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Your child will never tell you this secret.
Are you ready to hear this? It might not be what you expect.
Lean closer and listen very carefully.
This is so secret your child couldn't even tell you if he wanted to.
Ironically, this secret isn't about your child at all. It's all about you, his parent.
Here it is.
Be the Parent.
If I've lost you, I apologize. See, this 'secret' isn't secret at all,
but it's so simple that most parents really do miss it. They fly right
past it like it's not even there.
But this 'secret' is there. In fact, this is a foundational point in
parenting. I have learned this lesson over and over again in my 26+ years of being a mom.
Let me explain.
I'll bet you are a wonderful parent. You want what's best for your
child. And you spend a fair amount of time wondering if you're going
down the right path.
That's a good question and I applaud you for asking it. To answer it,
we need to start at the beginning, so to speak. With the kids.
Children, by their very nature, are not adults (bear with me). Because they are not adults, they need guidance. We call it 'parenting'. Ever heard the following come from one of your children?
"I hate you!"
"I wish you weren't my mom!"
"Katie's mom is sooooo much nicer than you are. I wish SHE were my mom."
"You don't understand me."
"I can't WAIT to leave home."
And so forth and so on. If you've been parenting for any length of
time, you have heard these or similar statements, usually at a moment
of intense emotional stress. When a child hollers these types of
statements, a parent knows she has that child's attention! It is actually a tremendous teaching moment.
At a moment like that, what a child is often actually saying is "right
now, I really need you to be a strong parent. I need you to be the one
with more experience, wisdom and understanding. I need you to be my
advocate; someone I can trust to put my needs first (not my wants),
'cuz I don't understand all about the world yet. I know what I
WANT...but I can't see the dangers and I don't know the risks. Please
help me! Please love me! Please parent me now!!"
Of course, a child doesn't say such things because she isn't mature
enough to articulate her feelings in such a manner. That's why, again,
you are the parent. You are mature enough. You are also strong
enough to endure your child's fury. She needs to know that you can
stand up to her, love her but remain completely firm about what's right
for her. She absolutely, fundamentally needs to know that you will be
the parent. The buck-stops-here person in her young life. The I-can-count-on-you-no-matter-what mom that you were hired to be.
Now, just as adults are made, not born, the same is true for a mom or a
dad. We aren't born knowing how to parent. In a very real sense, we
'raise' ourselves right along with raising our children.
And apparently that's exactly how it's supposed to operate since there
is no other alternative to learning the skills of parenting. It's a
strictly on-the-job gig.
I firmly believe God gives us kids to help us (parents) mature and grow
(up). For myself, without my kids, I'd still be the same selfish,
immature and scared young adult I started out to be. But just as we
love watching our own children grow and mature, God loves watching us
grow into maturity, too.
This is where the rubber meets the road, mom. This is great stuff. This is where the adventure truly happens!
Personal development can do a lot more for you than just help you raise
great kids, although that's an awesome benefit all by itself. When you
tackle your own personal growth, you can choose to learn how to feel
more confident in your parenting. You can choose to work on something
specific, like time management skills, knowing that improvement in such
a key area will bring you a wonderful benefit in working with your kids
(more time!).
You can take a serious look at the specific struggles you have in your
home and custom-fit a learning environment to deal with those issues.
For example, if you are tired of nagging your children to get their
chores done, you may have made the same mistake I have made in the
past. I forgot that children aren't born
a) knowing how to complete chores properly and
b) wanting to complete chores at all!
After I took some time to consider how important it is that
a) all of us in our family contribute to the well-being and smooth-running of our home and
b) there are some great life lessons to be learned in cleaning a bathroom (for example),
I saw doing chores differently. Which meant I saw training my kids to
do those chores differently. Which, in turn, had a dramatic effect on
the amount of nagging that takes place in our home. Once I 'got it', I could help my kids 'get it' and we all have benefited from my personal growth.
So...if you feel that a lack of respect is a problem in your home, then
you might want to address that issue by first understanding that
respect is earned, not demanded. In addition, a child deserves the
opportunity to be trained and taught how to properly and happily relate
to other people. It's not about magic...it's about growing. For
everyone.
So what is the bottom line? The family is designed to be the training
ground for how life works. To be a successful, happy, productive adult,
one needs to learn life skills such as personal responsibility, respect
for self and others, service, gratitude, humility, personal initiative,
and self-discipline, for starters. There are also important, pragmatic
skills such as household management and personal organization.
Does this make sense to you? Can you see how a big part of our job as
parents is about lovingly training and guiding our precious little
ones, understanding that they will not magically 'be' an adult without
us showing them how? And we cannot show them how to be an adult unless
we are willing to 'grow up' ourselves.
Don't make the mistake of trying to simply be a 'friend' to your child
as he grows. Be so much more. Be his parent. (It's way more fun this
way, too.)
And, by the way, thank you for working so hard to be a great parent.
Hang in there. There is nothing more important than raising the next
generation. You can do it!
Here are some parenting resources from folks who have helped me be a
better parent over the years. Pick out what works for you and discard
the parts that don't. And remember; you are the utmost authority on
your child. Trust your loving instincts!
- Brian Tracy is one of my favorite resources for personal development.
He has spent decades learning what makes us all tick. I have used many
of his training programs; here's one for parents.
How to Raise Happy, Healthy, Self-Confident Children
Excerpted from "Effective Parenting" by Brian Tracy
"Whether a child comes from a good home with every material blessing or
a poor home with limited resources doesn’t really matter in the long
run. What does matter is how confident the child feels when it comes to
setting goals, making decisions, overcoming obstacles and succeeding in
his or her chosen areas of endeavor. If you raise your children to feel
that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will
have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the
greatest of all blessings."
(About Brian Tracy
Brian Tracy is a leading authority on personal and business success. As
Chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, he is the best-selling
author of 17 books and over 300 audio and video learning programs.)
-
John Rosemond is great if you want pragmatic, traditional, firm and
clear parenting advice. As with any of these resources, take what you
need and leave the rest. Here's one of his parenting titles.
"New Six-Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children"
- Cynthia Ulrich Tobias is a very helpful resource if you are mom to a strong-willed child (first and fourth kids in our home!).
"You Can't Make Me, (But I Can Be Persuaded)"
Many of these resources can also be found at your local library. That
is great for the first read-through, but after that I recommend
purchasing the parenting resources you find the most helpful. Why?
Because you'll want to refer to them again and again, mark them up, and
USE them!
Comments from visitors to our site:
"Loved the article, especially about respect
being earned, not demanded. And children learn by parents showing them.
Parents are the leading influence in a child's life."
Kari
Colleen Langenfeld is a mother with 25 years of parenting experience and helps other busy moms at http://www.paintedgold.com.
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