Take the long view of life part 2 - deliberately raise your kids to be independent adults

While close family relationships are important, unnecessary dependence on each other is not healthy.  As an infant you can’t do anything besides poop.  As you grow you naturally become adept at life skills.  Even while enjoying our time as parents with the kids at home we need to keep in mind that our darling 2 year old, 12 year old, 17 year old is going to be an adult and will be living as an adult a lot longer than as a child, so intentionally raise them and teach them the skills to be independent.

A few small examples:

As a child we set your bedtime and made sure you were in bed at a reasonable time.  At some point when you were in high school we intentionally had a conversation with you and told you that we were no longer setting the bedtime.  You could go to bed whenever you wanted.  You still had a curfew and needed to be considerate of others in the house when they were trying to sleep, but if you wanted to stay up till the wee hours of the morning you could.  Of course you still had to get up for school on time, continue to keep up your good grades and any other commitments.  This was a small way to give you some independence to make decisions for yourself and suffer or benefit from the consequences of those decisions.

Boy Scouts provided lots of opportunities as well.  Letting you pack your own bag for campouts as you became an older and more experienced scout, be a scout at summer camp on your own (even when Mom and I were there all week as leaders), and being a boy leader in the troop.  You can relate to this even more than we can I’m sure.

A more recent example is how we took care of college for you all.  The first year we paid for everything.  Your sophomore year you paid for some of your expenses (don’t recall how that evidenced itself).  Your junior year you started paying for your books.  Even with Peter in school right now, I don’t recall what the added responsibility is for your senior year, but I think you get the point. Rather than kicking you out of the nest at 18 we gradually gave you more and more responsibilities.

As with so much of parenting this is a delicate balance, but if you have the mindset of training your kids to be independent functioning adults as each situation arises you’ll be able to evaluate how best to handle it.

Treat others as more important than yourself

Talk about yin-yang.  This is quite the challenge: Philippians 2:3 - "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”

How do you live out this verse while at the same time teaching your kids about authority, proper parent / child interaction, etc?

Case in point - we're (me and the kids) watching TV and I’d like a drink.  Do I tell you to go get me a drink?  Or do I do it myself?  Best option?  Go get the drink myself and offer to get everyone something.  That way I don’t interrupt your TV viewing, cause you probably don’t want to miss the show any more than I do, and I demonstrate serving by offering everyone a drink as well.

Another key is to understand humility.  A short definition is that humility is not thinking lowly of yourself, rather, it’s not thinking of yourself.  This is a great verse to meditate on and let God illuminate in your life how it will play out.  It’s also a good check to run before you take any action and see how your actions and motivations are lining up with this verse.

More can be said but it would move from a blog post to a tome.

Yin-yang = parenting

Yin yang applies to a great deal of parenting.  While thinking about various items to post, or thoughts I've already posted, I was considering that all of what we do as parents needs to be approached from the perspective life is interconnected – you can’t compartmentalize things. 

Huh?  A few examples -

On the one hand, take the long view of life and don’t get excited about inconsequential problems, annoyances, events, etc.  On the other hand, take advantage of every positive moment or opportunity that presents itself as though they will never happen again - enjoy the little blessings of life.

On the one hand, let your kids be kids, don’t make them grow up too fast.  On the other hand, raise them with the intent to be independent adults (more on this later).

On the one hand, model being a servant by doing chores around the house, picking up after others, cleaning the kitchen when you had nothing to do with getting it dirty.  On the other hand, teach your kids responsibility by assigning them chores that they’re responsible for and suffering the consequences of not doing them when they’re supposed to.

On the one hand, invest your life in your kids and teach them and train them as best you know how.  On the other hand, leave the results completely up to God as your kids have as much free will as you do and can decide what to respond to and what not to respond to.

Take the long view of life

Eventually I’ll include a post about Yin and Yang, and this post falls right into that.  

On the one hand, take advantage of every moment you have with your kids, wife, family, etc.  Don’t put off tomorrow what game you can play with your kids today, or other fun project, task, or activity you and your kids can do.

On the other hand, while in the volume of eternity are lives are but a tweet, you will have a long life ahead of you and there’s very little happening in the day to day that necessitates getting really upset about or straining or severing relationships.  If your son breaks a favorite knick-knack, remember it’s just a thing; if you’re late for church because of some typical family disorganization or miscommunication, getting all out of sorts is not create a wormhole so you can restart and be on time.
 
Also discipline not for the moment but for the long term.  Consider if the behavior being exhibited by your kids at the moment is an inconvenience to you or really is something that needs to be corrected.
 
I’m not saying take a lackadaisical attitude towards life, on the contrary, be responsible, prompt, considerate, etc. but remember you’re going to have many more years with your kids as adults than as kids, so enjoy the kid times and know they’re just another tweet in your life.

What leaders do in moderation, followers do to excess

I heard this quote years ago and while I believe it is attributed to church leadership, it applies to pretty much any area of leadership / followership.  As a manager in the office if I badmouth a co-worker, the people who report to me will most likely feel the freedom to badmouth others to a more severe degree.

This applies with you as a parent and your kids as well.  Do small negative things and larger negative things will be the fruit.  The good thing is it works both ways; demonstrate good behavior, actions, words, etc. and your kids will magnify that.

This is essentially the spiritual principle of sowing and reaping.  You will sow what you reap whether you explicitly intend to do so or not.

Practical things to not do?  Speak ill of your spouse, parents :-), co-workers, drivers; acting one way with one crowd of people and another way with another crowd; or other behavior that could be misinterpreted in the wrong context.

Things to do?  Praise your spouse (and parents), serve others, demonstrate spiritual disciplines, exemplify a life of giving to others....and the scout law is always a good thing to exercise at all times as well.

Be a super model, not a talking head.

While how we talk is important, without backing it up with actions, the words are hollow.  Don’t just talk about how you should act, respond, behave.  Don’t just talk about your beliefs, value system, and worldview; act on it and demonstrate it.  

The most important thing in your life and your kids’ lives is a relationship with Jesus Christ.  Make sure they see the value you place on this by your behavior, the actions you take, how you spend your time, where you spend your money, and of course the words you say. 

Demonstrate how to be a great husband by being a great husband - not just talking about it.  Same with being a good citizen, neighbor, employee, etc.

Another case in point from your lives as kids.  You know your mom and I really like the Boy Scout program.  Had we just taken you to scout meetings every week, sent you on campouts each month, and paid for summer camp each summer, you would not have understood how fully we valued it – that’s why Mom and I were leaders in the cub scout packs and troops for so many years (full disclosure: Mom got involved before I did).  We calculated one year that on average each of us spent over 60 hours a month volunteering in the Scout program.  That’s not said to sound our own horn but to provide an example of modeling not just talking.

So be a super model - just without the catwalk.