When Our Way Isn’t The Better Way

Aside Posted on March 17, 2015

Expectations. Pressures. Fears. Paradigms. Histories. Traditions. Issues.

When I step back for a minute and take a good soul-searching look at myself I realize all the above labels have made a very comfortable home within my heart. As ominous as that may sound, it’s not all for the bad. I just think that we parents may flatter ourselves into thinking, I know what’s best. I am the dad here and I know a thing or two. Really? Do I really, or am I just the product of these labels and don’t know the difference?

This type of thinking and unfettered evaluation is so important when it comes to raising our kids. Is it fun? No! Often times it’s the exact opposite. Maybe that’s why we avoid doing it. Being real and honest takes courage. It takes guts. I lack both more often than not.

Have you ever found your parents raising your children through you? Without meaning to, you are doing exactly what your parents did and you don’t even know why. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s a paradigm at work.

At times we are afraid of other’s opinions and then alter how we parent our kids because of it. That is fear taking the lead. We actually change how we treat our children because of someone else’s opinion/judgement, or the fear of it. Don’t believe me? Just think back to the time your toddler threw a royal hissy-fit in a store aisle. There was screaming, yelling, the throwing of himself or herself on the ground. The “works” was being flagrantly displayed. Everyone was watching and could hear it all, or so it seemed.

For so many of us the first thing we thought about was: What are all the other people thinking about my child and their behavior, and my parenting abilities? Maybe we became embarrassed and felt like a terrible parent because our child has completely freaked out in public. We became concerned about whether people thought we spoiled our child, or weren’t strict enough with them.

Your next decision with your child in that moment reflected either some of the labels above, or your very own heartfelt parenting style. It is no sin to admit it was the labels that caused me to hush my child up and threaten them into being quiet. Do I like admitting that? No! What I dislike more is that if I don’t admit it I will become a repeat offender who insists I am right in what I am doing.

How do I know this is a problem? Simple. Never once in that entire scenario did I think of my child and what they were going through. The whole thing had its focus on me, and how it was messing up my plans. How it was making me look badly in front other people. How it was making my already hectic day worse. I wasn’t there for my child. I was acting like they were in the way, like they should shape up or else. What was really happening here was me not listening to my child. They needed something and I was too occupied with my plan to see it. There was no room in my agenda for my toddler. Dang!

This hurts, but somebody has to say it. We all do it, or have done it. We excuse our own errant behaviour by hiding behind the fact that we are the parent. It’s like a magic fix-all phrase, “I’m the parent.”  In reality it only deceives us, and never makes things right for the kids.

I have failed at this far too many times. My issues, paradigms, fears and the like raised their ugly heads and beat out what my heart told me was the right course. It’s disheartening to me.

Let me share a situation with you that I never tell to anyone outside the family or a few close friends. Why haven’t I told it before? Simple. I was afraid of what other people would think because what I did was not the norm. The fear and judgement label.

See, every night when my daughter Amber was in her preschool and early elementary school years I would lie on the floor next to her bed. She would drape her arm down to me and I would hold her index finger within my hand until she fell asleep. She had to be fully asleep in order for me to gently slip her finger out from my hand. If she wasn’t completely asleep and I tried to remove it, she would groan and the process would start over.

This was what my daughter needed. It made her feel loved and secure. I won’t pretend that it didn’t take up gobs of time each night because it did. It took a lot of time, but I was so overly concerned that other people would think I was spoiling her rotten I never mentioned it at all. I never mentioned how much I enjoyed it. What else was so important that giving the time wasn’t the right thing to do? It was the right thing whether anyone else thought so or not, and in the end I am so glad I spent that time with her. I will have that memory forever.

It could have ended so differently if I had given into the fear of what others may have thought or said. So what? She is my daughter and she had told me what she needed. What could be more important than that? Fear? Paradigm? Issues? Traditions? No. None of the above.

The biggest lesson I have learned wais that my children told me what they needed. I just had to put them first and listen. Everything else fell into place after that.

Marm has always said that training up a child in the way they should go is much less about making them conform to a prescribed pattern, and more about knowing who they are and what they need. Once we know those things then we can train them in the way God made for them. We can lead them toward Him in the way they can best follow.

It would have been easy to tell my daughter to,”Get over it. Don’t be a baby. This takes too much time every night” and the like. That wasn’t what she needed. She needed me and I decided that this wasn’t spoiling her, or catering to her, or just giving her everything she wanted. We all know too well how hard sorting those differences out can be. It’s one of the things that makes parenting hard work and challenging at times.

No. This was about applying my heartfelt parenting style regardless of my own issues. Those issues would have stopped me if I had let them. That would have been when our way isn’t the better way.