My Goal is Not "Well Behaved"

It has taken 6 years as a parent for it to finally sink in my brain that my goal in parenting is not about turning out well behaved people.  It has probably taken this long for me to fully realize because our culture often pressures us for our children to be well behaved. It is not just outward pressures we feel but our own inward pressures also. What parent doesn’t want well behaved children? We all want that. Well behaved has its importance, but it is not my ultimate goal.

Dr Tim Kimmel states in his book Grace Based Parenting that “The real test of a parenting model is how well equipped the children are to move into adulthood as vital members of the human race.”

In other words, my objective in this parenting journey is about raising mature children, not just well behaved children. Right now my young ones are not always able to manage, regulate, or govern their own actions. Therefore my job as a parent is to step in along side them and help them (through teaching/disciplining them and guiding them) until they come to the place where they have acquired the ability to manage their actions on their own. If someone is mature, most likely they will be well behaved, or at least able to make restitution for the times they do mess up. But a well behaved person on the outside unfortunately does not always equal a mature person on the inside.  

Realizing the difference between these 2 goals and establishing which one really is my aim makes a big difference in HOW I will parent my children.

When my goal is “well behaved” my patience runs thin and l become more easily upset about all the small, age-expectant behaviors they do. I might at times set standards for my children that are too high and which only sets them up for failure. I will find myself reacting to their behavior instead of responding.  I become focused on the present and I fear the future because I might believe it when people tell me they may ALWAYS or NEVER do X,Y, or Z. If I think too long on these "always/never" statements I might start believing them and become afraid of what my children might be like when they get older. If they are not well behaved at age 4 how will they ever be well behaved at age 14? With this mindset I might start implimenting more punitive approaches to assure myself this will not happen to MY child.

On the other hand, when my goal is maturity I find myself with the patience and understanding that they will not “always” behave like they are in a certain given moment. I will set age appropriate standards that set them up for success.  I am able to respond to their needs instead of reacting to their behavior. I am able to walk through situations with them, no matter how long it takes or how much repetition they need. When my goal is maturity I get to see the inner discipline that takes place as the fruit of all my labor and teaching. I watch them go from not being able to manage something on their own to a place where they are able to handle it all by themselves. I do not fear their future with every little mishap but instead I look forward to the person they are to become as they grow out of one certain pattern/behavior and into the next stage of life. I can smile because I know I will be proud of what my Children will be when they grow up.

What is your goal in parenting? Are you aiming for well behaved? Or are you aiming to mature your children? How does this effect the way you parent them? Think about it....and feel free to discuss in the comments below.

 

 

“Family Gets the Best”

          Yesterday morning started out rough. My son did not want to get ready for school. At times he spoke disrespectfully to me as I was telling him what he needed to do to get ready. We have a rule in our house that “Family gets the best or no one gets the rest.”  I decided that the way our morning was going it was time to implement that rule which meant that when he got home from school that afternoon he would not be allowed to play with his neighborhood friends. Family was not getting the best, so no one was getting the rest.

            Let me be honest and say that it would have been very easy to take that rule and use it as some sort of back-end parenting to attempt to whip him into behaving the way I wanted him to. I would be lying if I said that was never a temptation. Even though as Grace-Based Parents we have stepped out of the whole Punishments/Rewards paradigm, I cannot say that there is still not something within me that wants to use consequences at times as a way to “give him what he deserves” or as a way to assert some sort of controlling behavior modification to get him to do what I want. However, that is just my surface, human, knee-jerk reaction to his behavior. If I stop and search deeper in my heart I know that is NOT how I want to be raising my children. So as he spent his day in school (quickly forgetting already what happened that morning, as kids do) I spent much of my morning thinking and praying about how to take our miserable morning and turn it into something for good.

            The first thing I decided was that some changes needed to be made to our morning routine. Since I am the parent I also realized that those changes really needed to start with ME. So I started by making a commitment to myself, as well as my children, that I would make some adjustments to the way I started out MY morning. I also told my husband that although our son would be staying home after school and not playing with his friends, I didn’t want it to be a punishment but I
really wanted ALL of us to make an effort to focus on family. So that is what we did. My husband and I chose to set aside our own personal “to do” lists and give extra special focus and attention to our children. We let them run around the backyard and get some big energy out. We made sure they were properly feed at a decent hour for dinner. We made sure homework was done way before the final moments of the day so that we could also have some time playing a family game together. While the girls had their bath I sat side by side with my son and he helped me plan our new morning routine chart. I told him about the changes I was going to make and then I let him help make decisions about the changes he needed to make. We then got ready for bed and snuggled down on the couch together for some Dr. Seuss books since it was Dr. Seuss' birthday. When the time came for me to tuck my son in bed it suddenly dawned on me that not once that whole afternoon/evening had I heard him and his sister fighting (something that is usually a common occurrence in our house) Wow, amazing!

This then led me to reflect even more on the wonderful evening we had had together. What would have happened if I had given in to the temptation to use his consequence as a punishment? What would the evening have looked like if we would have made him stew over the fact that he could not go play with his friends while the rest of us went about our own personal business for the evening. How very different our evening would have been if we would have decided to  add
that little bit of “extra” that we as humans seem to think will somehow makes us feel like better parents but in reality does nothing in the long run to really teach our children, or make us truly feel any better.

 Was my son happy about the fact that he could not play with his friends after school? Of course not. He had a few big feelings over the fact we were sticking to our word and not changing our minds. Did he ask us several times if he could still “please, please, please” go play with them? Yes. Was it easy for him? No. But I did NOT have to add something extra, I did not have to make sure he was suffering in order for him to learn. In fact I did the opposite. I made sure our family had one of the BEST evenings we had had together in a long time. I made sure we loved on each other and enjoyed one another. I made sure that Family really honestly “Got the Best.”  And what did we get in return? A valuable evening filled with fun, laughter, forgiveness, grace, relationship, FAMILY. This is something a punishment would never have given any of us. This was more than valuable, it was priceless.

Yesterday morning started out rough, but today, today we started a new day.

I'm Back, I Think....

I know it's been several months since I've posted a blog. I think if there is one thing I have learned for sure in parenting is that when you get into a routine and think you've got everything set in stone another child grows into a new stage of life and everything changes. This is what happened to me this fall/winter. My son went to school, everything was all set as I had more time then I had had in 5 years, and then the baby started crawling and my life became full of redirecting a very mobile baby who loved to put everything she found off the floor into her mouth. She still keeps me busy but I am really hoping to get into blogging again. I have spent some time trying to give the blog a new look and things still might continue to change as far as that goes. I can't promise anything as far as being a regular blogger. I just never know with 3 young ones. Life is like a whirlwind this stage of life. What I do think I can promise you is at least one more blog post I am working on today. And from there I'll just take it step by step. Hope you don't mind taking it step by step with me.