Category: Reflections on Parenting (Page 4 of 7)

Many of you know that for several years I’ve taught a weekly parenting class at Bridgehaven.  I love exploring effective parenting principles and techniques with these delightful moms and dads, many of whom are first-time parents!

This past Monday we talked about two of the most foundational questions pertaining to family life — Who’s in charge of the home? and How is leadership expressed?

Note: this post is long because it represents an hour-long classroom discussion.  But I post it here because it sets a paradigm for good parental leadership…

There are essentially three ways to lead families.  Let’s consider the realities, the problems, and the long-term outcomes of each, for parents as well as kids.

AUTHORITARIAN  PARENTING.

The Authoritarian style of parenting is where the parents act as dictators, controlling everything in the family.  Its mantras are “Because I said so!” and “It’s my way or the high way.”  It uses the Bible verse: “Children obey your parents” as a club.

The Problem.  These parents have abused their God-given responsibility for leading their household.  Although the parents are being decisive and fully engaged, this style of parenting represents an abuse of power.  It devalues the rest of the family and makes them subservient — the will of the parents is all that matters.  Children have no voice and are made to comply with whatever the parents say must happen.  Kids are never allowed to weigh in regarding the reasonableness of rules, their ideas are never heard, nor are they asked about how decisions might affect them.  They’re not allowed to think or feel — they are simply told what they must do.  There is no negotiating whatsoever.  To the children, it feels as if they are treated like property or cattle to be herded.

The Outcome.  This style of parenting produces a variety of problems in kids.  Compliant children develop a low sense of self-worth because they were never allowed to share an opinion or have any input in the family decisions.  They don’t learn how to think or make decisions because they are never allowed to.  They feel unimportant and unworthy of having a say in things.  This sets them up for a potential life of mistreatment by other power abusers.  For others, it evokes resentment and a lack of respect and trust.  I talked to a teen recently who was so resentful toward her authoritarian parent that she was literally counting the days until she could leave home.  For strong-willed children, it results in kids who constantly battle with parents, who hate authority, and who rebel.

Sadly, this parenting style creates children who will likely abandon the home at the first opportunity and then avoid their parents for the rest of their lives.  Nobody wins.

PERMISSIVE  PARENTING.

The Permissive style of parenting is the exact opposite of the Authoritarian style.  This style represents passive and disengaged household leadership.  To a large degree the children are allowed to do as they please.  The kids primarily determine the climate of the home in terms of attitude, language, rules, and decisions.  They normally get their way — usurping any parental rules or expectations — by using whatever tactics they can:  manipulation, guilt trips, explosive anger, or simply wearing down the parents.

The Problem.  These parents have abdicated their God-given responsibility for leading their households.  They are more concerned about keeping their kids happy or off their backs than they are about their well-being.  By making the kids’ wishes preeminent, they put the will of the kids ahead of the will of God — and their own better judgment.  It is parental negligence.

The Outcome.  The absence of rules and restrictions sets these kids up to make reckless, foolish, impulsive choices which often bring damaging results.  These kids also develop an attitude of entitlement and a disregard for authority.  Though they may enjoy being in charge of their lives, they lack the feelings of security, protection and care that comes from parents who set limits.  When the kids eventually come to regret the baggage gained during their youthful excesses they will recognize how much of this pain was caused by their parents’ neglect.  Kids with permissive parents lose their respect for them. In fact they see their parents as weak, unable to stand up even to a kid.

Sadly, this parenting style creates entitled children who will likely treat their parents as pushovers for the rest of their lives, and in some cases it even leads to parental abuse.  Nobody wins.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP PARENTING  (i.e. leading like Jesus).

This final style of parenting avoids the pitfalls of the other two.  It maintains the authority of parents, but not in a way that dehumanizes or abuses the children.  It also allows the kids to have a voice and to participate in the decision-making, but in a way that neither idolizes them nor cowers to their demands.

The Solution.  These parents have embraced their God-given responsibility for leading their households.  It’s a concept that our former pastor Ray Barrett taught me years ago — Servant Leadership.  It means to lead like Jesus.   I’ll never forget the animated way that Ray would share about the conversation Jesus had with His disciples as recorded in Mark 10:42-45…

⁴² Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. ⁴³ Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, ⁴⁴ and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. ⁴⁵ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”   

Though Jesus wasn’t specifically talking about parenting in the passage above, the principles apply to leadership at all levels, including the home!  And these servant leader principles are found throughout scripture.  Consider these two examples:  Ephesians 5 tells each husband to “Love your wife as Christ loved the church…with a willingness to lay down your life for her.”  Ephesians 6 tells fathers to “Not exasperate your children.”   Biblical leadership in the home is neither a dictatorship nor a relinquishment of responsibility.

The Outcome. The Servant Leadership that Jesus taught is one that serves all the members of the family.  Everyone feels valued and cared for and listened to and consulted.  Problems are identified and discussed as a family.  Solutions worked out together.  Feelings are heard and validated.  There is a spirit of transparency and togetherness.  It’s the parents who make the final decisions, but this is done based on their assessment of what is for the good of all, and based on everyone’s input.  These parents understand that they will answer to God for how they love their families and run their home. The kids may not agree with all the rules or decisions, but they understand that rules and decisions have been set in place by a servant leader, not by a dictator or pushover.  And the kids know that their parents care how they feel about things.  The parents are always interested in receiving respectfully-delivered feedback and are willing to reconsider decisions and negotiate changes.

Happily, this parenting style creates children who will likely treat their parents and themselves and their world with lifelong respect and servanthood.

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Today Cindy and I find ourselves childless, quite literally.  Our kids have gone “off the grid.”

Our oldest lives in Mexico with her husband.  Lexi, our youngest is currently in Cuba with UNI’s jazz band, doing workshops, playing jazz clubs, even touring a cigar factory.  Her final text to us said,  “Just about to leave Atlanta! Goin off the grid”

We can feel their absence.  More palpably than ever before.

Which is why I’m reflecting today on being “empty nesters.”

I’ve observed a lot of parents enter this stage of life over the years.  Some look forward to it.  Others endure it.  And many dread it.  I want to share some reflections that may help you embrace it as Cindy and I did.

• Parents can make idols out of their own children, excessively serving them and waiting on them hand and foot and giving our undivided attention.  This creates entitled kids.  This is one reason why I believe kids should do their fair share of chores.
• Our goal should be to raise adults, not to raise children.  While we hope to always have a position of influence in their lives, we must recognize that their dependency on mommy and daddy must come to an end.
• The goal of parenting, ironically, is to work ourselves out of a job!  Let’s teach them all the life skills they’ll need to succeed in life without our help.
• Parents would do well to view parenting as a “temp job” rather than a career.  God gives us 18-20 years to instill in our kids the nurturing, values and life skills that will benefit them.
• It’s time for them to live their lives.  We watch them succeed. We let them fail. We pray.  We worry.  We pray some more.  If we’re fortunate, they’ll ask for our input.  But mostly we watch.  And pray.
• Only about half of our adult lives involves active parenting.  That leaves the final half to be empty nesters.  We can’t live in the past, we must move forward to embrace what God has for this new chapter of life.
• Undoubtedly there is grief to be experienced when our kids move out and on their own.  Grieve, but then move forward towards the new opportunities God brings your way.  Even if it involves them getting married.
• Rather than dread this new season, Cindy and I choose to look forward to it.  We have enjoyed the many benefits of empty nesterhood:  more time together, less running around, simplicity, quiet, clutterfree living, more free nights on the calendar, lower food bills, and on and on….
• Our encouraging of them to move on into life showed our confidence in their ability to make it on their own.
• We can’t need to be parents.  Some parents have no identity of their own and no life and no interests apart from parenting.  This is not healthy!  And it’s a sure setup for devastation when those little ones go off to college and you’re left with nothing but an empty house.
• It’s no surprise that divorces often occur soon after the kids leave home.  Why?  Because the couple’s lives revolved around the kids’ activities and they never developed a healthy marriage.

Finally, your primary identity should not be as a parent, but rather as a child of God yourself.  As I blogged recently, adopt a mindset that you don’t need anyone but God himself.  That will help you immensely as your nest empties out!

At what age should your kids be allowed to date?  It’s a question many parents wonder about.  Here are some of my reflections.

1. The forbidding of “dating” until a certain age might actually miss the most important issue.  In a world of “hooking up,” “friends with benefits,” and sexting kids might be sexually active without dating.   They might be technically complying with your “no dating” rule, but in reality might be living a reckless lifestyle that jeopardizes their future and misses God’s best for their lives.
2. Setting a rule about a specific dating age doesn’t mean it will be followed.  I know of several kids who secretly dated behind their parents’ backs — some for years.  These parents had a false sense of security, thinking that they were immune from dating concerns.
3. Ask yourself: are your rules set for your own peace of mind or your kids’ best interest?
4. What is it about reaching a particular age that makes kids automatically behave responsibly?  Are they unable to behave responsibly at 15 years 11 months, but instantly become wise and self-controlled on their sixteenth birthday?  Not likely.
5. Does it communicate: “I won’t trust you at all when you’re 15, but I’ll trust you completely when you’re 16”?  Should that be so?
6. Do all kids mature at the same rate?   If you’re going to make dating-age rules, shouldn’t they be customized according to the maturity, weaknesses, capabilities, and vulnerabilities of your kids?
7. Laying down a rule is easy — it allows us to detach ourselves from the more difficult task of engaging our kids’ hearts.
8. Rather than focus on rules about dating, might it not be better to have conversations with your kids about their feelings about their own sexuality, feelings toward the opposite sex, and their possible desire to date?
9. One such conversation with them might be to talk about whether teenage dating is even a good idea.  Those of you who know me, know that I’ve blogged extensively about my concerns with teenage dating.  Whether they agree or not, my thoughts on “Friendationship”  might make a good conversation starter.
10. Might such heart-to-heart conversations between parent and child do more to influence the child’s values and sexual choices than a seemingly arbitrary rule that he or she might find unreasonable?
11. If you’re going to have a “rule” about dating, how about this one:  I’ll be happy to give you my blessing to date as soon as our conversations convince me why I don’t need to worry about your ability to resist temptation and make wise sexual choices.

School begins today for most students so let me take this occasion to say that I don’t want your son or daughter doing their best this year.

I’m not joking.  I mean exactly that.  I want your student to be doing less than his or her best.

Too often parents push their kids to always do their very, very  best.  The reasons for this range from good (“I want my kids to be successful”) to bad (“My kid is a reflection of my good parenting”) to worse (“My child is going to meet my unfulfilled childhood dreams”).

The effect on these kids will likely be stress and resentment toward their parents as they feel constantly prodded onto the performance treadmill.

This expectation for them to always do their very, very best is unrealistic — and here’s the rub:  it’s a standard to which we can’t even hold ourselves!

Here’s why — it’s unattainable.   No one can simultaneously do their best all the time in every area of their life.  We are complex, multi-dimensional creatures with varying roles and responsibilities.  I can’t be the best possible youth pastor at the same time as being the best possible husband, at the same time as being the best possible dad, at the same time as being the best possible neighbor, friend, church member, citizen, gardener, trumpet player, runner, volunteer, disciple of Jesus, etc.  Something’s gotta give!  Perfection in one area only occurs at the expense of all the others.

Think about it:  if we nag, push, and prod our kid to be the best possible student he could be, he’s going to end up being a negligent friend, an inattentive neighbor, a distracted employee, an absent youth group member, and a prayerless, Bibleless Christian.  Is that really what we want our kids to be?  I say, no.

I can anticipate the push back, “But Mark, we’re called to excellence!  We can’t allow our kids to get away with doing shoddy work.”  I’m not advocating laziness or sloppiness.  I’m all for excellence, but the reality is that it can’t be maintained in all fields simultaneously.  These areas compete for our time and will always be in tension with one another.  We must seek balance.

To insist they always do their best will lead to anxiety or burnout and will deprive them of having the margin in their life needed to enjoy their childhood.

So what’s the answer?   Stop demanding your kids to do their best.  Instead, just expect them to do the things that are reasonable (given all their roles, responsibilities and capabilities). Ultimately the question is, “Given your present circumstances, how is God nudging you to reasonably divvy up your limited amounts of time and energy?”

This standard of doing what’s reasonable instead of doing what’s best lifts us right off the performance treadmill.  Here are some examples:

• Let’s say my daughter got a D- on the pop quiz because she was up late encouraging her suicidal friend instead of reading the assigned chapter.  Wasn’t it reasonable for her to get a D- considering the way she followed God’s prompting to serve.  Yes!  In fact I’ll applaud her for choosing a D- over an A.   After all, what matters more, the teacher’s report card or God’s?
• Your son senses God prompting him to skip two weeks of school to go on a missions trip.  It means he’ll be kicked out of show choir and drop a letter grade in every class, forfeiting his valedictorian status.   Commend him for choosing what is a reasonable sacrifice for the Lord.
• Your daughter’s teachers piled on 6 hours of homework the same night that she had committed to serve a meal at a homeless shelter.  She chooses to keep her commitment, leaving her only 2 of the 6 study hours.  She subsequently flunks a test the next day.   Did she do her best at school?  No.  Did she do what was reasonable?  Absolutely!

Bottom line:  never insist your kids do their best.  You — and they — will find much freedom by expecting them — and yourself — to do no more than what is reasonable.

I want your kids to fail.

I want them to lose their library book.

I want them to forget their lunch.

I want your kids to oversleep and miss their first two classes.

I want them to get their bike stolen because they didn’t lock it.

I want them to miss the bus and be in a dilemma.

I want them to spill their hot chocolate all over the carpet.

I want them to fall asleep in class because they wasted their evening and went to bed too late.

I want your kids’ pet fish to die because they didn’t feed it.

I want them to feel sick because they ate too much candy.

I want them to forget to do their chores and have to repay whoever did them.

I want your kids to get an embarrassing grade on the history project into which they put little effort.

I want them to waste their allowance money on junk so they can’t buy something really valuable.

I hope they lock all three sets of keys inside their car so they have to call AAA for help.

I want kids to wear smelly clothes because they didn’t put them in the laundry basket in time.

I want them to be ticked off — at themselves.

I want us to have no cups on the spring retreat because the seniors forgot to pack them.

I want the junior class to incur $100.18 in late fees because they were two days late in returning their Star Wars costumes.

I want them to fail because I love them.  And you should too.

Parents spend far too much effort and emotion trying to keep their kids from failing.  I’m the opposite.  I actually hope for my kids to fail!

Remember, our goal as parents is to for our kids to learn to manage their own lives and make wise decisions — without our intervention.  After all, the goal of parenting is to raise adults, not children.  They become more like adults the more we treat them like adults.

Give them high levels of responsibility.

• As our kids age we need to give them increased responsibilities and control over their lives. They’ll need to be responsible for their time, sleep, leisure activities, finances, clothes, sports and music practice and performance, academic achievements, grades, entertainment, friends, and food choices.  I’m not saying we can’t set acceptable parameters in some of these areas — that is our parental prerogative while they’re living with us — but we need to remember that unless they’ve learned to manage these areas completely by themselves, they are ill prepared for life.  We shouldn’t even think about sending them off to college if we’re the ones still managing those areas of their lives.
• I favor giving kids high levels of responsibility.  See my essay on chores  for example.  It honors them to be deemed worthy of great responsibility.

Let them fail miserably.

• When they are freely allowed to fail in their responsibilities they learn important things about their own weakness, vulnerabilities, and needs.  From the natural consequences of their failures they learn what they ought to do differently in the future.  They learn how to avoid the same pitfalls the next time around.  They learn how to fix what they break. They learn they are capable of cleaning up their own messes.  They gain self-confidence as they discover that they are able to repair the damage they caused.  Failure is a key way for them to learn who they are and how best to manage their own lives.
• If they are allowed to fail early, when the stakes are small, they will have learned to manage themselves well and avoid failure in the future when the stakes will be very high.
• (Obviously there are some failures we can’t in good conscience allow them to make due to safety or moral concerns, but these should few in number.)

What to do when they fail.

• Don’t make their problem yours.  Let them fix it or deal with it themselves.  Be a consultant if needed, but let them make things right.
• Relax and enjoy that they are learning hard, but valuable lessons as they fix their problems.  But just don’t let your enjoyment show!
• Don’t moralize or say “I told you so.”  Let the consequences of their own failure be their teacher.  Let them be mad at themselves only, not you.
• Show empathy, and offer your confidence in their ability to fix it.
• Neither rescue them, nor berate them for failing.  Either would rob them of dignity and cause resentment between you.

A story.

I’ll close with a story from our home.  At one point, when one of our daughters was in high school, getting up in the morning was a problem for her. It may have had something to do with *Lexi’s tendency to waste time in the evening, procrastinate her homework, get to bed ridiculously late, and then have trouble hearing her alarm clock in the morning.  Cindy and I decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to make getting up Lexi’s responsibility instead of ours.  From now on she would need to get herself up in the morning and get herself off to school on her own.

When her alarm went off that next morning, Cindy and I laid in our bed and did nothing.  It was hard to do, but we resisted the temptation to rescue her.  Lexi was late to school that day.  And that wasn’t the only day she would oversleep!

But we decided that this was Lexi’s problem.  If it caused her embarrassment to walk in late — that would be her social problem.  If being late would jeopardize her grades it would be her academic problem — she’d have to work that out with the school.  Well it didn’t take her too many weeks to figure out how to adjust her lifestyle and alarm clock placement so as to get herself to school on time, which she did for the rest of her high school career. The way she learned to overcome her failure gave us all great confidence that for the rest of her life she’ll be able to get herself where she needs to be on time!  And she has!

That’s why I want your kids to fail.

*When I identify a child, it is with her blessing.  

Many of you know that since becoming an empty nester, I’ve taken up Square Foot Gardening.  The concept is unique:  you build raised-bed platforms, fill them full of fertile soil, and partition each one into sections that are exactly 12 inches by 12 inches.

In each square you can plant different crops.  The size and nature of each plant determines how many of them you can put into one square:  1 cabbage, 4 spinach plants, 16 carrots, etc.  As you can see from my photo, I had great success with it this past summer.  I had 96 squares, each clearly labeled with the type of seeds that were planted in it.  With that many squares at my disposal I planted just about every vegetable known to man!

One day in June as I was doing some weeding, I noticed one square with a plant I didn’t recognize.  It certainly wasn’t the jalapeno plant that my label indicated should be growing in that spot.  I almost pulled it out.  But it looked determined and my curiosity got the best of me, so I decided to let it grow to see what would happen.

Before long, that plant was the tallest in my garden.  As it grew, Cindy and I began to suspect that this would turn out to be a giant sunflower plant.  Sure enough, that’s what it was!  (Ironically, this was one of the few plants I hadn’t planted in my garden.)

It dawned on me that our children are exactly like this.  We may have expectations of who they should become or what they will accomplish.  But in the end we have no control over that.  They are who they are.  Our job is to discover who they are, how God wired them, and help them develop into their potential.

Sometimes we parents have expectations of how we want our kids to interact with others or fit in socially.  We may have specific ideas of how they should learn, grow or develop.  Sometimes we may want our kids to follow in our footsteps, make us look good, or achieve our own unfulfilled dreams.  But is it possible that in doing so we may be pressuring them to be somebody they are not?  Could it be that God designed them in ways that are uniquely different than our expectations?  I suspect a lot of parent/teen conflict stems from just such pressure.

Better for us to look at our kids the way I did with that renegade garden plant — with curiosity rather than particular expectations.

As I often say, “Be a student of your student.”  Enjoy watching them grow into who God made them to be.  The harvest may not be what you expected, but it will be every bit as fruitful!

Parents:  choose carefully the words you use when talking to your kids.  There is one word in particular that I would like to ban from a parent’s vocabulary.  I have no doubt that by using it parents are well-meaning and trying to be helpful, but I want to draw to your attention how I’ve seen the use of this word create lifelong, relational gaps between parents and their grown children.

What is the word?  “Disappointed.”   As in “I’m very disappointed in you, young man.”

I understand that parents are using this word as a way to express their displeasure at a child’s behavior — in hopes of correcting it.  But the problem is that the child hears something the parents likely don’t intend.  They hear  “You’re a disappointment to me.”   It becomes about the child’s worth as a person, rather than about a poor choice he made or a parent’s unmet expectation.  It’s the same as saying, “You’re never good enough for me” or “You don’t measure up to my expectations” or “You’ll never amount to anything.”

I’m not suggesting parents can’t comment on a child’s poor behavior or unmet expectations.  I’m not saying parents should stuff their feelings.  I also admit that it can be motivating for kids to know that their parent doesn’t like what they did.  But what I am saying is that when parents express disapproval of behaviors they need to be very careful to keep behavior and personal worth separate, affirming their relationship and affection for the child.

Why am I so adamant about this?  Because I’ve heard story after story from grown children who are grieving over the way their parents have always been disappointed in them.  One college-age girl recently said to me on the phone, “I wish I could tell my mom what I’m thinking about here at college, but I can’t — because I know she won’t approve of me.  I’m such a disappointment to her.”  Some adult kids have told me they dread coming home to their parents’ house.  Some won’t even talk to their parents anymore — it’s just too painful.  I once taught a parenting class at our local pregnancy support center and and not one of the twelve there could share of a single incident where they felt their parents affirmed them as people.  How sad.

So my encouragement is for parents to take more care in how they express concern over a child’s choices or unmet expectations.  Try a script like this:  “I’m glad I’m your dad even though you did something that I didn’t like.  I want you to know that my love for you doesn’t change a bit because of this.  I believe in you and in your ability to make good choices in life.  How about we talk about this some more over some ice cream?”

You won’t be disappointed!