Purposeful Parenting (Part 5): The Responsibility is Ours

When I first began writing the series on Purposeful Parenting, my intention was to give parents a framework for understanding and relating to their kids. What I thought would be a hard core focus on intentional parenting turned out instead to be a commentary on intentional living.

It wasn’t so much about our kids as it was about us.

Combating bullying, making wise choices, and struggling with identity don’t end magically when our kids are all grown up. Getting them through elementary school or middle school or high school is just the beginning. Life is full of learning opportunities.

Friends always ask me to recommend books and websites.

They don’t need them.

There’s nothing magical out there that will help us be better parents to our kids. It’s what’s in here–and by in here, I mean all the things you’ve learned up until now–prayer, of course, and the things your parents taught you–both good and bad–and the things you’ve learned through slogging through your own websites, books, and good old fashion trial and error. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, you already hold the power to instilling your kids with the confidence they need to make wise choices.

DOROTHY Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?
GLINDA You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.
DOROTHY I have?
SCARECROW Then why didn’t you tell her before?
GLINDA Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.

It’s true.

So much of parenting can’t be taught. We just have to figure it out. We fail over and over again. Like me, maybe you end every single day regretting at least one thing you’ve done. Every. Single. Day. My poor first-born. She’s the guinea pig for every new thing we try because there’s so much we still don’t know.

Here’s the one thing I do know:

Even when my kids act like they’re not paying attention to us, they are. Like little spies, they’re watching us for clues on how to relate to the world around them. 

Every time I say an unkind word about another person, they hear me.
Every time I express jealousy or disappointment, they know.
Every time I lash out at them because I’m tired or irritated or both, they internalize it.

Scary, isn’t it?

I only want my kids to see the kind, pro-people side of me. And I’ve found the more I publicly honor the people that get under my skin, the easier it is to believe these things myself. That’s why they need to see me encouraging my friends, respecting my elders, and honoring my siblings publicly.

I’ll never forget the day my first grader came home upset because a friend told her she couldn’t be in a dance they’ve been planning since the beginning of the year and she could no longer be in Friend Club, either (a secret club that meets out on the playground during recess). I wanted to say, “This girl is bossy. She’s being mean to you, and I don’t like the way she’s acting.” Nothing would have been wrong with me saying that. It was all true. But I knew if I did then Cari Jill would think it’s okay to call people bossy and mean, and the words, “I don’t like the way you’re acting” could easily be mis-translated as “I don’t like you.”

So instead, I said, “How did that make you feel? Honey, nobody can make you feel about bad about yourself unless you let them. Do you think there’s anyone else in your class who is sad that they don’t get to be a part of the dance or in the Friends Club? What could you do to help them feel included?” The dialogue turned into a great conversation about what it means to be a good friend instead of a bashing session about a bad one.

It’s work. It’s practice. It’s do-overs. But then again, responsibility always is. You already know what to do. Really, you do. Purposeful Parenting is mostly just about paying attention. And asking yourself every day, “What kind of parent did I need when I was younger?”

Thank you for being a part of this blog series. I hope we can continue to  encourage each other together.

What are your best tips for purposeful parenting? Please share in the comments below. And if you found any of these five parts helpful, I’d love for you to share them with your friends.

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Purposeful Parenting (Part 4:) How to Take Care of You

You are a mom.

You are also a chef, chauffeur, housekeeper, teacher, and CEO. You get up early. You go to bed late. You always feel like you’re being pulled in a hundred directions.

Do you ever wonder when someone is going to do something for you? You don’t have to be a martyr, but you do need to take care of you.

Resentment grows when we neglect to do the things that fuel and inspire us.

A few years ago, I attended a business retreat that also included some personal soul-searching. We took a piece of poster board and divided it into four quadrants. On each section, we wrote:  Things That Sustain My Soul, Things That Invigorate My Life, Things I Need to Take Hold Of, and Things I Need to Let Go.

Just writing down the things that sustain my soul and invigorate my life made my heart skip a beat. My list included date nights, bubble baths, hot tea, dark chocolate, naps, and deep friendships. Equally empowering was my Let Go list, which included selfishness, a perfect house, and proving myself–among other things.  

Maybe most eye opening, however, were the things I need to Take Hold Of. I wrote down that I needed to affirm my husband more and spend more intentional time with my kids. That list was hard to write because those are things I want to do, I should do, and I need to do, but—honestly—I find hard to do. We need to “take hold” because these things are easy to ignore or put off when pressing needs compete for our attention.

I don’t know if you’re a list person (I’m not), but I have to admit that lists have the ability to condense complicated information into easily digestible sound bites. I liked this exercise because it forced me to reflect on areas that need a little work and dream of a future that still makes time for all the things I love. By themselves, the lists don’t help much, but by grouping the Four Things I gained the perspective of seeing both the life-giving and draining patterns side-by-side. Identifying patterns helped direct my focus.

Give yourself a break.

A parent’s work is never done. But your job does not define you. And your kids need to see who you are as a person. When you show them what’s important to you–what sustains and invigorates you–they get to see somebody who’s not just mommy or daddy. They get to see a real, live human being, complete with hopes and dreams and favorite things. When you share the things you love with them, you give them permission to love things, too. In the process, you may find common ground. And who doesn’t want a deeper level of connection with their kids?

Parenting isn’t about balancing life with kids and life without them. It’s about finding fullness in the midst of both.

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Purposeful Parenting (Part 3:) Finding Meaning and Purpose in the Everyday

I used to have this app on my phone called Legacy Countdown. It was literally a countdown clock to remind me how much time I had left before my kids graduated high school. There’s nothing like knowing how little time remains to ensure you don’t waste it.

Deciding where to invest all those minutes and hours is hard, especially when you start without a plan. When my first daughter was just a baby, I enrolled her in Music Together, Mother’s Morning Out, and a Friday morning play group in our neighborhood.

By age three, we had added dance classes to the mix.

Then she started school, and I realized we needed an art enrichment class and after-school tutoring. In another year, we’d begin playing soccer, start a book club, and join Girl Scouts. I thought that more stuff gave our lives more meaning.

I was WRONG.

More stuff just made our lives more complicated.

I didn’t want my life to be just a countdown clock to the weekend or vacation or my kid’s graduation, so what did I do? I made a date with about a hundred other things.

Let’s be real— Isn’t it amazing how much you can accomplish when you’re in a pinch? Deadlines are my best friend, too. Deadlines hold my hand and encourage me to move with direction and purpose. And that’s what the Legacy App did for me. It put that hard deadline—the empty nest—front and center.

There’s a question we often ask ourselves when we reach a certain age, and it’s this: If I could go back in time, what advice would I give my younger self?

Maybe I would tell myself to slow down time. To enjoy the little things. To embrace the hard things. Maybe I would tell myself that all that extra “stuff” we did wouldn’t really matter in the long run.

But the reality is this: I can’t go back in time and tell my younger self anything.

What I can do, however, is set my future self up for success. My future self wants a life of meaning and purpose. My future self wants kids who are self sufficient, who harbor strong convictions, and who embrace life with their own visions of what the future holds. Looking forward gives us the ammunition we need to do something concrete and real.

Once I realized our family had a filled-up life that didn’t make us feel full at all, we started making some meaningful vows:

In the future:

• We will not say yes simply because we have a fear of missing out.

• We will not say yes because we’re afraid to be home alone with our kids.

• We will not justify decisions to match our circumstances.

• We will only add things to the family calendar that reflect our values.

We knew we wanted our kids to be creative problem solvers, effective mitigators for conflict resolution, and strong adults who could deal with disappointment. We wanted to encourage our kids to pursue the things they loved, and we also wanted to protect the time we had with them here at home.

Obviously, we had to say goodbye to some very good things. We had to make some hard choices.

One of the ways we did this by taking a season off. Knowing we would have time together in the near future sustained us when things were crazy, and everybody was eating dinner at a different time and no one was ever all in the car together. We knew it was for a season, and that made it bearable. For example, as much as we loved sports, we didn’t miss church to play them on Sundays. The down-time allowed us to catch our breath and explore what matters in the context of the most important relationships in our lives.

Another thing we did was empower our kids to choose for themselves those things that made them feel most alive. One summer, our older son obtained his private pilot’s license, and our younger son attended a summer camp for entrepreneurs. Our oldest daughter went on mission trips, and our youngest learned how to cook.

Over the years, I’ve been paying attention to the stories that make us who we are. Memories from childhood shape our worldview and influence our choices. In the future, I hope my kids will remember their past with a fondness that will carry them into their own preferred future. I hope they will feel equipped to find meaning not only in the work they choose to do but also in their relationships—both with people and with God. I hope they know that their past does not define them and that the future is filled with opportunity.

Mostly, I hope they enjoy today. It is a gift, and it is a responsibility. Steward it well, my friends.

“Science shows that the secret to high performance isn’t our biological drive or our reward-and-punishment drive, but our third drive—our deep-seated desire to direct our own lives, to extend and expand our abilities, and to live a life of purpose”

— Daniel Pink

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How are you creating more meaning in your family? Please share in the comments below.