Bringing them up!

 

Yesterday’s blog struck a nerve with a lot of people.  It brought out the mother bears and the father lions.  When it comes to our children, we all have some pretty strong ideas about how to bring them up. 

One point taken very seriously that I feel compelled to comment on is that being a great parent doesn’t guarantee a great child or does being a poor parent make for a bad child.

Children are resilient beyond what we can even imagine at times.  We have all heard of the child raised in the poorest of situations who turns his or her life around and becomes a major change in the world. And we have also heard of the parents who have been loving, present, available, and very supporting of doing the right things for their child only to have that young person decide to make choices in his or her life that, too, become a major change in the world –  just not in a positive way.

It all comes down to choices, ours and theirs.  Something I have noticed over and over again is the younger we guide our little beings to be held accountable and responsible for their own behavior, the less likely they will be later in life to feel that it is someone else’s fault or responsibility to create their happiness.

Dad, are you hearing me?

I met with a father today who is dealing with the “letting go” of his eighteen year old son.  For years, this man has done everything in his power to guide, direct, push, manipulate his son into the man that he wants him to be.  Giving his son the guidance to make his life better than it was for himself as a young man.  I think this is an easy trap many parents fall into at this particular time of parenting.  I think most of us, in our generation, have chosen to parent our children differently than we were brought up.  I know I have consciously chosen several drastically different ways to raise my own children.  Some of those changes due to the fact that how I was raised just didn’t allow me to experience life and fail in a safe environment.  Children need a safe place to be able to be themselves and have their spirits to be acknowledged.  If not, they become our puppets and we are controlling the movement of their bodies.  We define the right and wrong and good and the bad as we should, but by our own actions, not by our words.

What is happening to this eighteen year-old young man is he is finally realizing that his voice might be a good one to hear too.  He is stepping into his adulthood and pulling at the strings on his arms to be released.  Now his dad has a choice, either loosen the hold or lose an opportunity to witness this young man bloom from the foundation in which he has been taught.  The son will undoubtedly change some of his foundation to best serve him in his life, and he should.  I don’t feel that our purpose is to create mini-me’s but to embrace our children for the journey of fully living life.  The hard part is letting go and trusting that your embrace and example have been enough. 

It is time to stop the conversation at this point.  This is the time to see what this beautiful human being’s purpose is on earth.  What is his dream?  And can you stop talking long enough to hear his answer? 

Be the example of love, of acceptance, of a safe place to make mistakes and fall down.  It’s time to trust the foundation and let him test his wings while the nest is still warm.  It is a tough road to be expected to move to each pull of the string for the happiness of pleasing someone else.  God created all of us with purpose.  Dad, mom, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandpa and grandma – are you hearing me?  I have an amazing voice too.  Let me tell you who I am……starting at eighteen. Not forty-eight, please.