PARENTS: TALK WITH YOUR CHILDREN--By V. Gilbert Beers
Something You Must Have
It's true that each of us has the gift to talk, but few of us develop the gift of talk--redemptive talk, saying things that change lives, building lives with what we say.
I think each of us has a longing to talk meaningfully with each other. We want to talk so that others will listen & will feel uplifted & revitalised when they do. But I know of very few people who practice that gift. Why not? Why don't we do more of it? Why don't we fill our days with this kind of talk?
I think the answer is simple: Neglect. Neglect because we live too close to, & take for granted too much, those with whom we can cultivate this gift daily.
We neglect the most obvious opportunity in the World to build the art of redemptive talk when we fail to cultivate the gift of communication daily with our spouse & children. There is no better place to begin than in our own home, with husband or wife, daughter or son.
Through the gift of talk, of conversation & communication with your child, God has endowed you with the power to change an important corner of His World.
What more enriching gift can I bestow upon you than talking with you, communicating my ideas & feelings, my heritage & emotions, my dreams & visions? More important than communicating these things to you is communicating with you in such a way that the best of each of us emerges.
In summary, here are some guidelines concerning that most important gift of communication, or talk, with our children:
1) God has granted us who are parents a unique privilege, for He has entrusted the life-building process for that important person, our child, into our care. This is a high & holy calling.
2) Our most effective means of building our children's lives is through conversation (talk), supported by our own example. Our communication between parent & child is a grand opportunity to be mutually constructive.
3) As parents, we should cultivate the habit of talking with our children rather than merely talking to them. Conversation, communication, talk, is a two-way street.
Build Up or Shut Up
Through the years we've had a little saying in our family: "Build up or shut up." It's not a very delicate way to phrase what we're trying to say, but it really does get the point across.
As a disciple of Christ, I am in the same business that He is in. Theologians call it redemption. We may call it life-changing or life-building. But my life-building or life-changing involves the way I live.
First, as a husband, God expects me to build up my wife. Building up our mate is the primary mission of marriage--not what we can get out of our mate. If you aren't building up your mate each day, it's time to ask why you got married. If your marriage is in trouble, one of the first questions to ask is, "When was the last time I built up my mate?" followed by, "How did I do it?" followed by, "What can I do today to build up my mate?" Of course this is a two-way street, & your mate is equally mandated to help you.
A friend who has made no claim to be a Christian told me that he & his wife each day make a game of building up the other. Each day is a new surprise, a new excitement, of something special that each does to build up the other, to make the other person feel like a king or queen, to make the other person a better, stronger, happier person. I was ashamed when I heard my friend describe this. I am a Christian & he makes no claim to be one, but he is following the Biblical mandate for marriage much better than I am.
Second, as a father, God expects me to build up my children (& as a grandfather, my grandchildren). The mission of parenting is not standing idly by, watching your children grow up, but serving as a construction engineer in their growing lives, for the glory of God the Architect.
Life-building is not one compartment of parenting; it is all of parenting. Everything I do as a parent should be done as part of the life-building process.
When my children come home from school & want to talk with me, do I view this as an interruption or as an opportunity to do some of my life-building work for God? When we sit down at breakfast or dinner, is this a time to straighten things out or build things up?
Am I more concerned with what my child doesn't do than what my child does do? Do I spend more time telling my child what he or she did wrong than I do helping my child know what to do right?
Today, each time you interact with your child, ask, "Is this building up?" If you do this, you will be surprised to see how today will be different from yesterday.
Your Children Can Become Your Best Friends
When each of our children was born, we thought of that child as 1) a full, complete person, & 2) someone equal to us in God's eyes. We never viewed our child as only part of a person, less than a person, or someone who would emerge into personhood. Each child was always a full, complete person. We began thinking that way as soon as we knew that my wife Arlie was pregnant. There was a person, although an unknown person, growing in her.
I can honestly say we never viewed our children as less than us. We always thought of them as equal to us, as friends. I believe this profoundly shapes the way we discipline our children, guide our children, talk with our children.
I think the foundations of friendship are laid over long periods of time. Friendship is something that ages well. It matures with the passing of time. It stands the test of time.
If your children are an interruption to you when they are 5, you will be an interruption to them when they are 25. If you are glad to get your children out of your way when they are 5, they will be glad to get you out of their way when they are 25.
Building a friendship with children is interwoven with building trust with children. Friendship is a manifestation of a relationship of trust. When trust ends, friendship ends.
Trust is the thread from which the tapestry of friendship is woven, the clay from which the vessel of friendship is shaped, the gold from which the ring of friendship is cast.
If you want to establish & maintain your child's trust in you, & thereby establish & nurture a friendship with your child, here are some basic requirements:
1) Be consistent. Develop expectations for your child & stick with them. Nothing is more confusing to a child, or us, than to have shifting standards. If you have rules, make sure they are reasonable rules, then stick with them. Of course there are margins for exceptions. There are times when rules do not fit the circumstance. You & your child must rely on your good judgement to come up with a reasonable verdict for that moment. But usually the rule does fit & you should stick with it.
2) Be reasonable. Our God does not ask us to torture ourselves or destroy ourselves to prove our devotion. God asks us to obey, to keep our lives within His boundaries of love. We parents should have the same standard of reasonableness. If we have made a rule that doesn't work for a certain situation, we should be reasonable & say, "I expect you to keep rules, but not when we agree that one doesn't work. Here is one time it doesn't work. Let's set a new boundary for this situation."
3) Be loving. God's mark of distinction is also love. If your child knows that you love him no matter what, even when he doesn't deserve your love, it becomes more difficult not to obey. Even discipline should be done in love, not in angry vengeance.
4) Be involved. Building trust & friendship cannot be done at a distance. I've never met a family that is close-knit without at least one parent devoting life & love to that family. Without loving parental involvement, trust is not easily built. Involvement is presence, being there, being there with your child.
5) Be for your child. When our children went through their teen years, Arlie & I projected the message of Romans 8:38,39 into our parenting. "Nothing you can ever do will separate you from our love," we would tell our children. "If you do something you shouldn't, you may break our hearts, but you will not stop us from loving you."
My trust in God is much deeper because I know that He is for me. My trust in my parents was also deeper because I knew they were for me. I believe the close friendship that Arlie & I have with our children comes largely from their assurance that we were, & are, for them, no matter what.
Person to Person
Walk into a room filled with dignitaries & you may barely be noticed, depending on how much of a dignitary you are. But walk into the same room with a baby in your arms, & the baby will take over as the center of attention. Babies are important people. That's because a baby is endowed with all the qualities of personhood, made in "the image of God."
In most earthly processes, building something depletes the resources necessary to make that object. Build a house & you deplete a supply of lumber, nails, & glass. Build a car & you deplete a supply of steel & plastic. Make a dress & you deplete a supply of cloth & thread. That's the way life is.
But when you build up each other, your peers & your children, you not only don't deplete your own resources but you enhance them. You become a better person, a more effective person, a happier person. Build a child of God & you will likely become a more godly person. It is a breath-taking, unnatural idea. Only God could have thought of it!
In my person-to-person relationships with my children, I can extend myself into their lives & hopefully they will extend themselves into my life in much the same way. Whenever I am genuinely interested in what my daughter Jan thinks, I ask her. I step into the inner sanctum of her personhood & we communicate.
Person-to-person communication is the basis, the foundation, for building friendships with your children (& other people as well). Most of us have become accustomed to living life on a non-personal plane. We deal with necessities, facts, issues, trivia. But somehow we are afraid to extend our personhood into that of another person--even mates or children.
Think about your conversations this last week, especially your family conversations. How many people have asked you to share your "heartbeat" with them--how you feel, what you are thinking, your hurts & joys, your personal reactions to things close at hand?
Today when you & your family talk together, take note of what you are saying to one another. Are you exchanging trivia most of the time, or are you truly extending your personhood into theirs, & theirs into yours? Person-to-person communication is trust-building, friendship-building, & life-building.
What Do You Want Your Children to Become?
Remember the well-meaning man who patted you on the head when you were a little boy or girl & asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" That's a nervous question, usually asked when an adult doesn't know what else to ask.
Have you ever asked yourself what you really want your child to be when he or she grows up? Please don't think of a profession or vocation when you ask. That's for your child to decide later on.
But as Christian parents there are certain specific goals we should desire for our children as they grow. And we should work with all our energy to see these goals fulfilled in our children.
Let me share some of the goals that Arlie & I have for our children. Perhaps you may want these same goals for your children. Or you may have some others.
1) As early as possible, I want my children to come to know & to accept Jesus as their own personal Saviour.
2) I want them to learn more about God each day. I want them to grow daily to be more Christlike, more godly.
3) I want them to grow to live God's Word & develop habits of daily Bible reading, not merely because they should read it but because they desire to read it.
4) I want them to cultivate an effective prayer life, & a life of sharing their faith with others, again, not because they should do these things but because they truly desire to do them.
5) I want my children to learn to live by Biblical values. The Bible presents values such as honesty, faithfulness, truthfulness, generosity, love, patience, obedience, friendliness, self-control, self-confidence, courage, compassion, loyalty, thankfulness, perseverance, & helpfulness. I want them to learn to incorporate these values into their daily decisions & daily conduct.
6) I want my children to be men & women of God. I want them to understand what discipleship means, to follow God obediently even when the cost is high.
7) I want them to be exemplary role models as Christians so that other people will desire God because they see God at work winsomely in my children's lives.
8) I want my children to adopt God's priorities for service. If they choose to live in modest circumstances to serve God in a certain way, that is a noble choice, & I would applaud them for it.
9) I want my children to be good stewards of their resources. If they receive a modest income, I hope they will manage their modesty well. If the windows of Heaven open & pour out abundance upon them, I hope they will remain modest & generous as they manage their abundance.
10) I pray that my children will keep money in proper perspective. I pray that they will keep earning & spending & giving in proper perspective. I pray that they will never be consumed with earning so much that they will neglect God or their family.
11) I want my children to be disciplined people. I want them to understand that, like monetary resources, their lives are a trust from God, to be managed carefully for the greatest good & the greatest effectiveness.
12) I want my children to enter into the delights of life with enthusiasm. I want them to appreciate their God-given senses, to enjoy the beauties of His handiwork, to be grateful for the scent of the rose or the taste of pancakes on a winter morning.
13) I want my children to look at life with a proper mixture of seriousness & good humour. There is a time to walk into God's presence with a hush. And there is a time to laugh uproariously--yes, even laugh at ourselves & our strange ways. I believe that God has a sense of humour, & I hope my children will also maintain a sense of humour.
14) I want my children to be life-changers. When they do something, I hope they will do it for God, or for another person, but not for self primarily.
Having listed all of these wonderful things that I want my children to become, how do I help them reach these objectives, assuming that they too want to reach them?
There is a way. As parents, we may role-model our goals for them, living out these goals in our own lives. If these goals are important for your children, they are equally important for you. You will stress their importance by making them your own goals. Your children will want to be like you when you model these goals, because they will see that you truly believe in these goals & are trying to make them happen in your own life.
When we live out our goals for our children in our own lives, we gravitate naturally to daily conversation that focuses on these things. We can talk with our children with ease about what it means to live out these goals in daily living because we are already experiencing these things in our lives & our children are observing us. If they see that we are living what we are saying, they will listen.
Building a child--that is, helping a child grow to maturity as a young man or woman of God--is a process of mutual acceptance.
We parents reveal our acceptance or rejection of our children by the way we talk with them. At one extreme, silence or shunning is total rejection. It says, "I will not verbally acknowledge that you are a person. I will not talk with you at all."
But at the other end of the spectrum, there is mutual acceptance through conversation (talk) between parent & child.
The best way to prevent ruptured relationships that terminate in runaways, rebellion, drugs, or undesirable friends is to cultivate daily talk with your child that reaches from your life into your child's & helps the child to know that talking with him or her is your highest priority during that time.
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The kind of person your child is going to be, he is already becoming.
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A Child Is a Child, But More than a Child
I may be wrong, but I think we Christians are spending too much time on less important things than our children, thinking these things are more important because they are "bigger."
I call for Christian parents to be Christian parents--to see clearly the significance of Christian parenting, & to give our full attention & devotion to this task as much as we would if we were becoming effective businessmen or professionals.
I call you to see your children in context with the Great Commission as a higher calling than any other. I call you to see your children & their potential witness through their children & beyond through the generations. I call you to see your involvement with your children as infinitely more important than the TV programs you will watch this week, the golf game you may play this week, & the time you may spend with your friends this week.
When you are dealing with your children, you are not dealing with insignificance; instead, you are the narrow neck of the funnel through which the future of the World is being poured.
That's not "kid stuff"--it's World power! And that World power will come to focus tonight when your little child crawls up on your lap & says, "Tell me a story," or "Read to me." Or when your child wants to cuddle or wants comfort when someone has teased him.
So how do we perpetuate this Christian influence through our children? I believe it is primarily through our talk with them. It's what we say & how we say it, & it's how we back up our verbal talk with our "conduct talk," our role-modeling.
If you think of your children as small & unimportant, you will talk with them about small, insignificant matters. You will communicate trivia to them. And their growth will reflect this dimension of talk. You will leave behind a generation of stunted dwarfs.
On the other hand, if you see your children as future parents, future leaders, future men & women of God, & see them as growing daily toward this important role, you will do all in your power to shape their lives toward the grand objective of helping them become parents, leaders, & men & women of God. Your conversation will point them toward that end.
Quality One-on-One Time
Arlie & I have five children, & our parenting spans 35 years. It's easy in a busy household like ours to become consumed with the needs of the group. It's difficult to find the time, or should I say take the time, to develop quality one-on-one relationships with each of our five children. But those are the times that were truly special.
When you look for them, there are many "lost" hours which could be turned into wonderful one-on-one times of conversation, especially those hours in the car, or at home, when we might grumble that we are "stuck with our kids." Redeem those moments & hours with talk!
When Arlie was growing up, she & her sisters used dishwashing time as a special time to not only talk together but sing together. Out of this "dishpan rehearsal" came a quartet (later a trio) which sang at many church services & civic events & then became the college girls' trio. It also produced a life-long close friendship among the sisters, & their children.
When I grew up on a farm in the post-Depression years, we could not afford to go anywhere or do anything in the evening after the chores were done. So we all sat on the front porch & talked the evening away. Looking back, our near-poverty was a marvellous glue that helped bind our family together.
Why is one-on-one time so important? Put two people in a room & you will hear the one-on-one type of conversation. Add a third person & the conversation will take an abrupt 90-degree turn. One-on-one is intimacy, heart-to-heart, mind-to-mind, person-to-person, best communicated with no one else around. Marriages are failing today because husbands & wives have lost the art of one-on-one talk, the intimacy of talk. Parents & children are drifting because they do not cultivate this one-on-one relationship of person-to-person closeness.
Of all the mind-building, life-building, soul-stretching relationships on Earth, I believe there is no more effective one than a quality one-on-one relationship with a Christian parent. These are times when the growing child learns who he is, who the parent is, & who God is. For a child to learn how to be most effective as a Christian, he must learn these three.
Quality one-on-one interaction is not a recent development; it is the Biblical expression of God's relationship available for us. May I paraphrase Psalm 23 as a Psalm for a Parent, God's under-shepherd, this way:
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Psalm for a Parent--Adapted from Psalm 23
I am God's shepherd for my child put here to supply all his needs,
I help my child lie down where he will be safe & secure,
And I lead him to quiet, untroubled places where his soul will be restored.
I guide my child in paths of righteousness for God's sake & his own.
Even when my child walks through dark & difficult places,
He does not need to be afraid,
Because I am with him, & that comforts him.
I provide all the good food my child needs,
Even when his "friends" who want to hurt him are nearby.
I treat him like a young prince or princess, & bring a rich family heritage to him.
As long as I live, I will always be his friend, sharing kindness & good things.
I will be a leader & role model for my child, so that at the end of life we will live together in God's Heavenly Home.
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Are Your Attitudes Beatitudes?
A story I heard many years ago sums up the word "attitude." I have heard this story with many variations, but this is the one I like best.
One day a man approached a building site where three stone masons were working. "What are you doing?" he asked the first. The stone mason's brow was furrowed & he looked burdened. "I'm working hard to earn a living," he grumbled. "That's all I do--work, work, work! I can't wait to get out of here & get home at night."
"What are you doing?" he asked the second stone-mason. "I'm laying up stones," he said. "It's a good job, pays well, has good benefits, & I'll be able to retire on schedule."
"What are you doing?" the man asked the third stone mason. The man looked up with a smile. His face glowed. "I'm building a cathedral," he said.
Three men, all doing the same work, with the same pay. Everything was the same--everything except attitude.
As a father & grandfather I have pondered my legacy to the next two generations. What do I want to leave most with my sons, daughters, grandsons, & granddaughters? Among many good gifts, I would like to bestow on these generations the right attitude toward life.
People I meet are like my mirror. When I am cranky, so are people who respond to me. When I smile & project a ray of sunshine, it bounces right back from people around me.
Our faces reflect the attitudes that people around us project. Their faces reflect the attitudes we project. We condition one another by our attitudes. We can either be clouds or sunshine for those around us.
Think how much more we parents condition the attitudes of our children who spend most of their time with us & depend on us to shape their early lives! Our children's formative years include the formation of attitude. Much of their later adult attitude may come from your present adult attitude.
But smiles & frowns are not the only way we shape our children's attitudes. They are watching our own attitudes as adults, as parents--attitudes toward them, & attitudes toward our own problems. What was the last crisis you faced? What attitude did you exhibit before your children? Did you complain about the other person, how circumstances were against you, how life was unfair to you? If you did, would you be surprised to hear your child complain about an unfair teacher, an unfair test, or a bad school situation? How often we see ourselves projected through our children!
Here are some attitudes I hope I can pass on to my children & grandchildren.
1) When I am tempted to think, "I can't do this," ask if I really can't. Is there another way to do it? If I really can't, is there something just as important that I can do?
2) When I think something or someone is unfair, ask how I can become more fair to others because of what I have learned from this unfairness.
3) When I'm hurt because someone is against me, think of those who are for me.
4) When I'm tempted to feel sorry for myself, count my blessings.
5) When someone says an unkind word to me, think of something kind I can honestly say to that person.
6) When I fear that I will fail, think of three things that I have going for me that could help me succeed.
7) When I'm tempted to think, "You don't love me anymore," ask what three specific acts of kindness you have shown me in the last week.
You can extend the list. The attitude you pass on to your child will be reflected in the attitude you show toward these & other circumstances. Your child too often becomes your attitude mirror, reflecting how you have responded to life's problems.
Are You Really for Your Child?
There are dozens of assurances of God's love & care for us. Perhaps there are hundreds.
May I ask an embarrassing question? When was the last time you said one of these assuring statements to your wife or child? If God tells us, His children, repeatedly how much He loves us & how much He is for us, can't we do the same for our wives & children?
What would happen to the divorce rate in this country if husbands & wives did that? What if a husband put his arm around his wife each time she hurt & said, "I just want you to know that I'm with you; you can count on me"? What if a wife put her arm around her husband each time he was down & said, "Just remember, you can count on me"?
The Golden Rule may help you & me understand how much our child wants us to be for him. Perhaps we could restate the Golden Rule like this: "I should decide how I want others to treat me. Then I should first treat others that way."
Ask yourself how you want your husband or wife or child to treat you. Do you want them to be for you, truly for you? I suspect you do. If so, then you should lead the way by being for your mate or child. Lead the way in what you say to them each day & you will be surprised to see how much they become for you.
Here are some questions to ask to help you assess if you are for your child as God is for you:
1) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think he would say, "My parents are on my side; no matter what happens, I can count on them to want the best for me"?
2) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think she would say, "When something is wrong & I feel hurt, I go to my parents first because they help me feel better"?
3) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think he would say, "I can count on my parents to want the best for me; they really want me to do what will help me most"?
4) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think she would say, "Whenever I do my best, even if it's not all my parents want, they say how pleased they are with what I have done"?
5) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think he would say, "My parents really love me, even when I don't deserve it"?
6) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think she would say, "I can count on my parents to forgive me when I'm really sorry for something stupid I've done"?
7) If your child is talking with a friend, do you think he would say, "My parents are good listeners; when I want to talk, they want to listen"?
Talking so Children Want to Listen
We may think we are different from a two-year-old or a four-year-old, & in some ways we are. But like them, we want to talk about our concerns, our interests, ourselves. And so do your children.
Do you ever sit down with your child & talk for a few minutes about his or her concerns only? Finding a few minutes each day to do this will pay handsome dividends in building a relationship of loving trust with your child.
What will you talk about? What is your child concerned about most? People who are good conversationalists will tell you that you can talk for hours with anyone of any age, at any intellectual level, adult or child, & hold them captivated. All you have to do is show a genuine interest in that person & ask questions that help you explore that interest. What does this person do? How does he do it? What does she like? Why?
If you want people to show loving concern for your interests, think how much more your child wants you, as a parent, the most important person in the World to him, to show that loving concern for his interests.
But exactly what should you say when you take those few precious moments to talk with your child? That depends on what your child has done. Did he just come home from school? Is it time to read her a bedtime story? Did he just break a favourite dish? Is she having a temper tantrum? Is he sassing you back about something? Did she just come through the door crying because some friends mistreated her?
Start with the circumstance. That's always a good starting point because that is uppermost in the child's mind at that time. Then go from there.
But don't start the adventure of asking about the child's interests & then abandon the conversation as soon as you start. Have you ever had people do this to you? A friend asks, "What are you doing these days?" You have so much to tell, but after a sentence or two your friend is off on a totally different subject. Don't do this with your child; follow through on the conversation.
Arlie & I have reflected on our conversations with our children when they were younger. Here are a few questions we think we asked from time to time. Some of them relate to coming home from school, some are breakfast questions, some are dinner questions, some are bedtime questions, & some are questions relating to times of hurting:
1) Is there something special you want to do for a friend today? Is there something special you would like to do with me for a few minutes when you come home from school?
2) Who do you like best in your school? What do you like best about this person?
3) Did someone make you especially happy (or angry) today? What happened? How did you feel about this?
4) How was school today? This is a general question, but sometimes these are good to bring out things you never guessed your child was thinking.
5) Who did you like best in the story I read tonight?
6) Are you ever sad? (Happy, or angry, or any other emotion or feeling) What made you sad? What did you do about it? How did that help you not feel sad anymore?
7) What's your favourite game? Your favourite toy? Why do you like this game or toy so much?
8) What did you like best about the program we just watched? What did you think these people did that was wrong? Why?
Exploring your child's heart & mind is one of life's great adventures. Exploring that young mind is more exhilarating than exploring new lands. It is part of the great adventure of living. Once you form the habit, you will not want to break it. But you must set out to make this a daily, conscious habit or the days will slip by without cultivating talk that makes your child want to listen.
Parents Should Listen Too!
People who live near busy highways or railways learn to tune out unwanted noise. I've worked in offices where the distraction level was relatively high, but after a period of time I learned to tune out everything except my immediate work.
We even learn to respond to something we've tuned out without realising we have responded to it. Your child comes into the room while you're reading the newspaper. "Dad, can I have a hundred dollars?" the child asks.
Don't be surprised if you say okay without even thinking. (Also don't be surprised if your child is surprised!)
I've been guilty of this, & I suspect you have too. We have trained ourselves to selectively focus on the immediate. All else is an unwanted distraction that infringes on that focused attention.
If you want to know what makes people listen, watch TV commercials. The ad-makers are masters of the art of making you listen (& watch). Sometimes it's more interesting to watch the commercials & skip the program. Ad-makers don't reason with you about all the wonderful features of a product. They try to capture your attention by tossing at you one delightful (or seductive) benefit that you will receive if you use their product, & they do it in a way that is so unique that you can't forget what was said.
Ad-makers, at least through their commercials, cannot afford to be listeners. Parents, on the other hand, cannot afford not to be listeners.
My son-in-law Kevin Engel works with almost 200 young people & their leaders in the area of discipleship. He tells me that one of their keynote phrases for youth leaders & parents is, "If you want kids to listen to you, it's better to have good questions than good answers."
Another way to say this would be, "It's better to have good questions before you try to give good answers." You can't truly offer solutions until you understand problems, & you can't truly understand your child's problems until you listen carefully to your child verbalise those problems. And good listening requires good questions. Asking questions & listening are inseparable.
Some of you who are parents of teens will say, "But my teens turn me off when I ask questions. He thinks I'm too nosey. She thinks I'm prying or checking up on her. He thinks it's a sign I don't trust him."
Such responses may flag two problems. First, you really need to start asking questions & listening from the earliest years. If you are a parent of a young child, start now; don't wait. If you suddenly start to ask questions when your child is a teen, & you haven't done much of this before, it's likely that he will think you're nosey or she will think you're prying.
The second problem may be the attitude you bring to your questions for your teen child. Are you really prying? Are you really nosey? Or are you genuinely interested in what your child has to say, even if you may not agree with all of it?
The foundation of good listening comes from what I think of you. What you say is important to me because first & foremost you are important to me. Again, this is an attitude that must be cultivated from earliest childhood.
If I recognise that my child is one of the most important people in my life, I will want to listen. I will put listening to my child at the top of the priority list. I will try to put down my newspaper, or postpone setting the table, or delay whatever I'm doing in order to listen to my child's concerns.
When my child talks & I don't listen, or I'm listening with one ear but it's all going out the other ear, I'm telling him loud & clear that he is not important to me because what he says is not important to me.
Check up on yourself & ask what kind of listener you are when your child talks to you. That may be highly revealing about what attitude you have toward the value of your child in your life.
Should your child listen to you, the parent? Of course. Listening is a two-way street. But this chapter is about the parent as listener. The child as listener was the subject of the previous chapter.
Talking Is Asking
"But what should I say?" Mary asks. Mary is worried because she & her husband will join an important client & his wife for dinner tonight. But what should she talk about? How can she help to carry on a conversation with two important strangers for the entire evening?
Have you ever been in Mary's predicament? You're going to spend a few minutes, or a few hours, with someone important. What do you say? What do you talk about? It's enough to make you a nervous wreck. You want to be a good conversationalist, but you don't have the gift of gab as some friends do.
It's no secret that you can be a stunning conversationalist if you learn the art of asking questions. You never have to worry about what to say if you know what to ask. That's because people are much more interested in talking about themselves than in talking about a subject.
A question is one of the most wonderful communication devices in the World. Few elements of our language are so effective in bringing us into harmony as a genuine question about you.
Parent & child grow through the years into that "best friend" relationship when the parent frequently asks warm, wonderful questions that help the child respond. Questions that parents & children ask each other can be strong bonds of exploration & affirmation of one another. They tell one another, "I care about you--what you think, how you feel, what you want to do or don't want to do, & a hundred other things."
Not all questions that parents ask are so wonderful, of course. There are mean-spirited questions that reach into one another like sandpaper, abrasive & irritating: "Why did you do such a stupid thing?" "What were you thinking about when you said that?"
Then there are the cross-examination questions, like the kind an attorney would ask in a murder trial. "Where were you on the way home? I know you're guilty & I'm going to pry it out of you. Confess up!"
Of course there are times when our questions need to be forthright so we can unmask deception. If we must, we must. It's part of our role as parental shepherds, but even those times can be handled with grace & a loving spirit.
Looking back over 35 years of parenting, with strong parent-child relationships that have endured through the years, I believe the spirit of trust has perhaps been the strongest glue that has bound us together. Isn't a spirit of trust the strong glue that binds most of our important relationships together?
Imagine that you are a growing child again. If your parents affirm you often as a person whom they can trust & do trust, you will want to live up to that trust. But if you are constantly told, through statements or questions, that you are a bad boy or a bad girl, you will soon begin to fulfill their prophecy.
What type of questions build?--Those that help our child grow to become a stronger person, especially the kind of person whom God desires. Here are some types of building questions:
1) Questions that help us learn to make good choices or decisions.
A simple question such as, "Which shoes do you like best?" lays a foundation stone for decision-making. It says to the child, "Your choice is important; you must learn what is good or bad, better or best."
It's much easier, of course, for you as a parent to walk into the shoe store with your child & say, "You don't know what's best for you, so I'll choose your shoes for you." Perhaps a young child doesn't know what is best for him. But it's our job as parents to help him learn what is best for him.
As a parent, you can't smother your child for life. You won't be there when he decides who he wants to date, or when she is confronted with the temptation for drugs etc. You won't decide for your child who to marry & whether or not that is a dumb decision. You probably won't decide many important decisions that he or she will make as a late teen. There are hundreds of decisions a teen will make without you there to help decide what is best. You'd better help your child learn to choose now!
2) Questions that bond our child while freeing him. Binding our children to us & loosening them from us are simultaneous. The day our child is born we begin to bind him, or bond her, to us in a spirit of trust & loyalty, love & friendship, care & sharing. But on that same day we begin the monumental job of helping our child to be independent, self-sustaining, to make it on his own. We teach our child to tie shoes, go to the bathroom, dress, eat, & dozens of other self-sustaining activities. So through our questions we are in the business of bonding & freeing at the same time.
3) Questions that help us discover ourselves & our gifts during the growing formative years.
4) Questions that follow up previous questions--layers of questions.
This morning a friend called. "Hi, how are you?" I asked. "Fine," he answered. "How are you?" "Fine," I answered.
I've gone through this ritual hundreds of times with people. So have you. I've gone through it hundreds of times with my children.
"How was school today?"
"Fine."
"That's good."
"How were things here at home today?"
"Fine."
"Good."
We need to cultivate the art of asking layers of questions with our children, using follow-up questions that are genuine questions. The little ritual above is not made up of questions at all because we are not trying to get answers. Genuine questions seek genuine answers. Ritualistic questions seek ritualistic answers.
Let's try the ritual above in another way:
"How was school today?"
"Fine."
"That's good. What did you do that you liked best?"
Now you have something to talk about. Or you could have said, "That's good. Was there anything about school that you didn't like?" Or, "That's good. What did you do at recess this morning?" Or, "That's good. Was your teacher helpful today?"
Sometimes you may feel it helpful to rephrase the child's answer or turn it over a bit. Let's try the same scenario, except the day at school wasn't fine:
"How was school today?"
"Not so good."
"I'm sorry. Why wasn't it good?"
Or you might answer, "Not so good? Do you mean only a little not-so-good or really & truly not-so-good?" Rephrasing helps to clarify what we might otherwise accept in the wrong way. We might think our child had a bad day when he is really responding to a friend who had a bad day.
"Oh, my day was OK, but I felt so sorry for Mary. She lost her father."
The following Words of Jesus are right on target for effective, parent-child conversations through questions. "Ask & it shall be given you; seek & ye shall find; knock & it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; & he that seeketh findeth; & to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in Heaven give good things to them that ask him? Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law & the prophets." (Matt.7:7-12)
Walking through Traditions
Family traditions speak of personal presence. Absentee parenting is the great vacuum in today's families. Children don't need an extra TV, or a fancier bike, or a video recorder with more buttons. They need YOU!
Perhaps you are a single parent, & you can't be with them as much as you want. But you can be with them some of the time, & when you are, truly give them your personal presence.
Perhaps you have a job that forces you to travel more than you want to. Sometimes that can't be helped, & sometimes it can. But when you are home, make the most of your personal presence.
Personal presence in traditions is the highest award bestowed on your children. No TV in the World can compete with you being there with them (unless you let them build the unfortunate habit of substituting the tube for you).
When you develop family traditions for growing children, & I hope you will, be sure to have traditions that are intensive with your presence. The principal reason we want to go to Heaven is to be with God. The principal reason kids should want to come home is to be with you.
What does your presence say? It says, "You are so important that I want to be with you." What does your habitual absence from your child say to them? It says, "You are so unimportant that I want to be with strangers instead." Parents, talk with your children through your personal presence in family traditions.
It may sound boring, but traditions, or family rituals, replay the same scene or the same act over & over again--same thing, same place, same activities, same food. Why does such a repetitious habit bond us together? Perhaps because it's one of the few things in life that provides security. We can count on each other being there. We can count on each other replaying this record over & over again. It says I care. It says I will be with you. It says I won't put other things ahead of you.
Choose a place your family could enjoy together. Choose some things to do there that you would like to repeat each year. Then go back every year & do the same things over & over again. I know it sounds corny, but I also know that it works!
The Wonder of Words--Little Buckets that Carry Power
Words are like little buckets; they carry something important from me to you.
Some of these little buckets carry names. Others carry actions--something happening. Still others carry descriptions--paintings to hang on the walls of our minds. Some are like hooks that join two things together.
Most important, these little buckets carry ideas & emotions. Through words, the little buckets of language, we transmit ideas & feelings between us.
Let's take the simple phrase "I love you" as an example. The bucket filled with "I" names me as the person doing something. What am I doing? Another bucket carries that. I'm sending my love in the love bucket. Where am I sending it? To you. That's the third bucket. With these three little buckets I sent an important message to you, either with my mouth or by writing it with my hands. You receive the little buckets in the eargate & pour out my message into your brain.
Sometimes those little word buckets may confuse us. Imagine, for example, a couple recently married. One says to the other, "Who do you love most?" The other replies, "You." The little bucket full of "you" is carried with the utmost tenderness & feeling.
The years pass & the couple has an argument. One snarls at the other, "You!" The bucket is the same. Mechanically everything is the same. But what a difference in the message! In the first, the little bucket is like a gentle caress of fingertips over the soft, receptive mind. In the second, the little bucket is filled with sand, grinding into the heart. Somehow the manner in which the little bucket is sent transcends the bucket itself. The word is eclipsed by the way it is transmitted.
Many communications problems between husbands & wives, or parents & children, arise because of this matter of transmission. The words, the mechanics, were correct, but the feeling was damaging.
Words are handmaidens of the mind & heart. The words we speak are merely expressions of what we are & think. As Jesus said, "The things that come out of the mouth come from the heart." (Matt.15:18)
As we seek to help our children learn to speak the right words, we must focus first on helping them think the right thoughts, & this in turn comes from helping them have the right relationships--with us & with God. As Christians, our words come from our thoughts, & our thoughts come from our relationships.
Some good rules of thumb in the words you use with children are:
1) How serious is the intent of the message you really want to communicate even though you may be laughing & projecting a sense of humour?
2) Is there at least a strong possibility that your child may misunderstand, & take what you are saying in the wrong way?
3) Don't communicate to your child in a way you don't want your child to communicate to you or his friends.
4) Don't say it if you wouldn't want to hear it (practice the Golden Rule).
5) Don't talk to your mate or ex-mate through your child. ("Tell your father I don't want to talk now!")
What are some good words you would like your child to use often? Use them often yourself. Find pleasant contexts for new words that help your child communicate good things. For example, "please" & "thank you" are words that all children should learn early. Do you use them often? Do you make a habit of using "please" when you ask your child to do something, & "thank you" when he has finished the work? Role-modelling is more powerful than nagging.
The Golden Rule is a good rule to follow in the words we use with our children. So is the Playback Rule. (Don't say what you don't want played back at the wrong time!)
Walking Is Talking
When I was a boy, growing up on an Illinois grain farm, rabbit hunting was the thing to do, partly because of the sport & partly because a rabbit was a tasty treat on a farm dinner table. Hunting cottontails was a winter sport, & in the absence of a hunting dog I followed the rabbit's tracks in the fresh snow until I came to his hiding place.
Grown men in that part of the country did this too. Wherever rabbits went, we went. If the tracks went left, we went left. If the tracks went right, we went right.
Looking back, there's a note of nostalgic humour here. Think of it! Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of intelligent men & boys following in the footsteps of rabbits! To paraphrase a Bible verse, "A little rabbit shall lead them." But there is also something symbolic here.
From our earliest years of childhood we look for someone to emulate, someone to follow, someone to be our hero, someone to be our role model. I read a research study not long ago about this. Most of all, it said, children want their parents to be their models. They want to look up to them & follow them.
After my 35 years of parenting, I believe that my most eloquent statements were not words, but wordless expressions of life style before my children. But why?
It's easy to issue rules, commands, requests, statements, or propositions. It's easy to say, "Do this or do that." But the rubber hits the road when we determine that we will ask nothing of our children that we are not first living out in our own lives. The Lord Himself exemplifies that. He asks nothing in His Word that is out of harmony with His own Person. He already is all that He asks us to become. That's why He is our ultimate Role Model.
Children are amazingly perceptive; they detect parental inconsistency, breaches of integrity, & unhappiness immediately. When this happens, you don't need to tell them you are unhappy; they know it almost before you do. They also know when you tell them to be what you are not, or what to say that you don't say, or what to believe that is not evidenced by your own convictions.
We make the most powerful, life-changing statements to our children, not with words as much as with the consistency of our lives with our ultimate standards; & consistency of our convictions, conversation, & conduct.
Children have within themselves a desire to find & follow heroes & heroines. They are not born with an innate desire to emulate scoundrels. They learn that kind of thing most when parents drift from the heroic & carry with them their child's ideals.
The heroic to a child is not necessarily high adventure. Many parents think they must compete with movie & TV heroes to be a hero to their child, but that is not true at all. The cowboy in last night's Western movie can shoot a bottle from a fence better than you can, but he won't cuddle up with your son & read a book to him tonight.
For the small child, most theology is not learned by having it verbalised as much as by having parents live it out before him. I cannot tell my child that God will always listen to him if I'm preoccupied & will not listen. I cannot tell my child that God loves him if I am unloving & abrasive. I cannot tell my child that God cares if I don't. (Editor: This is a very good point.--Our sample is very important & is almost all they see. Nevertheless, they need to be taught that God will never fail them, even if we're not as loving & kind as we should be.)
Walking is talking. Without saying a word you speak volumes. Without uttering one sentence you present profound truths.
Discipline & Discipleship
The discipline of punishment has never been a delight for me. I shrink from it. Punishing my children has always hurt me more than it has them. I know that sounds trite, but it's true. Perhaps you have found this true also. I think that's because we taste the bitter fruits of punishment with our children. Nevertheless we must punish at times. God does! But it doesn't mean I like it.
If my child & I are to delight in his orderly life, we must each tolerate some punishment along the way. Ordered living is the fruit of discipline, & discipline at times is punishment. I must remember this when God disciplines me to bring order into my life.
As a father, the discipline I bring to my children is so much more than punishment. Guiding my child into more mature ways has always been a delight for me. I share the good fruit with my growing child.
Jesus' parting mandate to His disciples (including us) was the Great Commission, a requirement for each of us who follows Him. "Go & make disciples of all nations," Jesus told us, "teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matt.28:19,20).
Usually when we think of the Great Commission, we think of missions. But our mandate as parents is to discipline our children, to provide the disciplines of life which will help them become disciples of Jesus Christ, which will help them disciple their own children. (Editor: And to reach out to others with the Gospel. Mk.16:15.)
Looking back through the years, I believe my greatest delight was helping my children become Christ's disciples, then mature into discipling parents, fulfilling the Great Commission in their own families.
Discipling our children has mostly been through talking with our children. Sometimes it came through consciously talking to them about God. Most often, I believe, it came through the informal dialogues of daily living, casual conversations that arose naturally when we saw the majesty of a cloud & talked of its Maker, smelled a rose & spoke of His gifts, heard a house wren rival a great symphony & wondered together about God & His ways.
Is talking with my children a discipline for them? Yes, it's part of the task of guiding my children towards orderly living as disciples of Christ.
"Here's the way to tie your shoes" doesn't sound much like the Great Commission. Neither does toilet training. But both disciplines are essential to discipleship, to orderly living on the behalf of the Saviour. Likewise, discipleship requires the most elementary talk that cultivates good etiquette, good eating habits, good sleeping habits, tasteful appearance, good grooming, habits of daily Bible reading, habits of daily prayer, & habits of daily conversations concerning the Lord. These kinds of talk are all part of the discipline for ordered lives, & ordered lives are necessary for the formation of a disciple.
Imagine a Christian leader who has matured through the disciplines of life to lead others in those disciplines, but is unable to tie his shoes, has slovenly etiquette, exemplifies poor habits of eating & sleeping, & is a model of poor appearance.
The Great Commission for parents embraces some very ordinary talks about very ordinary things. But these become extraordinary matters when our children emerge to lead others.
Talking without Words
I have two vivid memories of my pre-school life. One is sitting on my mother's lap, listening to her read poetry. The other is sitting on my father's lap, listening to his big pocket watch & watching him.
My parents were grain farmers with limited education. I grew up by standards that would be called "deprived" or "poverty" today. We had no money to go places, so we stayed home & talked our evenings away on our front porch. We could not afford children's books, so my mother read to me from Longfellow, Bryant & a host of other poets she loved in her growing-up years. By today's standards we were poor, very poor. But in some ways I lived in utter luxury.
How many children growing up today can sit with their family throughout the evening, every evening & talk? That is a lost luxury. How many children today have mothers or fathers who will take them on their laps & read to them or play games with them as though time meant nothing? That too is a lost luxury.
While growing up, I enjoyed a wealth of words from parents & other family members who talked with me. Without TV, we had only each other to talk with, so that's what we did. But as I think about it, I believe some of our greatest talk was wordless talk.
Mom's poetry is one of the two dominant memories of my pre-school years. I sat on her lap while she read. I felt the warmth of her presence. I felt the tenderness of her embrace. The most professional reader in the World could not have competed with Mom, not even with a five-star TV production.
What child doesn't long to have Mother's or Father's full attention, uninterrupted & undiluted, with much tenderness thrown in? Arlie & I have tried to give this same kind of dialogue of tenderness to our children. We were lavish with our affection. Sometimes we read, sometimes we played games, sometimes we laughed, sometimes we talked. But the important thing is that we were there; the dialogue of touch was in operation.
Arlie & I have been parenting for 35 years. That represents a lot of parenting. There were times when we wondered if we were putting too much of our time in to parenting. What about our own interests? Were we not entitled to "do our own thing"? Perhaps, but with five children, we decided to focus on each other & our children.
If I could give you one gift through this book, it would be the desire to talk with your children. As parents who have been talking with their children all these years, we urge you to start now. Don't let another day go by before you begin to cultivate this most wonderful habit with the VIPs of your life, your children.
Ask God to help you cultivate the most wonderful relationship with your children through talking with them. He will!
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God knew that everybody needs
Someone to show the way,
He knew that babies need someone
To care for them each day...
He knew they needed someone sweet
To soothe their baby cries,
To teach them how to walk & talk,
And sing them lullabies...
That's why God made mothers.
He knew small children need someone
To lend a guiding hand,
To answer all their questions,
And to smile & understand,
Someone to read them storybooks,
To teach them wrong from right,
To show them wonderful new games
And hear their prayers at night...
That's why God made mothers.
And then throughout their childhood years,
God knew that children need
Someone to smile at them with pride,
Encourage each new deed.
As they grow up & all their lives,
God knew that everywhere,
All children need a mother's heart
To understand & care,
And that's why God made mothers.
--Katherine Nelson Davis
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