I think most parents would agree that it is hard to watch our children fail. Just like God always wants the best for us, most parents want the best for their children. So when we have to watch them settle for anything less it is disappointing and sometimes gut-wrenching. Sometimes we even have to allow our children to fail to learn some things in life. But…..as parents, we can’t just sit back and watch.
Every parent has a different parenting style and we are definitely not the perfect parents but here is how we choose to approach parenting. We use the “prepare them in advance” mindset and I think that is where alot of parents are missing it today. They are choosing to “watch from the sidelines.” Then when the kids make a bad or wrong choice, they give their children counsel (or slam ’em over the head) after they make the mistake. This is a reactive approach and it has some major flaws.
Absolutely no one I know enjoys being corrected. It is just a hard pill to swallow when we know we did something wrong. And it instantly puts a child on the defensive and closes up their spirit. I believe a lot (not all) of that can be avoided. If we expect our children to just go through experiences and then when they fail we do a “OK kid, here is what you did wrong,” then that is kind of like starting a new job and having no instructions or guidance on what you are supposed to do. This is a failure just waiting to happen.
So, some training in advance is required. It is our God given responsibility as parents to “train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” It takes time and investment and patience and repetition. We should be giving them moral training, spiritual training, safety training, life skill training and more. Doing this shows the child some respect and honor too. It keeps their spirit open and their hearts are much more open to correction. Most parents these days are shirking their responsibilities and not taking the time or claiming they don’t have the patience to “teach those kids.” One thing that most parents lack is a plan. They raise kids by chance and throw caution to the wind and see what happens. We need to be a little more strategic with parenting.
Here is the pattern we follow and this is what we teach others in our program.
1. Never ask your child to do something you are not doing. Parenting starts with the parent. This may require us to change as a parent and is sometimes the hardest part of the whole process. You have heard the old saying that “the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” Our example speaks louder than any instruction we give.
2. Teach or instruct the concept you want the child to learn. And it is very important to teach them why they need to know what you are teaching them. Not just because dad says so. Things like, “Jesus wants us to treat other people the way we want them to treat us,” or, “You need to obey mom and dad the first time because we want you to be safe,” or for the older ones, things like, “we balance the checkbook so we don’t bounce a check. You can get fees you don’t need to pay and your reputation is marred,” or, “God’s word says, you reap what you sow.”
3. Give them some practice time. Depending on their age, some topics take two weeks to learn, some take a month. Decide how long you need to give them to learn. If they are old enough, let them know that after that amount of time, you will expect them to be able to perform what you taught them. We use a calendar and let the kids mark the days. Its visual and helps the little guys grasp the concept of time. They also need to know what the consequences will be for not doing this after the time has come.
4. While you give them time to practice, reinforce the concepts during the key times of the day where you have their undivided attention. Mealtimes, after school, in the car, bedtime.
5. When the time comes, then you expect the behavior. When they get it, praise them! Give them lots of love and praise. Tell them that you are well pleased with them.
6. When they miss, then you correct them and they get a consequence. At this point, you know you have given them all the chances they need to learn a concept and if a consequence is necessary at this point, it is their decision, not yours, when they get it. The consequence should match the offense and not be too severe. We don’t want to exasperate them.
7. Then there has to be the restoration. If they wronged another person, including you, they need to repair the situation by, making things right, saying they are sorry and asking forgiveness.
8. Then it is up to us to let them know that no matter what they do, we still love them. Even when they fail. Just like Jesus loves us. This one really hit me the other day. We have been working with our youngest son about hitting others. I mean we are really spending a lot of time talking about it with him and reinforcing why we don’t hit others, so I know he was thinking about it a lot. As usual, when I was putting him to bed, I said, “I love you son,” and he said, “even when I hit someone dad?” Man this about stopped me in my tracks! I instantly saw how I need to work on this part of the whole process.
So while I agree that the kids have to learn from their mistakes, we can give them as many opportunities to avoid disappointment as possible by imparting knowledge and how to apply it to their life before they actually need to use it on their own.
