PARENTING FROM THE HEART

I want to star this discussion using an excerpt from the teaching delivered by Pastor Nike Adeyemi at the 2019 Excellence in Leadership Conference, held at Day Star Christian Centre Lagos, Nigeria. She spoke on “Leading From The Heart”.

Leadership is about influencing, motivating and inspiring people to know and do what they would not have known or done ordinarily.

Parenting is a type of leadership. Parents are to influence, motivate and inspire their children to become successful adults. There are basic skills required to achieve this. These skills are what I summed up with the acronym: H-E-A-R-T.

H – Humility: humility is the opposite of pride. Pride is toxic in all aspects of our life, including parenting. Humility helps a parent to come down and relate with the children at their own level. In the words of Pastor Adeyemi, “Sometimes you need to learn to lead by following, or leading from behind.” Parents need to sometimes see things from the perspective of the children, learn valid lessons from the behavior of the children and apply such lessons to their parenting strategies. Humble parents know that they are not infallible; they accept their mistakes and readily make amends. They are not too big to ask their children for forgiveness when they err. And you know what that does in parenting? It helps to raise children who are willing to learn, accept corrections and are motivated to change.

E – Empathy: Simply put, empathy is putting yourself in the position of another person. Parents should always remember that they were once children – young and gullible. They should recall how difficult or easy it was for them to get along with the older generation then. They should imagine what goes on in the minds of the children and how they feel when certain decisions are being made. Even when there is tension or disagreement, empathic parents imagine how they would feel if they were in the position of the children, and from that angle they proffer solution to the problem. It does not mean that they must succumb to every demand placed by the youngsters. It rather helps them not to be too rash and insensitive.

A – Accountability: Every parent should know that they are accountable to God, the society and even the children they are parenting. They are accountable to God because He is the owner and giver of the children; parents are merely custodians. They are accountable to the society because the outcome of their parenting activities makes the society better or bitter. Finally, they are accountable to the children whose life and destiny depend on their success or failure as parents. A sense of accountability helps one not to take things for granted or assume that some aspects of a project are not important. There is no project or business that is more important than parenting. Every stage and every aspect of it is very crucial and would be accounted for sooner or later.

R – Real: Parents should be real and allow themselves sometimes to be vulnerable to their own children. Let them know that you also make mistakes at times. If you give them the impression that you are perfect they will be too scared to come to you when they err. They will look for solace in other things, like drugs, and other people who give them false hope. Let them learn from your own mistakes and not just from your exploits and achievements. Tell them the true story of your life and not just the beautiful aspects. Help them to know that it is possible to rise up after a fall by sharing your own experiences and struggles with them. Don’t give them the impression that you are who you are not. Dear parents, please be real.

T – Tolerance: Parenting places a demand on parents to be tolerant, broadminded, liberal, understanding and forbearing. It is in your own interest as a parent to embrace these attributes. They save you from getting unnecessarily worked up over trivial issues. They teach you to be patient with young people. Children will always be children and teenagers will always be teenagers. In fact, young people will always be young both in mind and in behavior. They have their peculiarities, which may appear as serious irritants to parents who are not tolerant. Lack of tolerance makes parents to complain and clamor over normal childish behavior. Until you are able, and ready to tolerate childish idiosyncrasies and youthful exuberances, you will keep having unnecessary squabbles with your children. Being tolerant is not synonymous with being indulgent. Indulgent parents excuse and encourage stupidity, unruly behavior, waywardness and other vices but tolerant parents patiently influence, inspire and motivate their children to overcome those vices.

This is what it means to parent from the H-E-A-R-T.

Shalom!