mentoring | Patching Cracks

4 Tough Parenting Approaches that Work

10491278_10152091318686599_8769886226755773189_n While watching my kids play at the park yesterday, my daughter came running to me from under play structure, crying and rubbing her forehead. She had bumped her head on the underside of of the fire engine jungle gym. A hug, a kiss on the forehead, and and a few comforting words later, she was running around again. The most natural response to my little girl’s feeling pain, is offering comfort and doing the best I can to make it better. This is a natural response for parents. Protecting our children is programmed into our DNA. The most natural thing in the world is to hurt when our kids hurt and to try to fix it. Unfortunately, as time goes on, this instinct can get in the way of healthy development into adulthood. There are times when parents need to reign in their instinct and allow their children to struggle or hurt sometimes because its whats best for them.

There is a great line in in Proverbs:

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

Proverbs 13:24

Many folks read this as a direction to spank their kids. While this may be the case, disciplining your child includes far more than just spanking. Discipline is a wide ranging concept that is downright difficult for parents to follow through with, largely because it runs totally contrary to our inborn parental drive to protect and comfort. Here are four difficult forms of discipline every child needs, but parents are often reluctant to provide:

Natural consequences– Natural consequences are the natural, expected outcome of poor decision making. For example, if a child waits until the night before a project is due before they start working on it, 10624972_10152244365051599_3708616376640736165_n then the natural consequence is a poor grade. All too often, parents see their child panicked the day before, and bail them out. At times this involves doing the work for them or calling them in sick for school the next day. These situations are teachable opportunities. Parents must decide if they will teach their child that someone else will always be there to bail them out, or if they will learn the hard lesson: “If you don’t do the work, you will fail.” This is one example, but of a huge area of teaching. If you watch people long enough, you will witness parents who attack teachers because their kids aren’t getting A’s, or demanding their kid gets to play a starting position on the soccer team, or any other situation where a parent shields their child from the consequences of their actions or failures. I’m not saying that helping your kid deal with consequences isn’t okay sometimes. Rather, I am saying that protecting them from everything teaches them to be sheltered.

Let them struggle– My little girl’s theme song right now is: “I need some help to do that.” It almost always starts playing when I ask her to do something she finds distasteful, like finishing lunch or cleaning up her toys. There are other times she tries to do things that she is just too small or young to do easily. In most instances it’s easier or seems more compassionate to help. I want her to think I will help her and take care of her. However, sometimes she needs to struggle in order to build perseverance and tenacity. If quitting is always an acceptable option, then queen she doesn’t want to do things, she’ll quit. Sometimes she needs to struggle through something difficult on her own in order to understand that the sweetest victories in life are the hard fought victories. One day my son will probably have to punch a bully in the nose. My daughter will need to practice piano for an hour a day to learn to play. Letting them face these hard situations and struggle through them creates character.

Let them fail- Our culture doesn’t seem to like letting kids lose or experience sad feelings. This has spawned sports leagues that don’t keep score and situations where kids are guaranteed success. How we deal with failure is easily as important as how we deal with success. Learning to fail and keep trying is very important, largely because there is little that can be accomplished in life without failing. Parents sometimes need to back up and let their kids fail. Its hard and heartbreaking, but its an important life lesson.

Praise their effort not their existence- I’m going to admit that this is really hard for me. I spend all kinds of time talking to my kids, and really love how they react to praise. The problem with this is that praise can train the wrong lessons into kids. We want them to feel good about themselves and be confident, but praise for things that are handed to them or not earned teaches them that they are great just for being. A far stronger lesson is praising them for the work they put in. If a child learns that their hard work is worthy and good, they will work hard. If they are perfect just for getting out of bed in the morning, they’ll expect praise for getting out of bed in the morning. Praising is good, it can reinforce behaviors. It must be used properly to be effective.

Raising a Real World Superhero Part 1: Modeling the Life You Want them to Live

My daughter loves superheroes, not unlike 3/4 of the other small children in the country. She loves watching Batman cartoons, along with the Avengers, Superman, Wonder Woman, and almost anyone else who wears a cape and fights bad guys. As a dad, I love that she is excited by characters that fight against injustice and stand for right. I want my kids to embody these qualities in their lives.

I pray that they become people of integrity – who courageously live their lives based on their beliefs. I want my son and daughter to do great things and live their lives in ways that inspire others to greatness. Truth be told, I doubt my kids will ever fight villains, but as we grow up and put more simplified versions of the world away, we come to recognize that real heroes often do far more ordinary things – everyday – for the duration of their lives.

I have spoken to people who indicate that they would selflessly do great things if the opportunity arose, but act selfishly in many other aspects of life. They say things like: I would give money to the poor – if I had more money than I could ever spend. The basic gist being that heroic action would be on the agenda if the opportunity ever arises. I have conversed with countless individuals in orange jumpsuits living behind locked doors who swear that they would sacrifice their lives for their families. My response has always been the same: “You say you would give your life for your family, but you refuse to live the same life for them.” Many of them sadly acknowledge that they had wound up incarcerated because they were busy doing what they considered to be important, while leaving family to fend for themselves. A proper hero in a family doesn’t engage in one-time heroic acts. Rather, he is a father who leads spiritually, works hard every day, acts lovingly toward his wife, and spends time talking to, teaching, and loving his children. This manner of hero is far more important because he is making the next generation of heroes. There is a basic truth about children that most parents recognize, but is often not regarded with the appropriate gravity. That truth is that children learn a great deal through observation and imitation. This is most obvious when you look at children and see their parents in facial expressions or mannerisms. They learn these things by mirroring their parents. Children learn values, beliefs, communication patterns, behavioral tendencies, etc. by observing and imitating those they spend the most time with. This is particularly important of the father, who plays a unique and nearly irreplaceable role in the family. Raising a superhero doesn’t start with some crazy trick or technique. Rather, it begins with a great deal of mundane, repetitive modeling of behaviors that are in keeping with the core values that constitute a hero. There are several areas where this is particularly important.

Spirituality- The father’s participation and leadership in family spiritual life is vital because of the father’s enormous influence on the family. Consistent religious practice that is discussed openly with the family is central to raising children that live out those beliefs. This component of life is particularly important because religious beliefs serve as a philosophical foundation for all other values, beliefs, and practices. Further, it is the aspect of life that is concerned with eternal, transcendent matters. I know many men who contend that they hold deep religious convictions in their hearts and minds, but spend little time demonstrating them outwardly or intentionally teaching their children to do so. This results in children who never learn the value or priority of concern for eternal issues.
Relationally- One of the surest ways to encourage healthy relationships in your children’s future is by engaging in healthy, emotionally-open relationships with them. Daughters learn how to be loved through their connection to their dads. A young lady who grows up thirsting for her father’s affection, but never having the need properly met, will seek to meet that need in their future romantic relationships. The problem is that it is impossible for a husband to emotionally replace a father. This can also result in a daughter pursuing relationships with emotionally distant men, then trying to win their love. For young men, lack of emotional connection with and approval from their father can often result in them seeking to demonstrate their manhood through other means, like achieving success in life, attempts at manliness through physical dominance, etc. It is a vacuum that can alter a young man’s perception of their own manhood for life.
Communication- The style of communication employed by the adults in a household will shape the ways their children will communicate. Direct, firm, honest, loving communication will tend to result in children who grow up to communicate in the same manner. Families who communicate in cutting or sarcastic remarks will produce adults who communicate the same way. Families who respond to any slight or offense with yelling or volatile emotional displays will train children to do likewise. Many couples do not consider what they are training their kids to do when they argue. Raising a child with healthy communication skills is largely a matter of modeling healthy communication.
Values- A father who models a strong value system for their children through intentionally living out his work ethic, will tend to result in kids who take pride in their work. A father who puts effort forth to teach his children to stand up for the helpless and does so in his daily activity, will raise children who believe that protecting the helpless is important. Parents who read, and read to their children, will tend to raise kids who read. Kids learn the values that their parents model and teach.
Time- The master key to the whole effort of raising a real world hero is time spent. The positive influence a parent wields in their child’s life is directly proportional to the time they spend investing in them. Parents, and fathers in particular, who spend time playing, talking, praying, eating, or engaged in any other activity with their kids will more effectively shape their lives.

These are just a few of the many areas it is important to focus effort on in the pursuit of positively impacting the lives of your children. The important concept to understand, which underlies every aspect of this list, is that you have to be the person you want your children to strive to become.

Patching Cracks

Trying to Be Wise In God's Eyes

Tag Archives: mentoring

4 Tough Parenting Approaches that Work

Raising a Real World Superhero Part 1: Modeling the Life You Want them to Live