The Christian Digest
Presents
THE CONFIDENT PARENT
By Dr. Bob Pedrick
(Elgin, Illinois: David C. Cook Publishing Co., 1979)
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 19 -- OCTOBER 1994.
DFO
THE CHRISTIAN DIGEST IS A STRICTLY NON-PROFIT PUBLICATION. THIS BOOKLET IS PRIVATELY PUBLISHED AND CIRCULATED WITHOUT COST, AND UNDER NO CONDITIONS WHATSOEVER IS IT TO BE SOLD.
Because of an extended tour of sea duty, I did not see our firstborn until he was two years old. My trip home from Guam to Philadelphia covered about 9,000 miles. I must have previewed the details of the coming reunion with my wife and the first glimpse of my son at least once every mile.
After hitchhiking on what seemed an endless series of airplanes, I arrived in Philadelphia. I bought a stuffed animal at the airport, then hailed a cab for the short trip home. I sat in the back seat nervously fingering the presents--until suddenly I was climbing the stairs, the door was opening, and I was being carried to high places by the intensity of that first embrace with Anne, my wife.
Then I saw him, standing by the kitchen door. What a handsome child! He watched us intently. He made no move, and his expression was noncommittal.
I handed him the soft teddy bear, and he took it carefully, probably relieved that he could examine it and avoid having to comprehend this sudden, puzzling intrusion into his world.
What was he thinking? I can only speculate, because he had no way to verbalize his feelings. And we didn't have the skill to listen accurately to the messages he was sending. His contact with "daddy" had been a daily conversation with a framed picture of a grim young man wearing a naval officer's cap and a starched white uniform. Now the picture had been replaced by a giant who had come through the front door and wouldn't let go of his mother.
In the years since that day, Anne and I have learned a great deal. We have completed the raising of four children, and I have spent more than thirty years working with other people's children as a teacher, coach, counselor, school board member, principal, and most recently, school superintendent. We have learned that wanting to be a successful family and becoming one are not synonymous. We have learned that the time is shorter and each day more important than most parents think. What we have learned in the process needs to be passed along. By sharing such experiences--victories and defeats--we can all have a better chance at successful, confident parenting.
Mistakes are to grow on. I learned much from mistakes I made with my children. The six practical themes presented in this book are to guide parents in their daily interactions with children and help avoid some of the more obvious pitfalls in the path of child raising. They deal with: (1) listening responsively, (2) sending messages children don't tune out, (3) weaving a warm blanket of acceptance, (4) changing the climate at home, (5) disciplining by reinforcement, and (6) training for independent adulthood.
Parents Are Not Perfect
Parents don't always have to be perfect and competent. Sometimes the humorous admission of my own weakness has helped my children to identify with me. They, of course, could see my mistakes anyway, so I lost little and gained much.
We parents often come off at our worst when helping children with homework; at least I did. It should have been easy for me to help my daughter with biology; after all, I had taught that subject in high school and college. So the evening she asked me to explain the difference between DNA and RNA molecules, I promptly gave her an authoritative answer. However, time away from the subject had taken its toll, and I inadvertently reversed the definitions.
After hearing that her test grade had been lowered as a result, my first inclination was to bluster about "those young teachers who don't know everything." I suppressed that foolishness and, instead, apologized. Then, grinning a little sheepishly, I reminded her that all of us should be careful to check facts before pontificating.
The understanding hug I received in return was even more rewarding than her response, "Dad, I think you're the greatest anyway." As is so often the case, the frank admission of my mistake helped rather than hindered our rapport.
In examining how children learn at school and home, I have been somewhat surprised to find that learning by watching rates high as a successful means of changing juvenile behavior. When a desirable, competent model or sample is observed by children, words are not always needed to stimulate change. A girl in an evening gown can sell dresses without speaking, and new games can be understood without formal explanations.
The opposite of learning by watching is telling somebody what to do--as, for example, in reciting a list of rules. Of the two, the "Let's watch how she does it" approach is often more powerful.
Recently I learned of a child who, at three years of age, was excessively whipped by her father "to break her rebellious spirit," especially when she disturbed his television viewing by cavorting in the room to gain his attention. In a conference with the preschool teacher, the same father could not understand why Sally was aggressive and overbearing when playing with other children. His lecture to Sally on being kind and considerate was not nearly as powerful as the modeling effect of his previous behavior patterns in disciplining her.
Many things, of course, are learned by direct teaching, but the importance of learning by watching should not be ignored. One research study claims that 80 percent of all we learn is the result of observation.
TAKING OFF THE EARMUFFS
Coming home from college was usually a joyful occasion for Peggy Painter. But this time she felt a stomach-knotting fear, and each step from the bus stop deepened her anxiety.
Peggy's parents were Christians and generally understanding. But the story she had to tell of an unwanted pregnancy, ended by abortion, would both shock and sadden them.
Would they hear the anguish in her voice? Would they recognize all she had gone through? Or would they, in their own pain, lash out and condemn her?
Peggy's story has a happy ending. Her parents listened. They heard; they felt. And their response showed that they understood her feelings and accepted her. For Peggy, it meant the beginning of a new life.
Peggy's parents not only rekindled her smothered life but focused attention on her future opportunities rather than past failures. They exhibited what we call responsive listening--a process of listening with a person, not just to or about him. Responsive listening restrains the temptation to judge or give advice. Responsive listening helps a person clarify and communicate his feelings. It creates a climate of understanding, reduces defensiveness, and clears the way to positive changes in behavior.
"I Want to Understand You"
Responsive listening is not an easy skill to acquire. It takes practice. It means attaining some verbal dexterity. More important, it begins with a caring attitude.
Responsive listening presupposes that parents really want to know what their children have to say. It does not necessarily mean agreeing with them. Rather, it is an attitude in which a parent says, "I want to thoroughly understand--and let you know I understand--what you say before I respond." Once the parent understands the message, he has the option to agree or disagree.
The effectiveness of our hearing apparatus may get us into or out of trouble, but we're not talking about hearing. Listening is something else. Listening is how we comprehend and react to what we hear.
Through extensive research, Xerox Corporation has discovered that most people operate at an efficiency level of only about 25 percent in general listening situations. If similarly low levels of attentiveness are typical of family relations, then many crises may well be traced to poor perceptions of what someone else said.
Usually when our children come to us, we respond with some kind of verbal or nonverbal message, but the messages we send often do not achieve the desired results. As a result of his experience with parent training courses, one researcher found that over 90 percent of parental responses to children fall into one of twelve nonproductive categories:
1. Questioning
2. Judging
3. Lecturing
4. Ordering or commanding
5. Warning
6. Name calling
7. Sympathizing
8. Probing
9. Preaching
10. Advising
11. Agreeing
12. Withdrawing
These twelve response categories often reap undesirable results, although there are always exceptions to this general rule. Children, parents and situations vary and cannot be handled in a "rulebook" fashion. Many times, however, these types of responses not only illustrate parent-child dialogue today but are similar to the responses Job's "comforters" gave him several thousand years ago.
1. Questioning: Bildad answers, "Who are you trying to fool? Speak some sense if you want us to answer!" (Job 18:2). Such unnecessarily aggressive questioning often triggers rebellious thoughts and behavior.
2. Judging: Eliphaz answers Job, "It is because of your wickedness! Your sins are infinite!" (Job 22:5). Such commonplace judgmental statements, if made to our children, can breed exaggerated attitudes of guilt, which can become permanently imbedded in their personalities.
3. Lecturing: Again Bildad tells Job, "Read the history books and see--the wisdom of the past will reach you" (Job 8:8,10). Lecturing often makes the unwilling recipient feel inferior, inadequate, or resentful. The good-old-days syndrome illustrated here is especially destructive to good family communication.
4. Ordering or commanding: Now Zophar replies, "Stem this torrent of words. Is a man proved right by all this talk?" (Job 11:2). Or, "Shut up!" If repeated often enough, this command can destroy mutual respect.
5. Warning: Bildad warns Job, "Your bright flame shall be put out" (Job 18:5). A warning is all too often an invitation for a child to test the firmness of the parent's resolve. Do you really mean it? The child will soon find out.
6. Name calling: Eliphaz taunts Job, "You give us all this foolish talk. You are nothing but a windbag" (Job 15:2). Want to destroy a child's self-image quickly? Start calling him names.
7. Sympathizing: When the three friends first approached Job, they showed their sympathy by wailing loudly in despair. Then, "they tore their robes and threw dust into the air and put earth on their heads to demonstrate their sorrow" (Job 2:12). When a child needs supportive encouragement to tackle a tough job, a parent's maudlin sympathy may only serve to blunt the child's initiative for seeking solutions on his own.
8. Probing: Bildad takes a nasty shot at Job by saying, "How long will you go on like this, Job, blowing words around like wind?" (Job 8:1,2). Job easily saw through this question ... and so do many children. The question is posed to put them down rather than seek needed information.
9. Preaching: Bildad continues in this same fashion, "If you were pure and good, He would hear your prayer, and answer you, and bless you with a happy home" (Job 8:6). Parents themselves are very susceptible to this kind of pseudo-logic from well-meaning friends who unfairly criticize the activities of other people's children. The result is often an unwarranted feeling of parental guilt. "Judge not" is a valuable slogan for all of us to follow.
10. Advising: Eliphaz begins his hypothesis by saying, "You must have refused water to the thirsty, and bread to the starving. But no doubt you gave men of importance anything they wanted, and let the wealthy live wherever they chose" (Job 22:7-9). He goes on to give do-it-this-way advice. Such an approach presupposes that Job had done it all wrong. Children, like adults, often respond to such advice with defensiveness. Therefore, advice should be given in carefully controlled doses.
11. Agreeing: Eliphaz agrees with Job's self-appraisal and says, "You faint and are troubled" (Job 4:5). Empathy is, of course, a very productive part of parent-child relations, but sometimes children feel, as Job must have felt in this instance, that agreement is manipulative--a different way for the parent to get what he wants.
12. Withdrawing: Even when silent, the friends were of no great help to Job, as indicated: "They sat upon the ground with him silently for seven days and nights, no one speaking a word" (Job 2:13). There's a place for silence, but the quiet of withdrawal can be interpreted by a child as disinterest or rejection.
Responsive listening is another way of answering a message. It is often more effective than the twelve typical responses because it directly involves the sender with the receiver. It helps a parent learn and understand the feelings and needs of the child.
The responsive-listening model can best be understood by tuning in on dialogue. "Why do I have to do the dishes? Jim never has to do a thing!" This statement can be responded to in various ways.
Judging: "Don't get smart-alecky with me. It isn't true, and you know it."
Ordering or commanding: "Don't give me a hard time. Just do what you're told."
Warning: "Stop talking like that, or you're grounded for the week."
Name calling: "When you talk like that, you sound like a spoiled little brat."
Sympathizing: "You'll feel good about what you've accomplished when you're finished."
Responsive: (The parent searches for the need and the feeling buried within the words.) "You're upset because you have more to do than Jim."
Instead of responding with a lecture or a command, the responsive-listening approach encourages the parent to send back a message centered on the needs of the child. Such a response may well open the door for a dialogue that will build a bridge of effective communication between parent and child.
Child: "Why do I have to do the dishes? Jim never has to do a thing."
Parent: "You're upset because you have more to do than Jim."
Child: "Yeah, especially since I did most of them every night this week."
Parent: "No one's helped you with the dishes this week?"
Child: "Well, Jim did some yesterday, but tonight I need to study with Mary."
Parent: "It's important that you study with Mary tonight?"
Child: "Yeah. We have an exam tomorrow. I'll ask Jim to help me with the dishes, and I'll help him with his math later on."
The real problem does not always surface as quickly or as easily as in this dialogue, but the essential ingredients are here. Note that each answer by the parent contains the pronoun you. The parent shows a concern for the child's feelings, but equally as important, she doesn't offer a solution. Instead, she gives the child an opportunity to find her own solution to the problem.
This list of tips for responsive listening may help to improve your rate of success:
1. Choose carefully the time for responsive listening. Sometimes children just need information when they ask a question. Responsive answers only confuse them.
2. Listen for the feeling as well as the content of each message.
3. Vary the form of response. Don't always reply, "I hear you saying...."
4. Be aware of nonverbal clues as well as of all verbal ones.
5. Avoid opening the door for communication with your children and then slamming it when you don't like what you hear.
6. Reflect a warm feeling of empathy, along with your response, to the content of the message.
7. Don't try to continue "listening" long after the child is finished sending messages.
To listen responsively is one way of going the extra mile in a relationship and is a tangible means of fulfilling the command to love one another. I can show I care by listening. To love is to care enough to listen.
"He that Hath Ears"
The importance of developing our listening ability is directly affirmed by James, a man who knew Jesus intimately:
"Let every man be quick to hear, slow to speak...." (James 1:19).
The two terse commands contained in the beginning of this verse fit nicely together. When we take time to listen responsively--and avoid the error of answering with authoritative pronouncements--the messages given back to us by our children are far less likely to be obnoxiously defensive. This, in turn, reduces the tension and may well help us avoid angry exchanges. Two variations in handling the same situation demonstrate the point.
Teenager (in the summer between high school and college): "I'm not going to the university in September. I'll get a job in a warehouse instead."
Father (with anger): "After all I've done for you!"
Teenager: "I don't need your help. Just leave me alone."
Let's start over, using responsive listening techniques. See how James' command to listen makes it easier to heed his warning against quick anger.
Teenager: "I'm not going to the university in September. I'll get a job in a warehouse instead."
Father: "You're not keen on going away to school."
Teenager: "I'm the youngest kid in my class. If I work a semester, I'll have a better chance in college a year from now."
The situation can now be resolved without conflict. James has laid out for us behavioral patterns that coincide with the command repeated many times by our Lord: "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." (Matthew 13:43)
POPPING THE WOOL OUT OF OUR CHILDREN'S EARS
"Daddy, where does the light come from?" Billy had just switched on the lamp by his bed. Now he looked at his father with wide, questioning eyes.
The question was a serious one for a seven-year-old. His father answered by describing in simple terms how the bright light of the sun pulls the water from the ocean into the sky. It then falls as rain in the mountains. He went on to describe the giant water wheels that capture the power of rushing water and change it into invisible streams of electric energy.
This energy passes swiftly through miles and miles of wire until it reaches the light bulb, which, almost magically, can turn the invisible power back into light.
After a few more questions, Billy's eyes lit up and his face broke out in an "I see" kind of smile. A choice moment had arrived, more awesome than the miracle of electricity. A portion of knowledge from the father's head had been transferred to Billy's brain.
When we, as parents, send verbal messages that are received and assimilated by our children, it makes each of us glow a little. We could call this happy phenomenon turning on the light bulb inside our child's head.
Unfortunately, the circuits for this kind of communication have a way of getting short-circuited. The father could have heard the question as another attempt by Billy to delay his bedtime. A response such as "No more silly questions. You've been up too long already" would have quickly blanked out the circuit and snipped off a promising tendril of inquiry into the unknown. More important, it would have broken another connection for real communication between child and parent. Of course, the same question in another context might well have been only manipulative on the part of the child, but the difference can be discovered by an alert adult.
One key ingredient in this light bulb dialogue was that Billy wanted to hear what his father had to say. While this is characteristic of early childhood--when parents are the source of most knowledge and children absorb new ideas like a blotter soaks up water--this openness to parental input seems to lessen with each passing year. Instead of our parental wisdom lighting a bulb inside our children's heads, it seems as if their ears are plugged with wool. What we say bounces off, seemingly unheard. We wait in vain for any positive reaction.
Finding a formula for popping the wool out of our children's ears gives promise of appreciably reducing the tension in many households.
The practice of responding to family situations with verbal attacks upon the worth of the other person is an easy trap to fall into.
It is so easy to tell other people how to avoid falling into this adversary message trap. Right now I was brought up short. While writing this, my granddaughter burst into my study. "Gramps," she shouted, "come see the dog jump three feet in the air for a bone."
My first inclination was to snap, "Can't you see I'm busy? Don't bother me now." Then, before the words left my mouth, the subject of this chapter hit me. I thought, If you can't practice it, don't write it. Jeannie and I spent ten happy minutes watching our aged dog act like a puppy again in exuberant response to the loving attention of a six-year-old.
My first inclination to respond by saying, "Can't you see I'm busy?" would have been an adversary message, starting with "you" and implying that if Jeannie were half-bright, she would have had better sense than to interrupt me. This was not at all the message I wanted to send.
In this instance it was possible and productive for me to take a ten-minute break and play with Jeannie and the dog. This is not always the case; sometimes circumstances prevent a positive response to a child's request. In such an instance, I could have said, "Jeannie, I must finish this job right now. We will have to wait until later to put the dog through her paces." Jeannie would have been disappointed, but she probably would have received it as an affirmative message rather than an adversary message. It would not have insulted Jeannie's self-worth at all but, instead, let her know my needs.
Note that this affirmative message began with "I," not with "you." The emphasis is placed upon the sender's situation and needs, not the character or intelligence of the receiver. The needs of parents are important, so affirmative messages are a useful means of popping the wool from children's ears.
In contrast, I remember some years ago when a situation with a far higher emotional threshold occurred at our dinner table. Jeff, like a lot of kids, insisted upon setting his milk on the edge of the table. Repeated warnings that he should move his milk to a safe position failed to do more than cause a temporary correction. We were in a hurry; I had a speaking engagement that evening. Of course, the inevitable happened: Jeff reached for the bread, and milk spilled all over the new carpet.
My roar was probably heard two blocks away. All of the tension from a long, trying day was focused upon Jeff. He left the table in tears. "You clumsy idiot!" I shouted after him. "Why don't you listen when I tell you something?"
A look around the table told me no one else had much appetite for finishing the dinner. In one way I felt better, because the outburst had released the tightness I had unconsciously been building up. Still, I felt guilty.--Guilty for venting my anger by overreacting to Jeff's indiscretion. And guilty for spoiling the family dinner. No amount of self-reassurance that I had been justified in correcting Jeff's carelessness could relieve my depression.
Later, before he went to bed, I put my arm around Jeff and we talked about the episode. Then we were able to give respectful attention to each other's feelings. An exchange of "I'm sorry" and a good hug made the end much better than the beginning.
In the years since Jeff was small enough to disrupt the dinner table, I have become fully convinced that there are inevitably destructive results to be expected from using adversary messages. They tear at a child's dignity. Unquestionably, Jeff needed to be corrected that evening. His thoughtless and disobedient behavior was unacceptable, and I would have done him a disservice by ignoring it. A better response would have been, "I am really furious; milk on the carpet makes an ugly stain and causes us a lot of unnecessary work." Then Jeff should have been given an opportunity to help clean up the mess.
Haim Ginott's remarks on this subject, while they are directed at teachers, are just as applicable to parents:
"An enlightened teacher is not afraid of his anger, because he has learned to express it without doing damage. He has mastered the secret of expressing anger without insult. Even under provocation he does not call children abusive names. He does not attack their character or offend their personality."
An idea internalized by a child when he receives a parental correction is not always the same idea the parent wanted to get across. Often the emotion-packed insult wrapped around a message is received and believed. The child misses the parental intent completely. We, as parents, then say that the child might as well have his ears stuffed with wool for all he hears. This is not precisely true, for the insult ("You are a stupid slob!") is heard, while the message we want delivered ("This behavior is unacceptable.") is sidetracked.
Words Count
When words fail between parent and child, the youngsters are set adrift in a void with no tools at their disposal to express ideas and needs.
The importance of using and not abusing language was recognized by the Biblical author James. He was deeply concerned about relationships between persons, and he laid great emphasis upon being genuine. For example, his advice was to be "doers of the Word, and not hearers only" (James 1:22). On the subject of communication he said, "Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger" (James 1:19).
In these few words he summed up the whole idea of this chapter. James started by giving a plug for effective listening. Then he cautioned against speech before thought. His proverb was an older, more profound version of the popular quip, "Put your mind in gear before you open your mouth." It is good advice, especially for parents when tension builds and frustrations mount.
WEAVING A WARM BLANKET OF ACCEPTANCE
It has always struck me that Yellowstone Park can't quite make up its mind what it wants to be. One face is serene and beautiful, exuding a majestic power and the promise of fulfillment. But its second face is given to intemperate outbursts of sound and fury. Geysers spout, mud pots bubble, the earth trembles, and sinkholes belch noxious fumes.
A land of such paradox almost exactly illustrates the stage of development reached by children about junior-high age. Their emotional fires lie close to the surface and often erupt in unpredictable ways. Junior-high youngsters are easily hurt, easily led, and still highly responsive to external suggestion, both constructive and destructive. As with the geysers of Yellowstone, they respond to inner pressures by exploding in spectacular displays of spiritual beauty one moment and then descending into murky, sulfurous caverns of introspection the next. Arrogant and unsure, loving and rejecting, they represent an age group in frenzied suspension between childhood and maturity.
Let's focus on one junior-high class. A girl slumps in her seat, trying to hide the obvious fact that her bust line has developed faster than those of her classmates. Her friend in the next row prefers an F to giving an oral report, which she believes will focus attention on her blemished face. In the next seat, a boy wears a long-sleeved sweat shirt, even though the day is hot, to hide his pipestem arms. He's also in trouble for not dressing in shorts and T-shirt for physical education. All three are prone to daydreams of winning in a world they can't quite comprehend.
The reasons behind their mannerisms are readily understandable if we slip into their seats for a few minutes. It is a good time for caring adults to listen, to understand, and to lovingly assist. It is most vital that adults take the time and make the effort to do so, because soon the protective armor will thicken and the inner emotions will become more carefully veiled. As the stage passes (thank goodness! parents sigh), young people build that same protective wall adults use to isolate themselves from each other.
I remember myself as a pre-teen--my inexperienced mind ready to believe when knowing classmates told me that soap was good for slicking the hair, or that masturbation led to insanity. With pimply face and clumsy limbs, my outlook on life was anything but secure.
That is why I treasure the gift my parents gave me then. It was just a simple statement, but I believed it, for they repeated it with conviction: "No matter what you do, or where you go, remember, we love you." "Remember, we love you"--the words wove a warm blanket to protect me in moments of doubt, to help me heal when wounded deep inside. I knew those words were not conditioned on performance; they applied under any and all circumstances. They were so important that my wife and I try very hard to see that each of our children receives the same gift.
Where Is the Joy?
Sometimes children are caught in a web of expectations that doom them to failure. The results can be tragic unless the adults who matter in a child's life are wise enough to see the situation and shift the emphasis so that potential roadblocks become stepping-stones instead.
Few people are equally adept in all activities. Most of us suffer from some acute deficiencies, and, realistically, some talents are more highly prized by Western society than others. For instance, a person without any artistic talent is not greatly penalised by our system, but woe to the child who has a learning disability that makes it difficult for him to learn to read and write. The penalties imposed by home, school and job are immense.
Fortunately, most of us have an adequate ability to read and write. The pain I suffered in school because of a lack of musical talent, however, makes me far more appreciative of the major trauma suffered by children who have severe reading problems. I can still remember how I felt in a junior-high classroom while crawling carefully up the aisle between two rows of desks. It was a trick I had perfected during previous music periods. Each time before my turn came to test my musical memory by singing a required solo, I made a surreptitious escape to the boys' restroom. There I hid out until the period was over.
One day, as I quietly made for the door on hands and knees, I became aware of an obstacle. My hand touched a smooth object that had not been there during previous escapes. It was a shoe, connected to a leg covered by navy blue trousers. As my eyes slowly turned upwards, I saw that the leg belonged to the principal, who was just entering the room as I was making my unauthorized exit.
Later, I still felt that the punishment was worth it, for I would have gone to almost any extreme to avoid having the class laugh when it became apparent that I could not carry a tune. Try as hard as I could, it was impossible for me to sing on key or even get close to the key.
The pain, inferiority, and resentment that built up inside as a result of this episode is still real to me, but music was a required class for only three months. It amounted to one-fifty-fourth of my junior-high schooling. What would have been my reaction if the inadequacy had been in that part of my brain that reads and computes? Perhaps 80 percent of our schooling is occupied with tasks in these two areas. I'm sure I would never have been accepted in college if the entrance exams were based on an ability to reproduce musical tones.
The minds of children are very vulnerable to suggestions, especially repetitious pronouncements made by teachers and parents when the children are in an intense emotional state. For this reason, repeated negative judgments from adults or peers tend to be believed by children and then internalized. The result is often an "I'm dumb" or an "I can't do it" mind-set that helps accelerate a self-fulfilling prophecy.
By the time a child with a reading problem reaches junior-high-school age, he has probably been told over and over again by peers, parents, and teachers through words, attitudes, and body language that he is somehow a deficient human being. It is not surprising that the child behaves as if that were true. Withdrawal from social contacts into a lonely, self-centered world is one frequent result, while aggressive or rebellious behavior is another. My own compulsion to break the rules in a junior-high music class when faced with an "I can't do it" situation helps me realize how devastating a day-in-day-out defeatist attitude can be for a poor reader.
A Time to Back Off
What to do about this is an important matter. One essential is for parents to learn how to use loving acceptance as a warm blanket to protect children from the cold blast of self-defeat. A crisis point often arrives when the child begins formal schooling. The key at that time is for parents to use their unique power to ensure that the learning-to-read experience is a joyous one for the child.
I can remember the nonproductive sessions I spent with my oldest child, Jeff, when he was in first grade. Being a teacher didn't help. I had little patience with a son who was experiencing normal problems with word recognition. I felt his slowness reflected upon my own adequacy. My good humor and his joy in learning were both seriously jeopardized until I decided to back off and let people who were less emotionally involved introduce my first-grader into the exciting world of books. I learned that giving loving support was more valuable than spending frustrating hours making Jeff feel stupid. Soon he was progressing satisfactorily.
The lesson I learned helped me become far more successful in creating an eager, joyful response to learning in my younger children. Each time we let them know how much we lovingly prized them as unique individuals, regardless of school grades, the more they seemed to grow inside and find strength to tackle the challenges facing them. Under the warm blanket of acceptance, my children and yours are far more likely to learn for the sake of gaining knowledge rather than just to please. Such is the happy state of self-motivation that results from knowing that the people who count most in our lives accept us. And the opinion of parents counts a great deal to children.
This idea is not only a strategy to help youngsters make good use of their talents, but it is also the central concept of the Christian faith. In a rather unusual way, the life-after-life experience of Dr. George Ritchie, a Virginia psychiatrist, illustrates this point. As a young soldier waiting to be sent to medical school, he was hospitalized and declared legally dead on December 20, 1943. In the following nine minutes, before a doctor injected adrenalin into his heart, Ritchie experienced several fantastic episodes in totally unfamiliar worlds. The experiences he had while being clinically dead illustrate the change that loving acceptance can make in a life. He describes meeting a figure of light, which he identified as Christ:
Out of this light stepped this form of sheer light; nothing like I'd ever seen in any stained glass windows. Something said, "Stand up. You're in the presence of the Son of God." This was the most powerful male you have ever met. I could well understand why He could walk along the coast line and say to a bunch of hardened seamen, "Drop your nets and follow me."
... I have never been in the presence of such total and absolute love, a Being that totally knew everything about me and totally accepted me, and totally loved me.
The love and acceptance he experienced, coupled with the challenge he received from the Christ-figure to go back "with a purpose," is the basis upon which he has built a life of commitment and service. My own conjecture is that no such positive result would have carried over if the figure of light had merely pointed out the young soldier's failures and then left the matter lie. Under such circumstances, I believe, feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and hopelessness would have overwhelmed him. These feelings would have become a terrible weight upon his shoulders, retarding his chances of success for the rest of his life. Total and absolute love had a quite different impact.
The Scales of Self-Worth
Sometimes we can find the warm blanket of acceptance in unexpected places. The rather vinegary-looking old-maid English teacher did not have appealing beauty, but when I was ten years old, she earned a niche in my personal hall of remembrance. Her passion was rocks of all sizes and shapes; many rare and beautiful specimens crowded her cubbyhole office. One morning, quite excited, I brought her a small piece of common quartz I had found on the way to school. Years later I realized how ordinary and uninteresting the specimen must have seemed to her, but she caught my enthusiasm and stopped her busy preparation for class to give me her undivided attention. She explained a little about the rock without being condescending and whispered in a conspiratorial tone where quartz mixed with semiprecious gems could be found. In doing so, she accepted me where I was and opened new vistas for me to explore. If no one else learned a thing in her class that day, she had already performed as a teacher in the best sense of the word.
A peculiar display in the corner of her office helped explain her pattern of dealing with children. A miner's scale was hung there, piled high with ore samples on the left side that far outweighed the few rocks sitting in the right-hand pan. I once asked her why she didn't balance the scales. Her face crinkled in a smile as she explained, "Each experience in life is like a rock--those placed on the negative side weigh us down, and those on the positive side buoy us up. Since the choice of sides is up to each person, I want to help boys and girls place the rocks of their experiences on the positive side of the scale."
For me and many others, she did just that, making us feel important and worthwhile and, at the same time, challenging us to make new discoveries. Needless to say, she seldom had a discipline problem.
This is a good idea for all parents to practice. Everyone has experiences that can be counted either as negative or positive influences in building self-attitudes. On which side of the attitudinal scale any experience falls will depend upon how the event is interpreted by the child, his parents, and other important people in his life. For young children, parents loom large as the ones to turn to for approval and acceptance. Consequently, parents have a huge responsibility in helping children interpret events in a way that will cause them to place the rocks on the positive side of their attitudinal scale.
The English teacher had it in her power to add a rock to either side of my attitudinal scale that morning when I brought her the piece of quartz. She could have said, "Can't you see I'm busy?" or "It's just a piece of quartz--not worth keeping." Having opened up a little of myself to her, I was vulnerable, and such brushoffs would have come through to me as "How stupid of you to bother me with trivia." Her actual response, of course, added measurably to my sense of self-worth and started a lifelong interest in geology. Usually, no one rock is that important, either positively or negatively, but accumulatively, day in and day out, the important adults in a child's life will determine whether that child builds the larger pile of rocks on the plus or minus side of his self-worth scale.
Sometimes rocks can be piled on the negative side of a child's attitude scale when we misapply well-intentioned praise. Children have a keen sense of discernment between what's honest and what's contrived or phony. Of course, just like the rest of us, they are more likely to apply their sense of honesty to somebody else's actions than to their own.
One unforgettable disaster sequence happened in our own family when I tried to use insincere praise during a critical segment of a family trip. We were on our way from Long Island to visit friends in New Jersey. In the back seat was Jeff, age 6; Susan, age 3; and the baby, who was sleeping peacefully in a basket. The family cocker spaniel was also snoozing on the floor, further crowding the area.
As we approached the concrete and steel maze leading to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, I was concentrating on the traffic. Beyond the first tunnel lay Manhattan's congested streets and the Lincoln Tunnel under the Hudson. Jeff was quiet at the moment, much to my relief, so in an attempt to assure continuation of this happy state I said, "Jeff, you certainly are a little angel on this trip." The compliment was inaccurate, and he knew it. He'd had the usual restlessness of a six-year-old cooped up in the back seat.
We went a few miles farther ... and then it happened. Jeff poured baby oil on his sister's freshly shampooed hair. She reacted by upsetting the baby's basket on the dog. In panic, the baby screamed, while the dog panicked and had a smelly accident all over the floor. To complete the shambles, the baby got sick to her stomach and, until we emptied the car in New Jersey and hosed out the inside, it resembled more closely a cattle car than a means of human transport. Needless to say, that portion of our trip was very silent.
Afterwards, with some probing, Jeff admitted that he didn't feel like an angel at all and had tried to prove his less lofty status. No excuse for Jeff, but my phony compliment helped provoke his misbehavior. It would have been more successful if I had told Jeff that, while driving through New York, I needed his continued cooperative silence.
Such experiences have taught me to praise efforts and accomplishments, not personalities. Better to tell your child, "Thanks for letting me know I overpaid you," than to generalize: "You're such an honest child." It is far better to say, "You did a good job cleaning up the kitchen," than, "You are a perfect sweetheart."
Accepting the Prodigal
A far more important message can be given by a parent. If dispensed early enough, often enough, and with sincerity, there is every reason to believe it will be received with inner happiness by the child. This is the greatest compliment of all--acceptance. Remember how the father of the prodigal son acted when the boy returned home? Did he run up and sniff his breath to see if he had been drinking? Did he comment on how poorly he had cared for his clothes? Did he criticize his straggly hair and dirty fingernails? Did he inquire about the balance left in his checking account? Of course not. He hugged the boy--the hug of loving acceptance.
It was not just an emotional reflex action. Later, when the father was confronted with the angry jealousy of the elder son, he still stuck to his original stance of loving acceptance for the younger boy regardless of how strongly he rejected the prodigal's past behavior. This story of a father's love is immortalized in the Bible primarily, I believe, to tell something of how God accepts us. Should we not consciously use his example in dealing with our children? Can we afford to neglect giving them hugs of loving acceptance each day?
This love is the warm blanket each parent can weave for his or her children--a blanket of love that accepts each child for what he is. Such love is never content to stop assisting the youngster to climb higher and higher toward the plan God has for every life.
ALTERATIONS ON MEMORY LANE
As the car approached the home of her fiance, Helen nervously thought of the inane TV commercial that touts a particular antiperspirant for girls who meet their boyfriend's families. This wasn't to be her first meeting, but it was the first time Helen was to spend a weekend.
Fred's family accepted her; no doubt about that. Still, their open, sometimes overwhelming, expressing of emotions both attracted her and at the same time made her a little afraid. It was as if she had approached a roaring fire and, while pleased by its warmth, was fearful of its intensity.
The emotional atmosphere in her own home, by comparison, had been quiet and subdued. She and her brothers never lacked for physical or material needs. On the contrary, affluence, culture, social position, and family heritage were the foundation of her family's lifestyle. She was proudly conscious of all that, but puzzled by other things that were missing.
From the start of elementary school, she had no recollection of being touched with tenderness--or being touched at all, for that matter--by her mother or father, except by accident or for a very occasional spanking. Her father, a successful sales manager, spent long periods on business in New York. But it made little difference when he was home. Her mother set the family tone and dominated Helen's memory of childhood.
Now she entered the far more modest home of her fiance. The welcome was boisterous. She liked the hugs from his parents and younger brothers and sisters but didn't quite know how to respond. Despite the softness that flooded her heart, a stiffness gripped her shoulders and made her wary.
At dinner, the discussion turned to Fred's childhood experiences, much to his outward discomfort. Humorous anecdotes ricocheted across the table. Stories of comic disasters were interspersed with accounts of mutual love and respect. Everyone seemed ready to laugh at himself and sympathize with the ups and downs suffered by others.
A new sense of community reached out and included Helen. And cautiously, she crept from inside a shell built long ago. A lifetime of family experiences had taught her that to show emotion is dangerous.
On Saturday Fred spent all day on duty with the Army Reserve, and everyone else went to visit relatives. Rather than tag along, Helen stayed behind to bake a cake for Fred's father, whose birthday was Sunday. She created a beautiful, multi-layered yellow cake with chocolate icing. When completed, she felt she had done quite well in someone else's kitchen.
The shock was enormous when her intended father-in-law saw the cake. He reacted like a hurt little boy, shouting, "A chocolate cake? Don't you know a birthday cake should always be white with white icing?" Helen was informed of this family tradition as if it were universal truth. Puzzled, crushed, and furious, she retreated to her room. Missing supper, she was further hurt when she overheard comments about how ungrateful a guest was to upset the family meal.
Fred had not yet returned, but Helen couldn't wait. Determined to end her visit, she came downstairs to call a taxi. The atmosphere was an about-face; a more sincere, loving, and apologetic family could not be found. With tears and embraces, and with heartfelt apologies, they persuaded her to stay. They were perplexed by her reticence, for in their minds they had treated her openly with their feelings like one of the family.
Helen lay awake that night, wondering about the differences between her upbringing and the fluctuating emotional climate in which Fred had been raised. She should have talked it over with Fred, but both of them were too inexperienced in the intricacies of family climate to take that step.
They did not realize that both bride and groom bring two different sets of childhood memories to the altar. The Bible tells us that "a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). This is more than simply a physical leaving. Childhood memories must also be dealt with. After Helen and Fred were married, they played important roles in establishing the content of their children's memory banks.
Many experts have shown that the "tapes" from our childhood have a significant effect upon the decisions we make in adult life. They often determine how we behave and how we respond to others, as well as how we train our children. Fred and Helen approached marriage very differently because of the emotional climates in their own childhood homes.
Although we can't erase the tapes of our memory bank, we can and should consciously examine the data to see if the beliefs and feelings imbedded there are still valid and applicable. After this review, if it is possible and profitable, we should discard those beliefs carried over from childhood that are not now useful.
If we are serious about being the best parents possible, it is vital that we, as objectively as possible, examine our own biases. The ideas, beliefs, prejudices, fears, and myths about raising children that have been imbedded in our inner mind as a result of our own childhood experiences need be aired in daylight. None of us are exempt from this task.
One of the most common carry-overs from the child of the past is a feeling of inadequacy. Children are small, weak, and unskilled. Many of us come naturally to assume this attitude of powerlessness.
To compensate for these feelings of inadequacy, many children play the game "Mine Is Better." The game can be observed in any group of preschoolers. "My bicycle is better than yours," "My daddy is bigger than yours," "My shoes are prettier," and on and on. Laughing at another child who falls down, bullying a little brother, throwing rocks at passing cars, and similar behavior may well stem from the same general feeling of powerlessness.
As adults, we often cherish these childish points of view even as we carefully camouflage them, since they are no longer socially acceptable. This tendency to compensate for feelings of inadequacy by playing "Mine Is Better than Yours" may burst loose in our adult urge to buy a larger house, a flashier car, or a more powerful boat, even though the resulting payments may put us in a severe financial bind.
The process of altering memory lane can be of value to each of us. Here are seven simple but potent steps:
1. Accept the fact that experiences from the past may lodge as memories in the inner mind and affect our behavior as adults and, especially, as parents.
2. Remember and catalog those past experiences that have caused blocks to the full development of our personality.
3. Forgive our parents, whose acts may have helped cause the blocks, and ask their forgiveness for a lack of understanding on our part.
4. Ask the Spirit of Christ to take us by the hand and heal each memory that is causing us to be limited persons.
5. Repeat this walk down memory lane with Christ regularly until we feel a victory over past blocks and can forget them.
6. Give thanks for the freedom from the past that Jesus has given us.
7. Start basing the decisions we make as parents on models such as the ones in this book rather than on the mind-sets from our past.
IRONING OUT THE WRINKLES
I was pounding tent pegs with a small ax when three-year-old Billy wandered over from the next campsite. Curious about the new arrivals, he had the commendable intention of wanting to help us get settled.
As I laid down the ax to get the next peg, Billy swooped in to grab the shiny tool. Just as quickly, I grabbed the ax out of his hand, and he yelled like a banshee.
His mother came running, but her commands to return to their camp were met with loud protests from Billy. Finally, her face red with embarrassment, she pulled him by the hand, only to have him employ the strategy he kept in reserve for such occasions: He went limp. She ended up carrying him away while he kicked and screamed. It was several hours before Billy's parents were sufficiently relaxed to drink a cup of coffee with us and laugh over the incident.
Billy's escapade illustrates a universal reality: Parents of small children are susceptible to being placed in awkward social situations. All children, even the reasonably well-adjusted and well-disciplined, will sooner or later act in uncivilized ways. Billy's mother discovered that truth, to her discomfort. If given a choice, she and her husband would much rather have met their new camping neighbors with their best foot forward. Instead, Billy's actions propelled them into an encounter on the level where they were most vulnerable.
As adults, we can usually avoid revealing any more of our emotions than we wish in a casual social encounter. Not so when we have children. Growing youngsters can be counted on for the unexpected. They are living proof of Murphy's Law that if something can go wrong, it will go wrong.
After observing Billy and his family at fairly close quarters for a week, I could see that he was neither undisciplined nor unloved. But at three, he was in the process of becoming civilized. In a year Billy will have learned far better to obey, since his parents are blending love and control in shaping his growth. By that time, of course, he will be in another stage, mortifying his parents by asking proper dowager Aunt Lizzie embarrassingly personal questions. Whatever the particulars, raising children can be hard on sensitive parental egos.
I still remember the shock I experienced in taking our first toddler to a fine restaurant. Only a couple of years removed from the honeymoon, I remembered dinner for two with soft music and candles. Not so with Jeff along; he smeared his food, cried, and dropped various items on the floor. The waiter's pained smile, which seemed to be painted on his face, didn't broaden much even when I tipped generously.
That was the last time for a while that we ate with Jeff in a restaurant that didn't feature Formica tables and paper napkins. It wasn't that we did a poor job of training Jeff to eat, but taking him out to dine at that age was like trying to play a violin in public before all the strings have been installed.
Children in the process of "becoming" do not suddenly step forth as mature adults. Sometimes the answer is to avoid a situation programmed for failure, because the child is not yet ready for exposure to that particular kind of experience. At other times we need to relax and enjoy the growth of our children. And in all situations we should not become paranoid about rushing them into adulthood.
Children cannot be let alone like a weed growing in the wild. Too much attention, too little attention, inconsistent attention, or the wrong kind of attention can all stunt the potential of either a plant or a child. If "the Lord chastens him whom He loves" (Hebrews 12:6), should we as parents do less?
Just loving children is not enough! Our Heavenly Father loves each of us completely and without reservation, yet the Bible sets forth in vibrant detail the absolute need for Man, if he wants to be happy, to learn about rights, respect, and responsibilities--the three R's of discipline. Parents have the God-given task of helping instill these traits into the character of their children. It does not come naturally or automatically.
I would suggest that parents of very small children talk about behavior standards with those who have been through the battle--parents of teenagers, high-school students, and their counselors. It is a little like walking down the assembly line and looking at a product nearing completion. Years ago, as an assembler in an airplane manufacturing plant, I found this a useful practice. Seeing the nearly completed plane helped me understand the importance of getting my rivets set correctly.
When parents of small children study teenage behavior and its causes, they are often able to see the end result of such common child-rearing errors as parental overindulgence or overpossessiveness on the one hand, and parental brutality or emotional starvation on the other hand. The time to set the patterns that will greatly reduce the possibility of disastrous consequences for your future teenager is when your child is under five years of age.
* * *
It would be just as unfair for us to judge parents based upon how well their teenagers behave as to judge an architect who designed a home that collapsed in a tidal wave. The waves of environmental and genetic factors that affect behavior are sometimes beyond the control of parents--or anyone, for that matter. Many factors go into causing behavior, especially teenage behavior; so the Bible's admonition, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1), is a good rule to follow.
The Reinforcement Principle
I hope there is no doubt in our minds that children need reasonable controls placed on their behavior. The next step is to do something about it.
The reinforcement approach is not at all permissive. Instead, it is aimed at helping you understand how habits, good and bad, are formed and how they can be modified or erased.
The first part of the reinforcement principle is the positive-reinforcement rule. It is stated by Madeline Hunter as follows:
"A positive reinforcer can be anything that is desired or needed by the child. The child will want praise, attention, food, approval, toys, special privileges, etc. When you use it, a positive reinforcer will strengthen the behavior it immediately follows and make that behavior more likely to happen again."
In this context, the words "reinforcer" and "reward" have about the same meaning. If Bill is given money right after he cuts the lawn, or a piece of cake after raking the leaves, these are positive reinforcers. They have the tendency to make it more likely that the behavior immediately preceding the reward will be repeated. In these cases, it means that, other things being equal, Bill will be more likely to cut the grass or rake the leaves in the future.
Not all reinforcers are material things like food, privileges, or money. Other kinds of reinforcers are far more effective, and love stands above all as the key positive reinforcer. Love is communicated when parents show interest and attention or take time to hug a child. A smile and a bit of sincere praise is the kind of successful reinforcement that is routinely given to most children every day.
Rewards or Bribes?
Some people balk at giving children rewards. They say that good behavior should be expected; it is the right thing to do. And they add that positive reinforcers are bribes that teach children to expect a material or social return for each good act they perform.
To accept this point of view is to overlook the reward systems that operate in our adult world. We receive a paycheck (a material reinforcer) for our work. In addition, business and industry have found that praise and recognition (both social reinforcers) are important factors in maintaining worker morale and productivity. It seems highly unrealistic to balk at using positive reinforcers (rewards) for children, while at the same time we accept a system for ourselves that relies heavily on social and material reinforcers.
"Bribe" usually connotes something given to corrupt behavior. A positive reinforcer (reward), on the other hand, is given to strengthen the probability that desirable behavior will be repeated. If a child whines and is given a piece of candy to make him stop whining, it could be called a bribe, or behavior corrupter, because it tends to reinforce the whining. To replace bribes with reinforcers for positive purposes, we must carefully consider the kind of behavior that is likely to be repeated as the result of our actions.
Here are some illustrations of how positive reinforcement works to change specific child behavior.
Case 1: Three-year-old John doesn't like to pick up his toys. But he does look forward to a story before bedtime. His mother wisely tells John that he can hear a story as soon as the toys are picked up. If he wastes too much time on the toys, there will be no time for the story. Mother reinforces John as he does his task by saying such things as, "You're doing such a good job." It is important that she sticks to what she has told him so that the major reinforcer (the story) is given only after the toys are picked up.
Case 2: Charlene has the habit of whining when she wants something. This has probably occurred because her parents are usually busy with other things, and Charlene talks nonstop most of the day. To get her mother's attention, Charlene has learned to change her tone of voice into a whine. This is a child's use of a positive reinforcer, for it gets her what she wants: Mother's attention.
To break the habit, her mother tells Charlene she has "magic ears" that can't hear a whine. She then gives a hug and compliment (positive reinforcement) when Charlene uses a pleasant voice to make a request. If it is a reasonable request, her mother responds positively to the need or want. Charlene's parents also train themselves to monitor the little girl's constant chatter and respond to the talk that needs an answer.
On the Other Hand ...
Punishment is the other side of positive reinforcement. It is sometimes a very necessary strategy, so parents should know how to use it. We don't want punishment to boomerang in a reaction we didn't intend. Psychologists call the use of punishment "negative reinforcement."
When three of our children were still young, they got in the habit of fighting in the back seat of the car. My instinctive reaction was to shout and give a backward sweep of my arm, while still keeping my eyes on the road.
After a while, this negative reinforcement became a pattern, and the children responded accordingly. The two older ones learned to sit on the side away from the driver with their feet tucked under them. In this way, they avoided the sweep of my arm. The smallest child learned to cry and was then often taken into the front seat.
Now, the negative reinforcement (my shouting and swinging an arm) did stop the racket in the back seat for a while; but the process had to be repeated frequently. The result was that I became a shouting father and an erratic driver. The fact that the children stopped making noise when I acted this way reinforced my behavior. I was allowing my children to train me to behave in a way I did not want to behave. This is a common but quite unacceptable situation.
For the two older children, the action that "took away" the negative reinforcer (my shouting and arm swinging) was to sit in a certain way in the car. For the youngest, the behavior she learned was to cry and get in the front seat, where she wanted to be. None of these behaviors were the ones I had in mind.
After realizing the road habits we were developing in our children, my wife and I changed tactics. We used a variety of means: Games to play along the way, group singing, frequent rest stops, special treats for good behavior, etc. Our trips became more pleasant for everyone.
One of the most appreciated travel gifts came from the children's grandmother on the eve of a transcontinental car trip. She packed a box for each child with one gift to be opened on each day of the trip. No one had taught grandmother the formal theory of reinforcement, but she had learned it by experience, and we profited from her wisdom.
Defiance in the Garden
One appropriate situation in which to use negative reinforcement is when a child becomes defiant. This is a different situation from needing to learn company manners, or remembering to clean up a room, or mastering acceptable eating habits. Defiance is as old as the human race. It is the basic problem that caused Adam and Eve to be thrown out of the garden. It rears its ugly head in the innocent eyes of each toddler. Since children will have trouble learning respect for God if they do not learn respect for their parents, defiance must be dealt with fairly and quickly.
Before labeling a child's behavior as defiant, you should pause a moment and ask yourself: Is this really defiant behavior? Does he understand what is required of him? Is the request I am making possible for him to carry out? Sometimes what we quickly label as willful defiance is really based upon a lack of understanding or skill. If so, the child's behavior should be treated differently. But here we are limiting our discussion to a child who knowingly challenges his parent's authority.
It is surprising how early in life this human trait shows up. At two years of age, dancing, brown-eyed Karl was all love and dimples until his mother put him down for a nap. Then he stood straight up and said, "No." He wouldn't go to bed. When she insisted, he took good aim and spit in her face. At this point, no reward (positive reinforcement) or reasoning would have been effective. The mother quietly turned him over her knee and stung his little rear end. If she had not done so, a pattern could have developed that would have made Karl a monster as a boy and a man.
Karl's mother was careful to put Karl on her lap after the nap and hug him as she told him how pleased she was that he had taken a good nap. A show of love and appropriate positive reinforcement should follow needed punishment. (Note: A hug after the spanking might have been helpful too, to show the child that the mother still loved him, even though she had to discipline him.)
A LESSON FROM THE BUSINESS WORLD
How do we help our children? One step is to examine honestly the real goals we have for them. Do we want our children to be pets to give us affection? How are we treating them? Do we look at our children as projections of ourselves to become what we didn't? Do we see our children as puppets to satisfy our need to dominate? Do we train our children as performers to show off and impress the Joneses?
I hope, instead, that we see our children as God-given immortal souls, loaned to us for a time. If so, we can see them as persons with their own feelings and needs. They will be persons who may hate, love, grow, fail, succeed, rebel, renew, shape up, or mess up, but who will inevitably become, with God's help, individuals of infinite worth.
If the goal you choose is to help your child become a mature, independent adult, I can suggest a business management principle that may be of use. Each decision should be made at the lowest possible rung on the organizational ladder. The person furthest down who has the facts and skills needed should be given the authority to make the decision.
For example, a worker who uses a certain kind of screw on the assembly line is in a better position to know when to reorder screws than the plant manager. The more legitimate decisions the assembly line worker has the authority to make, the more likely he is to identify with the objectives of the organization. Of course, along with authority should always go responsibility for the consequences of the decisions made. If the supply of screws runs out because the worker neglected to reorder, he must accept the blame.
In raising children, I believe this same principle can be profitably operated. Children should be encouraged to make as many decisions about family matters and their own lives as is feasible, given their level of maturity, skill, and experience. The kind of family vacation should not be determined by one person alone, parent or child, but by a family conference approach. As children grow older, they can grasp the needs of others, the extent of family resources, and the time constraints. Then their input can be of real value if it is taken seriously and not treated in a patronizing manner. This does not mean that we should give in to every whim of a child, but treat him as a contributing member of the group.
LISTEN MUCH. LET GO.
Few more complex tasks exist on Earth than the proper discharge of the parent's responsibilities. As a final condensation of the approach throughout these pages, I end by sharing with you a simple slogan:
Pray much; preach little.
Stroke often; strike seldom.
Listen much. Let go.
In the final analysis, the kind of persons we are is of greater pertinence than all the words we speak. After years of struggle as a pastor in a large city, Dr. A. W. Tozer made a pointed contrast between the verbs to do and to be. His observation was that whatever a person does is less important than what he is. Most certainly the axiom applies to parents.
The kind of person you and I are is far more important than any skills we learn. With this in mind, it is my prayer that, with God's help, we may be able to live the models presented in this book, and that the experience will help us become the finest kind of parent possible. If we do so, it will be a beautiful gift to our children--and their children as well. The lasting effect of good parenting is as immortal as the love that motivates it.
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