term goal of raising an adult who did not depend on other people’s approval in order to feel that her life was in order.
Instead of trying to solve the problem for her, they chose to give her the tools to solve it herself. They told her: “Amy, we know this is painful, but you will not be thirteen forever. Some day, you will be thirty, and all this will seem unimportant then. Furthermore, what you are experiencing today is helping you learn how important it is to never treat another person the way these girls are treating you. It’s also helping you learn to stand on your own two feet, to not depend on other people for a sense of well-being." Though Amy wasn’t thrilled by the speech, she later came to see the wisdom and rightness of her parents’ counsel.
You aren’t shirking your duties as a parent if you don’t help your child with her homework every night. Our culture’s worship of achievement has led many parents to assume a major role in their kids’ school work—checking assignments, reviewing for tests, searching for resources, editing papers, and more. This can be very effective in the short term (i.e., good grades) but what are the long term consequences? Ultimately it produces a de-pendent child and an exhausted parent. Parents justify their efforts by claiming their child would fail if he didn’t receive help. But what is so crushing about failure? A failing grade can be one of the most powerful incentives for change. Ultimately, a child has to learn to take the initiative and solve his own problems—unless you plan to be his roommate in college!
2009/10/10
Wall-to-Wall Parenting: Part 2
"Cutting Back"
There is an increasing trend in our culture to over-parent. This over-parenting fuels the frantic pace of life that exhausts many parents. If you trim what you do for your children, you will have the energy to give them what they truly need.
You aren’t abusing your child if you don’t attend all of his athletic contests. Many children who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s had parents who seldom watched their children participate in ath-letics. Today we’ve gone to the other extreme. I know parents who even attend all of their child’s practices!
But the constant presence of a parent is unnecessary. One of my favorite childhood memories is summertime, pick-up baseball games. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I biked across town (3-4 miles) to play baseball with my cousins and their friends. (My mom was astonished at how early I would get up to play ball!) We spent the cool mornings playing ball and the hot afternoons swimming. Reminiscing, I find that I am one of those men “who cling as long as life and common sense will let them to the days when a game of baseball could fill a whole afternoon so full that it would run over at the edges.” And this joyous experience took place without the participation of even one adult!
What are you teaching your kids when relationships with God or your spouse or one of your other children bows constantly to a child’s athletic calendar? You may be training your child to expect the whole world to attend to him in the same focused way. Over-parenting often produces self-absorbed children who never learn that the world doesn’t spin around them.
You aren’t abusing your child if you turn in your chauffeur license. Many parents spend a chunk of every day driving their children from one activity to another to another. Let them bike to a friend’s home—the added exercise will be good for them.
But part of the reason we spend so much time ferrying our kids is that we sign them up for too many activities. They need car transportation to meet their tight schedules. Why do we do this? Partly because we fear that an ounce of a child’s talent may be untapped. A parent might reason: “I know my son is already playing soccer and taking guitar lessons, but I better sign him up for golf lessons also. Who knows, he may be the next Tiger Woods!”
But would it have been a tragedy if Tiger Woods parents had placed more emphasis on academics than on golf? Psychologist John Rosemond commented on such a possibility: “Maybe Tiger would have grown up to become a virologist, and maybe he would have discovered a cure for AIDS.”
Some parents won’t cut back their child’s (and thus, their own) commitments because they fear their child’s resistance. Rather than resist, most children are relieved. They want time to be with you, to hang out at home, to read a book, to play with a friend.
There is an increasing trend in our culture to over-parent. This over-parenting fuels the frantic pace of life that exhausts many parents. If you trim what you do for your children, you will have the energy to give them what they truly need.
You aren’t abusing your child if you don’t attend all of his athletic contests. Many children who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s had parents who seldom watched their children participate in ath-letics. Today we’ve gone to the other extreme. I know parents who even attend all of their child’s practices!
But the constant presence of a parent is unnecessary. One of my favorite childhood memories is summertime, pick-up baseball games. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I biked across town (3-4 miles) to play baseball with my cousins and their friends. (My mom was astonished at how early I would get up to play ball!) We spent the cool mornings playing ball and the hot afternoons swimming. Reminiscing, I find that I am one of those men “who cling as long as life and common sense will let them to the days when a game of baseball could fill a whole afternoon so full that it would run over at the edges.” And this joyous experience took place without the participation of even one adult!
What are you teaching your kids when relationships with God or your spouse or one of your other children bows constantly to a child’s athletic calendar? You may be training your child to expect the whole world to attend to him in the same focused way. Over-parenting often produces self-absorbed children who never learn that the world doesn’t spin around them.
You aren’t abusing your child if you turn in your chauffeur license. Many parents spend a chunk of every day driving their children from one activity to another to another. Let them bike to a friend’s home—the added exercise will be good for them.
But part of the reason we spend so much time ferrying our kids is that we sign them up for too many activities. They need car transportation to meet their tight schedules. Why do we do this? Partly because we fear that an ounce of a child’s talent may be untapped. A parent might reason: “I know my son is already playing soccer and taking guitar lessons, but I better sign him up for golf lessons also. Who knows, he may be the next Tiger Woods!”
But would it have been a tragedy if Tiger Woods parents had placed more emphasis on academics than on golf? Psychologist John Rosemond commented on such a possibility: “Maybe Tiger would have grown up to become a virologist, and maybe he would have discovered a cure for AIDS.”
Some parents won’t cut back their child’s (and thus, their own) commitments because they fear their child’s resistance. Rather than resist, most children are relieved. They want time to be with you, to hang out at home, to read a book, to play with a friend.
2009/09/14
Wall-to-Wall Parenting: Part 1
"First Things First"
Many parents today are overly committed to parenting. Yes, you read that accurately. I have taught Christian parenting for the past 30+ years. For most of those years I have pleaded with parents to increase their commitment to their children. But in the past decade there has been a shift in our culture and in my teaching. While our children still have great needs for our involvement, I now believe many Christian parents need to cut back what they do for their children. Let me explain.
Deuteronomy 6 is a foundational passage for teaching parents how to pass on a living faith to their children. In that chapter, God instructs parents to: "Love the Lord YOUR God with all YOUR heart and with all YOUR soul and with all YOUR strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon YOUR hearts." Parents, if you are serious about your children learning how to love God, then loving God must be the priority of your life--an even more important commitment than your commitment to your children.
But many Christian parents complain that after cooking meals, chauffeuring the kids, doing laundry, maintaining a yard, running errands, attending children’s activities, etc., etc., they don’t have the time or energy for individual time with God. But are all of these tasks part of the job description for The Good Parent? Not only are many of them unnecessary, but some are harmful. One of the major tasks for children is to learn how to be independent of their parents. If parents do too much for their kids, it will stunt their growth.
So where should we cut back what we do for our children? First, by including ALL family members in the upkeep of a household. Psychologist John Rosemond has said that when he speaks to groups of parents he asks them a question: “Raise your hand if you had chores when you were a child?” Almost all of them raise a hand. But then he asks: “Raise your hand if you require your kids to do regular chores?” And only a few raise a hand. Please, for your children’s sake, don’t treat them like privileged house guests. When our boys were growing up, they would occasionally complain about their household responsibilities: “Why do we have to weed the garden and do our own laundry? Our friends aren’t their parents’ slaves!” To those complaints we would calmly (most of the time!) answer: “Family life is a joint effort. If you don’t help out then some other member of this family will be unfairly burdened.”
So even if you’re a super-Mom who has unlimited energy, your children still need you to do less. By the time they leave home permanently, they will need to know how to wash their own clothes, clean a bathroom, fix a meal, care for a lawn, budget their money, etc. If they don’t learn this during childhood, it is much harder to learn this as an adult. (I still don’t know how to do my own laundry!)
The sacrificial, “wall-to-wall” parenting that many parents are committed to may feel good, but it may not do good. If you cut back what you do for your kids, your kids will benefit by learning how to care for themselves. You will benefit by having more time to pursue your first priority--your relationship with God.
Many parents today are overly committed to parenting. Yes, you read that accurately. I have taught Christian parenting for the past 30+ years. For most of those years I have pleaded with parents to increase their commitment to their children. But in the past decade there has been a shift in our culture and in my teaching. While our children still have great needs for our involvement, I now believe many Christian parents need to cut back what they do for their children. Let me explain.
Deuteronomy 6 is a foundational passage for teaching parents how to pass on a living faith to their children. In that chapter, God instructs parents to: "Love the Lord YOUR God with all YOUR heart and with all YOUR soul and with all YOUR strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon YOUR hearts." Parents, if you are serious about your children learning how to love God, then loving God must be the priority of your life--an even more important commitment than your commitment to your children.
But many Christian parents complain that after cooking meals, chauffeuring the kids, doing laundry, maintaining a yard, running errands, attending children’s activities, etc., etc., they don’t have the time or energy for individual time with God. But are all of these tasks part of the job description for The Good Parent? Not only are many of them unnecessary, but some are harmful. One of the major tasks for children is to learn how to be independent of their parents. If parents do too much for their kids, it will stunt their growth.
So where should we cut back what we do for our children? First, by including ALL family members in the upkeep of a household. Psychologist John Rosemond has said that when he speaks to groups of parents he asks them a question: “Raise your hand if you had chores when you were a child?” Almost all of them raise a hand. But then he asks: “Raise your hand if you require your kids to do regular chores?” And only a few raise a hand. Please, for your children’s sake, don’t treat them like privileged house guests. When our boys were growing up, they would occasionally complain about their household responsibilities: “Why do we have to weed the garden and do our own laundry? Our friends aren’t their parents’ slaves!” To those complaints we would calmly (most of the time!) answer: “Family life is a joint effort. If you don’t help out then some other member of this family will be unfairly burdened.”
So even if you’re a super-Mom who has unlimited energy, your children still need you to do less. By the time they leave home permanently, they will need to know how to wash their own clothes, clean a bathroom, fix a meal, care for a lawn, budget their money, etc. If they don’t learn this during childhood, it is much harder to learn this as an adult. (I still don’t know how to do my own laundry!)
The sacrificial, “wall-to-wall” parenting that many parents are committed to may feel good, but it may not do good. If you cut back what you do for your kids, your kids will benefit by learning how to care for themselves. You will benefit by having more time to pursue your first priority--your relationship with God.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
