Suffer The Children To Come Into Themselves

The title of this commentary draws from the teachings of Jesus Christ who focused much of his ministry on nurturing children. My adaptation focuses on helping our children come into themselves as they learn to exercise good judgment and become responsible stewards of their own lives.

Wendy (wife of 40 years and a gifted author and psychologist) and I are privileged to have three children and eight grandchildren. Any insights on what we did as parents are clearly seen through rose colored glasses. When we look back it seems much more clear and logical than it was at the time. The suggestions below sound reasoned and precise, when in fact we muddled as parents. We tried things that did and did not work, tried something else, then something else again. But, we muddled with some intent in the areas below.

Be available.

Wendy and I both have had active careers. We each have PhDs, enjoy work, are active in our community, and stay fully engaged. When we had kids at home, we did weekly “family home planning” meetings where tried to coordinate various schedules. In that busy-ness we hope our kids knew they were our priority without creating guilt trips for them. We worked to make special events special (birthdays, school events, holidays). We invited friends of our kids to be at our house and we would sometimes go upstairs to get out of their way so that they could just have a place to hang out with their friends. We took orders for our teenage son’s friends’ food preferences (a lot of Hot Pockets and Pizza Rolls). I tried to get personal time with each child by taking them on work trips with me once a year. In addition, for 3 years, I took the 3 kids to a warmer climate the week between Christmas and New Years. This week enabled me to connect with the kids and gave Wendy a respite. We hope we were also available emotionally. Our kids knew that there are no choices they could make that would destroy our affection. We may not agree with all their choices (e.g., our son Michael wore shorts every day for all three years of high school, even in Michigan winters), but we have never bartered their choices for our affection. We respect them for who they are and who they are becoming. Today, our annual family reunions are delightful. Our kids like each other and our grandkids are becoming friends to each other.  

Build agency.

We tried to help our kids accept responsibility for their choices. This included them choosing their hobbies, managing their money, and selecting their friends. When decisions came up that they had to make, or we had to make as a family, we often asked them: “what do you think?” By hearing their reflections, we could support their choices and influence not their decision but their thought process. As our kids have aged, we have learned that parenting young adults has opportunities and challenges. Our kids now have kids, careers, and a lifestyle. Their choices are not always our choices, but we have learned to continue to support them. As our kids exercised agency, we have tried to highlight and validate what they do and not what they do not do.

Develop grit and resilience.

The concept of learning, resilience, or grit has caught on. Carol Dweck, a Stanford Professor of Psychology, found that children who have a growth mindset have much more success in life than those with a fixed mindset. We hope we enabled our children to develop a growth mindset. In many settings, we would try to ask them “what or how did you learn” which focuses on the process of learning more than the outcomes of learning. It is easy to get trapped into rewarding our kids for their success (e.g., grades) rather than to appreciate and reinforce how they got the grades. We encouraged our kids to try hobbies where they were not the best, but enjoyed them and learned from the experience. We traveled with our kids to see different parts of the world and we hope we helped them learn about other cultures and lifestyles from these travels. When our kids failed, we tried to turn these into learning moments. We encouraged discussion and diversity of thinking. We often are accused of having family dinners that are fraught with debate (it sometimes freaks out our kids’ spouses). For example, in our family of five, we have 2 democrats, 2 republicans, and 1 independent and we voice our political opinions to each other. We have learned to disagree without being disagreeable.

Be example.

Saint Francis is attributed to having said, “we preach the gospel and sometimes use words…” I think parenting is more about what we do than what we say. This meant that Wendy and I worked to maintain our positive relationship with each other so that we could model for our kids how to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of a marriage or any relationship. We continue to work on our marriage through spending time together, talking, and even attending marriage retreats. We hope that our kids observed us caring for each other as a model of how we care for them and how they care for their spouses and children.

Laugh and have fun.

We played together. I recall taking the kids bowling, less to bowl and more to have time together. We attended a lot of their sports, drama, and music activities and even coached some teams (where we were very unqualified). When our daughters had birthday parties with lots of young (8 to 12 year old) girls, we had screaming matches until they went hoarse (he he he). Michael and I connected around sports and remember some wonderful basketball games where he whooped on me consistently. We shared weekly religious worship and found a positive community of people with shared values.

As I write this, I realize our children and possibly grandchildren may read it. They will likely go “Hmpf… I don’t remember much of that at all. Dad was gone a lot; mom was distracted with her life. We sort of raised ourselves.” But, I also hope they would acknowledge that we muddled through with positive intent. Mostly, I hope they have come into themselves as they move into adulthood.