I've been thinking more and more lately about the concept of honor and how is is similar yet very different from respect. Honor is important not only to our relationships but to our faith, and seen and practiced well gives us an opportunity to make our relationships healthier, our faith stronger, and even allows God opportunities to shower us with blessings. We live in a culture where we are encouraged to treat others with the level of respect we feel they have earned, nothing more, nothing less. What this means is that people we don't know shouldn't get any respect, people who have hurt or disappointed us surely don't get it, and people who don't respect us shouldn't be given respect in response. If there is someone above us in authority it is no longer necessarily essential to treat them with respect, if anything it makes you a bigger target for disrespect today. If someone is below us in authority we can use our power to force obedience, but there is no need to do it in a respectful way. If someone is beside us in authority then it is fine to see them as competition in need of being squashed so that we can get ahead while they lag behind. All of this runs contrary to what following Christ actually looks like, it's rather just following our culture.
Phillipians 2 is a great chapter describing how Jesus lowered himself to take on the form of man rather than lording his power and authority over others. Jesus encouraged paying taxes to Caesar and supporting the authorities we have been placed under with honor and respect. I would say that how you handle power and whom you are willing to honor may be the most insightful peek into your heart possible. How do you choose to act towards those you feel like you don't need, how do you care for those underneath of your authority, how willing are you to submit to the authorities you are under? These are the questions that reveal your real character, not just the polished exterior you present to the world. If you are only kind, giving, and respectful to people you feel you need or can benefit you in some way then you aren't loving, you are exchanging or manipulating. You either wait for them to do something beneficial for you then honor them and therefore pay them for their services or you do for them with strings tied, expecting a payout down the road, and therefore are manipulating them to get what you want. How well do you treat those under your authority or whom you have more power? Do you lord your power over them expecting perfection or do you use your position to display grace when they mess up, compassion when they struggle to meet demands, and forgiveness when they wrong you? What about the authorities over you, do you submit to them as unto the Lord, do you openly defy them with flagrance, or do you sneak around trying to get away with as much as you can without being caught? Do you feel like you can pick and choose who is in authority over you or do you believe what the Bible says about government leaders being established by God, children needing to honor their parents, husbands and wives needing to submit to each other but the husband being appointed as the head, employees (slaves) needing to obey their bosses (masters)? Often we decide that since I didn't vote for the current president I have the right to criticize, demean, and defame him privately and publicly - yes we have the American right of free speech, but if we claim to be a Christ-follower we are called to a higher standard of honor. Often we decide that when our spouses don't meet our expectations then we have the right to criticize them openly to anyone who will listen rather than honoring them with our hearts, minds, words, and actions. Children who pick and choose what they will or will not obey of their parents will develop the hearts that rebel against God's authority. Children who see their parents berate their teachers for daring to expect compliance from their child are being taught that authority figures are to be challenged and that honor and submission are signs of weakness rather than Christ-likeness. Children who see their moms criticize their dads learn that either mom is the true highest authority in the house or that there really is no authority and everyone gets to just decide on their own. We need to model humility, honor, and submission to authority to our children if we ever expect them to respect our authority or to ever be able to bow their own selfish will to God's authority over them. Because that is what it comes down to when it comes to honoring and submitting to those in authority over us - if we feed the rebellious, stiff-necked, selfish, unable to be corrected spirit within ourselves by dishonoring those in authority over us it just reveals our true heart towards God, that we'll listen as long as we agree but then do whatever we really want behind closed doors. I heard a woman married over 55 years telling her best advice for how to have a loving, long-lasting marriage and she said: be able to forgive well and be able to receive correction well. Both of those are power and authority issues - who has the right to tell me what to do and what will I do to someone I feel wronged by and therefore have power over.
One area I see this coming out often in counseling is the clashing of my generation with the one that came before mine (I am 35 if that helps). Both generations have erred when it comes to honor and the differences create major conflict as we interact as adults. The generation of my parents were raised in a society that taught that children were to be seen and not heard and that elders were to be catered to and always given deference. My generation was raised in a society that said that children were to be the most important people in the house and elders should cater to them. Put them together and you have parents who spent a great portion of their lives placating and pandering to a bunch of adults that treated them like a nuisance at best or cattle at worst. They grow to become older and expect that their investment will now be paid back with the generation below them placating and pandering to them now. This is met by my generation's narcissistic response that old people are great if they are doing stuff for us, but otherwise are just a nuisance - the reverse of the seen but not heard principle. Put it all together and both sides expect to be catered to and feel slighted that the other isn't doing what society promised them. The solution is honor; when you honor those below you, above you, and beside you not just with lip service but in response to the love and honor God has poured out for us then we all have life breathed into us. When we choose dishonor it not only hardens our hearts but limits God from being able to fully bless us the way he would like. If you feel like you just aren't making strides in your walk with Christ it's worth asking yourself; do I have any unconfessed sin, do I have any bitterness from not forgiving others, or is there anywhere that I am not honoring those above or below me in authority? God opposes the proud, he despises when bullies use their power to harm rather than enhance, but he also can only do so much with people that rebel against authority, that can't be corrected, and who are unteachable.
Showing posts with label Character. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Character. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Raising Little Narcissists
Most experts agree that American children are at a major risk today of developing greater and greater senses of their own importance, not their value but their importance. Narcissism is growing at an incredibly high rate, and a sense of entitlement is seen in kids across the socioeconomic spectrum, and everyone has their opinions as to why. There are those who immediately blame the parents for sweeping in and rescuing their kids from consequences, puffing their children up with nothing but positive reinforcement. There are those who say it is because we took pray out of schools and are becoming a godless nation. There are those who say it is our cultural media through television, the internet, and music that is warping the minds of our children. I think I could easily argue than none of these three in themselves are powerful enough to ruin a child, but it's possible that the combination of the three is becoming a pretty potent recipe for creating little narcissists.
As far as parenting goes I think most parents struggle with falling into one error or the other - a child-focused house or an adult-focused house, and that they both have consequences. In an adult-focused home children are to be seen and not heard, and they are to cater and pander to the parents who should be able to dish out orders and commands like a Roman emperor without so much as an eye-roll. These kids learn well how to avoid upsetting their parents - some decide to do those things as often as possible to stick it to the man, some smile to your face and do whatever they like behind your back, and some make it their life mission to please everyone in their life - a task they never figure out is impossible. Creating a child-focused house, the side I am more prone to err on, says that adults are flexible and adaptable and should sacrifice for their children and so we should cater to their desires and set things up around them. This expresses love, but often also convinces children that they are the most important people in the world, with everyone else here to cater to them. These are the children that yell and berate their parents like insolent employees who just can't seem to follow instructions sufficiently as the parents shuck and jive trying to avoid stirring up negative emotions in their kids. If the rules of hide-and-seek don't suit their child well, then throw the rules out the window and let them do it however makes them happy. If their teacher has some misguided notion that they aren't perfect then you need to march down to the school and berate them for harboring a negative thought, much less correcting your child. The kids end up being treated like little tiki gods, extremely powerful but temperamental - to be catered to for fear of being thrown into a volcano of a temper-tantrum. You can see how this approach could encourage kids towards a narcissistic mindset, consumed with their own importance.
People who are convinced we once were a godly nation who has slipped into ungodliness are pretty misguided from my viewpoint but everyone is entitled to their opinions. Somehow Thomas Jefferson coming home after a rough day of writing up the Constitution to rape the woman he purchased as a slave, creating children who were roughly one-half human and one-half property doesn't strike me as terribly Christ-like. Comparing America to ancient Rome where gory public death was seen as entertainment, any respectable grown man had a young boy to use as a sexual object, and many dining rooms had an adjoining room where you could go vomit up your food so you could go eat more seems like a bit of an overstatement to me. Those who say prayer has been taken out of public schools ultimately are only correct when it comes to organized public prayers aimed at promoting a particular religious persuasion which for me is a better option than forcing my kids to pray to Allah, Krishna, or even touting a non-essential debatable theological stance. All of this aside, however, we exist in a secular society that touts the importance of man far more than God - whether it has always been that way, is getting better, or is getting worse isn't the point. Most kids today are either considered extremely important themselves because of meaningless achievements on tests, in sports, or on stages or are encouraged to consistently compare themselves to celebrities and icons who are at the apex of these achievements. It is rarely taught that having character, having a heart after God is anywhere close to as valuable as being compared to others and considered important.
Research seems to also show that our media seems to regularly promote narcissism as well, but whether it is media warping young people's minds or simply catering to what they already value is hard to tell. An interesting article summarizing a longitudinal study across the past decades comparing the most popular television programs for 9-11 year olds and the corresponding values those shows promote recently came out - http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/popular-tv-shows-teach-children-210119.aspx The chart below summarizes across each decade which of the 16 measured values were most reflected in that decades most popular shows.
The most interesting thing about the study is the sudden shift in the last decade from focus on community feeling or even image and self acceptance to the high priority of fame. General trend is a movement from societal focus to self focus, and then recently slingshotting past being self focused to needing everyone else to understand just how important we are. Fame jumped from 13th or 15th place to number one most important and once again this has to have an impact on future levels of Narcissism. Combine this with Facebook and other social media and we provide not only a drive for fame and the attention of others but an actual platform to act it out. If a teenager has even as low as just a hundred friends on Facebook, they have a stage where they can feel others are looking at them from afar, acknowledging their attractiveness, laughing at their considerable wit, and praising their every accomplishment from Grandma posting "Congratulations on your graduation" to their friend "like"ing their newest hairstyle. Nothing wrong with social media or television, but there is a growing trend of inflating young people's views of their own importance.
So if all three are valid problems then I think as parents we have to take all three seriously in raising our children to be confident but humble, have high self-esteem but a compassion for others, and ultimately to see the fame of God as a much greater goal that their own fame. Maybe we need to start saying "no" to our kids a little more for their own good, not just our selfishness or laziness. Maybe it's OK to pop our kids bubble and let them know that some things they are great at and some things they really just aren't. Maybe we need to teach them that kids aren't the most important and adults aren't the most important, but that God is most important and he has tasked us as parents under his authority to help our children understand what it is like to submit to authority. Probably the number one resistance I get in counseling to seeing people accept Christ is that they have never heard anyone tell them "no" and they are afraid that if they become a Christian then God will say "no" to a lot of things in their life they are unwilling to give up. Maybe we can use TV or social media to create relevant discussions with our kids about their values and greatest aspirations compared to what they are seeing. At the core I believe a big part is helping our children to understand their VALUE, far more than their importance. Your daughter's friend may have 50 more Twitter followers than her, but your daughter is valued and treasured by you for who she is, not how important others see her. Your son may not have been voted class president, but Jesus Christ came and died for him to show him just how valuable his soul really is. When our kids see that we take our role as parent's seriously because of how much we value them as a person we can say "no" to them, and stop pandering to them because later on they'll never overhear us comparing them to others, judging their importance academically, socially, or athletically. A child who grows up feeling important desperately wants to hold on to that importance and narcissism is a convenient lie that helps them feel important even while they doubt their own value. A child who grows up feeling valued for who they are, not what people say about them or what they are able to do are able to see and appreciate that same value in other people and act in humility and compassion. See the core problem is the same with fearful people-pleasers as with tactless narcissists - they both are scared to death of having no value and so work hard to promote their own worth in other people's eyes. Either way what is needed is to see that the creator of the universe loves you so much that he gave that which he most valued, his own son, to reclaim you as infinitely valuable in his eyes. If this is true then fame doesn't matter, pleasing and narcissism are unnecessary, and we can extend the same value we feel to others around us without a fear that if we increase their value then it threatens our own.
As far as parenting goes I think most parents struggle with falling into one error or the other - a child-focused house or an adult-focused house, and that they both have consequences. In an adult-focused home children are to be seen and not heard, and they are to cater and pander to the parents who should be able to dish out orders and commands like a Roman emperor without so much as an eye-roll. These kids learn well how to avoid upsetting their parents - some decide to do those things as often as possible to stick it to the man, some smile to your face and do whatever they like behind your back, and some make it their life mission to please everyone in their life - a task they never figure out is impossible. Creating a child-focused house, the side I am more prone to err on, says that adults are flexible and adaptable and should sacrifice for their children and so we should cater to their desires and set things up around them. This expresses love, but often also convinces children that they are the most important people in the world, with everyone else here to cater to them. These are the children that yell and berate their parents like insolent employees who just can't seem to follow instructions sufficiently as the parents shuck and jive trying to avoid stirring up negative emotions in their kids. If the rules of hide-and-seek don't suit their child well, then throw the rules out the window and let them do it however makes them happy. If their teacher has some misguided notion that they aren't perfect then you need to march down to the school and berate them for harboring a negative thought, much less correcting your child. The kids end up being treated like little tiki gods, extremely powerful but temperamental - to be catered to for fear of being thrown into a volcano of a temper-tantrum. You can see how this approach could encourage kids towards a narcissistic mindset, consumed with their own importance.
People who are convinced we once were a godly nation who has slipped into ungodliness are pretty misguided from my viewpoint but everyone is entitled to their opinions. Somehow Thomas Jefferson coming home after a rough day of writing up the Constitution to rape the woman he purchased as a slave, creating children who were roughly one-half human and one-half property doesn't strike me as terribly Christ-like. Comparing America to ancient Rome where gory public death was seen as entertainment, any respectable grown man had a young boy to use as a sexual object, and many dining rooms had an adjoining room where you could go vomit up your food so you could go eat more seems like a bit of an overstatement to me. Those who say prayer has been taken out of public schools ultimately are only correct when it comes to organized public prayers aimed at promoting a particular religious persuasion which for me is a better option than forcing my kids to pray to Allah, Krishna, or even touting a non-essential debatable theological stance. All of this aside, however, we exist in a secular society that touts the importance of man far more than God - whether it has always been that way, is getting better, or is getting worse isn't the point. Most kids today are either considered extremely important themselves because of meaningless achievements on tests, in sports, or on stages or are encouraged to consistently compare themselves to celebrities and icons who are at the apex of these achievements. It is rarely taught that having character, having a heart after God is anywhere close to as valuable as being compared to others and considered important.
Research seems to also show that our media seems to regularly promote narcissism as well, but whether it is media warping young people's minds or simply catering to what they already value is hard to tell. An interesting article summarizing a longitudinal study across the past decades comparing the most popular television programs for 9-11 year olds and the corresponding values those shows promote recently came out - http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/popular-tv-shows-teach-children-210119.aspx The chart below summarizes across each decade which of the 16 measured values were most reflected in that decades most popular shows.
The most interesting thing about the study is the sudden shift in the last decade from focus on community feeling or even image and self acceptance to the high priority of fame. General trend is a movement from societal focus to self focus, and then recently slingshotting past being self focused to needing everyone else to understand just how important we are. Fame jumped from 13th or 15th place to number one most important and once again this has to have an impact on future levels of Narcissism. Combine this with Facebook and other social media and we provide not only a drive for fame and the attention of others but an actual platform to act it out. If a teenager has even as low as just a hundred friends on Facebook, they have a stage where they can feel others are looking at them from afar, acknowledging their attractiveness, laughing at their considerable wit, and praising their every accomplishment from Grandma posting "Congratulations on your graduation" to their friend "like"ing their newest hairstyle. Nothing wrong with social media or television, but there is a growing trend of inflating young people's views of their own importance.
So if all three are valid problems then I think as parents we have to take all three seriously in raising our children to be confident but humble, have high self-esteem but a compassion for others, and ultimately to see the fame of God as a much greater goal that their own fame. Maybe we need to start saying "no" to our kids a little more for their own good, not just our selfishness or laziness. Maybe it's OK to pop our kids bubble and let them know that some things they are great at and some things they really just aren't. Maybe we need to teach them that kids aren't the most important and adults aren't the most important, but that God is most important and he has tasked us as parents under his authority to help our children understand what it is like to submit to authority. Probably the number one resistance I get in counseling to seeing people accept Christ is that they have never heard anyone tell them "no" and they are afraid that if they become a Christian then God will say "no" to a lot of things in their life they are unwilling to give up. Maybe we can use TV or social media to create relevant discussions with our kids about their values and greatest aspirations compared to what they are seeing. At the core I believe a big part is helping our children to understand their VALUE, far more than their importance. Your daughter's friend may have 50 more Twitter followers than her, but your daughter is valued and treasured by you for who she is, not how important others see her. Your son may not have been voted class president, but Jesus Christ came and died for him to show him just how valuable his soul really is. When our kids see that we take our role as parent's seriously because of how much we value them as a person we can say "no" to them, and stop pandering to them because later on they'll never overhear us comparing them to others, judging their importance academically, socially, or athletically. A child who grows up feeling important desperately wants to hold on to that importance and narcissism is a convenient lie that helps them feel important even while they doubt their own value. A child who grows up feeling valued for who they are, not what people say about them or what they are able to do are able to see and appreciate that same value in other people and act in humility and compassion. See the core problem is the same with fearful people-pleasers as with tactless narcissists - they both are scared to death of having no value and so work hard to promote their own worth in other people's eyes. Either way what is needed is to see that the creator of the universe loves you so much that he gave that which he most valued, his own son, to reclaim you as infinitely valuable in his eyes. If this is true then fame doesn't matter, pleasing and narcissism are unnecessary, and we can extend the same value we feel to others around us without a fear that if we increase their value then it threatens our own.
Monday, November 14, 2011
Thorn In Your Flesh
I have found that most people tend to struggle with the same frustrating weaknesses over and over in their lives and no matter how hard they try they can't seem to make them better. I know this sounds like blasphemy coming from a Christian counselor whose career is based on helping people get out of stuck patterns and getting to a state of increased healthiness, but it is often the case. There is definitely a sanctification process where we as believers are transformed by God over the course of our lifetimes being shaped more into His image, and there are insights and tools that counseling can provide that facilitate this process, but often there is a point where no matter how hard I work as a counselor or how hard my client works the weakness doesn't seem to go away. The young man who is afraid he might actually lose his job soon if his business finds out he regularly surfs for porn during work hours, who works extremely hard to institute changes, does everything I tell him to do, and fervently begs God to take the temptation away from him. The woman who has been in counseling for decades and studies scripture daily looking for God to lift her depression that even medication doesn't seem to touch. The spouse that tries and works their tail off trying to transform their marriage and years later continue to get nothing in return. There seems to be cases where people work hard and get better and cases where people work hard and don't get better, but rarely if ever are there times where people are irresponsible and put forth no effort but they are magically transformed by God. So maybe the two necessary components for significant life change are a determination to put forth effort and take responsibility paired with the transforming power of God, where one without the other is ineffective. Don't get me wrong, I believe Non-Christians can improve their marriages and become less anxious, they just have to do all the work on their own and have to fight an uphill battle against their own sin nature to which they are a slave. I also believe that God is sovereign and could choose to transform a person without them doing a thing, I just more often observe in counseling as well as scripture that God seems to like for us to invest in the process rather than sitting back and waiting on the magic.
So this post isn't expressly for those who just don't have a relationship with Christ, or for those who just aren't interested in doing the work of getting better, but rather those who are crying out desperately to God to rescue them from their sinful flesh and are doing everything in their power to take responsibility but consistently see no change. Paul says this, and we can all relate:
2 Corinthians 12:7b-10
New International Version (NIV)
7 Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
The relationship between man and sin, before and after salvation is a deep and theologically rich topic which can't be fully fleshed out here but the basics I am working from are these: God could have chose to create a world without choice and therefore no sin but it would have also been mindless automatons devoid of the ability to really love. He also could have set it up to where when we accept Christ we are not only forgiven of our past but allowed to move forward without ever sinning again, but that seems to not be the case. And while many believers experience the supernatural deliverance from their sin, weakness, or affliction there are many more that, like Paul, never seem to catch a break.
What this indicates to me about the heart and character of God is that he seems to be more interested in us relying on him in humility and dependence, regardless of what kind of benefit we get from it, far more than he is interested in us becoming more and more perfect and sinless according to the law. It seems that the work of sanctification, where we are rescued from the bondage of sin and able to live more in the image of God, is a work that we are powerless to do in and of ourselves. But it is also a process in which God likes for us to do our part, to struggle and fight, to make responsible choices, and to step out in audacious faith - kind of like my kids cleaning up the playroom on a much grander scale. I know I will be doing the vast majority of the picking up of toys and that by the end I am lucky to get a toy or two a piece cleaned up from my boys but I want them to take ownership and engage in the process even though I could lock them in there for days and they could never get it exactly perfect, but would more likely just create a bigger mess.
I think this is important for people to remember for several reasons, one of which is that it reminds us that if we aren't seeing significant reduction in our sinfulness and we can't easily just acknowledge our own lack of responsibility that maybe God teaches us just as much from allowing us to stay in our sinfulness as he does from rescuing us out of it. It's really just our stubborn humanness that convinces us that the chief goal of life is to stringently stick to a set of laws and work towards becoming more and more perfect. The Bible, however, is chock full of stories and injunctions that suggest us focusing on being more and more sinless is not the correct focus as it ultimately is on us and our elevation instead of God and his glory. God flat out tells Abraham to commit the worst kind of sin, killing his own son, just to make the point that we are to be about listening to his voice and obeying rather than blindly following dogma. In Micah 6:8, God indicates that our acts of sacrifice, trying to become more and more perfect, are worthless compared to a heart of humility and mercy, broken and contrite. It seems keeping us weak and helpless gives God the richest, fertile ground for these things. If you can just get it in your mind to kick a sin and you do it then it becomes hard to stay humble. If you never have to struggle with something far beyond your own power and steely resolve then it is much easier to interact with others based on judgement rather than mercy. And Paul speaks clearly when he says God's power is made perfect in our weakness. I believe God prefers a dependent person over a sinless person any day, someone who knows his frailness and desperate ongoing need for not just a far off savior but a daily strength to get through the day. Someone who knows that they don't have the power to stand toe-to-toe with temptation, that they'd lose 10 times out of 10, and that their only hope is to run full speed away from sin's tempting influence and into the arms of God.
Maybe your weakness is a mouth that can't help but gossip, slander, and judge whenever you are around your friends. Maybe for you it is a nagging sense of never feeling good enough that keeps you working late and disappointing your wife once again. Maybe there are weeks on end where it takes the effort of climbing Mt. Everest to get you out of bed in the morning and reading your Bible just feels like ash in your mouth. Maybe you weep while praying that today when your wife leaves to go to work you won't be haunted by urges to surf for porn or get out your stash of whiskey she doesn't know about. All I know is that over the years I have met many men and women of every age that deeply love Christ and desperately cry out to him to be delivered from their weaknesses only to hear that God's grace is sufficient. These are also the humblest, least judgmental, pious, and Christ-like people I've had the pleasure of knowing. God likes to use weak people, prone to sinfulness, and flawed in every way because when he does great things in and through us the watching world has no other logical recourse than to see the handiwork of an powerful and praiseworthy God. God chose a murdering adulterer to bear the title of a man after his own heart, used a fanatical murderer of Christians to spread the gospel further than any other man, and he uses weak, recurrently sinful, and hopelessly dependent me to counsel broken people because I am and always will be one too.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
A House Divided
Sex, Money, and Families - the three topics couples argue the most about, all have the same thing in common, they are hard to share because we have different viewpoints. It's my body, my money, and my family, but in marriage we have to negotiate to make it all OURS. Fights about families usually revolve around how to handle our insane in-laws or the blog topic for today - how to handle parenting.
The problem is that most us feel like we have no idea what we are doing but we are positive that what our spouse is doing must be screwing up our kids. We'll never say it but we feel like if our spouse would just totally adopt our way of parenting then we could create perfect children - problem is it is a theory we can never prove. When parents come at the same kids with two different approaches often the result is two people undermining what the other parent is doing resulting in a net gain of zero. Chances are if you backed off completely and just went with their approach or they went with yours, either way it would create more productive parenting, but no one will give in and while the parents bicker the child skates off whistling, thankful you created the smokescreen for their getaway. How does this come about? Does anyone go into parenting thinking "I sure hope I can be so hard on my kids that they tremble when I walk in the room, placate me in my presence and then talk junk about me when I leave the room" or "I want my kids to some day see me as just their peer, disrespect me openly, but at least let me be their confidante, but with no authority at all." But that is where couples find themselves due to Parental Polarization.
The same thing happens with finances or other areas where at the beginning of marriage one spouse is a little more frugal and concerned with saving than the other, while the other is a little more impulsive and comfortable enjoying their income. Pretty soon the saver has to compensate for the spender and vice versa and before long they are far more extreme than they started or even they want to be. With parenting we each start a little more towards focused on the rules or focused on the relationship, but before long we overcompensate for the other and become polarized caricatures of parents. The strict one feels like the kids will get away with murder if they don't step in and correct them, because heaven knows their pushover partner will never make the kids listen. The permissive one feels like the poor kids will be crushed under the cruel dictatorship of their partner unless they swoop in to console and reassure, letting them have a little bit of freedom. The result - they both openly or subversively undermine the authority of the other resulting in kids who are at best confused and at worst decide to discount them both. In mid-tirade, vein freshly bulging the strict parent gets lopped off at the knees when the savior parent swoops in to reassure the kids that the cruel ogre in their midst really doesn't have the power to make their lives miserable, they won't let them. As the permissive parent reason's with the kids hoping to convince them to want to do what they want the, the strict parent barges in and in one quick interchange establishes that the other parent never had any credibility, and should continue to be ignored. When we get mad at the other parent totally undermining our parenting it just gets interpreted as them pushing their "I hate rules" or "I hate the kids" agendas and the bickering just continues.
The solution - you have to have a balance of rules and relationship, they have to be independent of each other, and they both must be pursued by both parents simultaneously. This means it is vitally important for kids to be taught right and wrong, cause and effect, have their character shaped with consequences, and be held accountable for their actions so they become respectful, responsible adults. It is equally important that they feel loved, cared for, accepted for who they are, and comfortable sharing their inner world with their parents so they grow up not being a people pleaser, a perfectionist, or full of shame. It's important that each parent balance both of these, using God's example of being the perfect balance of grace with truth, so they get the full message without two messages drowning each other out. So this means if each parent needs to overcompensate it isn't in the direction away from what their partner is doing, but rather towards it. The black and white rules lawyer concerned with what the neighbors think of their parenting job needs to focus on building a strong healthy relationship with their children full of grace. The bleeding heart rescuer wanting to spare their kids from any hurt, disappointment, or consequences needs to focus on establishing real authority with rewards and punishments taking their kid's character seriously. The key to doing this is seeing each role separately and not allowing them to overlap. Just because your kid screws up royally doesn't mean you should pull back on your relationship with them - that's not what God does for us, he maintains his relationship with us through any and all mistakes because he loves us and we are His, not because we are lovable. And just because we want our kids to feel loved and cared for doesn't mean we ignore their poor character and shield them from their own consequences, that's now what God does, and it really isn't loving it's just pleasing.
The problem is that most us feel like we have no idea what we are doing but we are positive that what our spouse is doing must be screwing up our kids. We'll never say it but we feel like if our spouse would just totally adopt our way of parenting then we could create perfect children - problem is it is a theory we can never prove. When parents come at the same kids with two different approaches often the result is two people undermining what the other parent is doing resulting in a net gain of zero. Chances are if you backed off completely and just went with their approach or they went with yours, either way it would create more productive parenting, but no one will give in and while the parents bicker the child skates off whistling, thankful you created the smokescreen for their getaway. How does this come about? Does anyone go into parenting thinking "I sure hope I can be so hard on my kids that they tremble when I walk in the room, placate me in my presence and then talk junk about me when I leave the room" or "I want my kids to some day see me as just their peer, disrespect me openly, but at least let me be their confidante, but with no authority at all." But that is where couples find themselves due to Parental Polarization.
The same thing happens with finances or other areas where at the beginning of marriage one spouse is a little more frugal and concerned with saving than the other, while the other is a little more impulsive and comfortable enjoying their income. Pretty soon the saver has to compensate for the spender and vice versa and before long they are far more extreme than they started or even they want to be. With parenting we each start a little more towards focused on the rules or focused on the relationship, but before long we overcompensate for the other and become polarized caricatures of parents. The strict one feels like the kids will get away with murder if they don't step in and correct them, because heaven knows their pushover partner will never make the kids listen. The permissive one feels like the poor kids will be crushed under the cruel dictatorship of their partner unless they swoop in to console and reassure, letting them have a little bit of freedom. The result - they both openly or subversively undermine the authority of the other resulting in kids who are at best confused and at worst decide to discount them both. In mid-tirade, vein freshly bulging the strict parent gets lopped off at the knees when the savior parent swoops in to reassure the kids that the cruel ogre in their midst really doesn't have the power to make their lives miserable, they won't let them. As the permissive parent reason's with the kids hoping to convince them to want to do what they want the, the strict parent barges in and in one quick interchange establishes that the other parent never had any credibility, and should continue to be ignored. When we get mad at the other parent totally undermining our parenting it just gets interpreted as them pushing their "I hate rules" or "I hate the kids" agendas and the bickering just continues.
The solution - you have to have a balance of rules and relationship, they have to be independent of each other, and they both must be pursued by both parents simultaneously. This means it is vitally important for kids to be taught right and wrong, cause and effect, have their character shaped with consequences, and be held accountable for their actions so they become respectful, responsible adults. It is equally important that they feel loved, cared for, accepted for who they are, and comfortable sharing their inner world with their parents so they grow up not being a people pleaser, a perfectionist, or full of shame. It's important that each parent balance both of these, using God's example of being the perfect balance of grace with truth, so they get the full message without two messages drowning each other out. So this means if each parent needs to overcompensate it isn't in the direction away from what their partner is doing, but rather towards it. The black and white rules lawyer concerned with what the neighbors think of their parenting job needs to focus on building a strong healthy relationship with their children full of grace. The bleeding heart rescuer wanting to spare their kids from any hurt, disappointment, or consequences needs to focus on establishing real authority with rewards and punishments taking their kid's character seriously. The key to doing this is seeing each role separately and not allowing them to overlap. Just because your kid screws up royally doesn't mean you should pull back on your relationship with them - that's not what God does for us, he maintains his relationship with us through any and all mistakes because he loves us and we are His, not because we are lovable. And just because we want our kids to feel loved and cared for doesn't mean we ignore their poor character and shield them from their own consequences, that's now what God does, and it really isn't loving it's just pleasing.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Finished Product
Parenting can be the most rewarding, frustrating, exhausting, overwhelming, fantastic thing in the world but it is a job with a clear start date and a fuzzy end date. Sometimes we choose to be parents, sometimes parenthood chooses us. Sometimes we are excited, sometimes we are terrified, but forever we are changed. Before we have kids we look at and judge the frantic shell of a woman pushing a cart through Walmart with her hair undone, puke on her shoulder, and a screaming tyrant of a child who is blowing snot bubbles on the tile floor until a suitable tribute of M&Ms is offered and smugly think it will never be us. Before we actually live with a real live teenager we assume it is crappy parents that create disrespectful, belligerent, little monsters convinced of their own superiority in all things regarding intelligence, morality, and dating decisions. No matter how prepared for parenting we are, everyone looks at their kids from time to time and wonders if they truly have any clue how to parent based on the unfinished product, and usually this comes when we don't have a clear goal of what we want the finished product to look like.
Let me start with a clear caveat that I do not in any way believe that good parenting creates good kids that become good adults, because that is not something that is within our power. Too many books, sermons, and smug neighbors assert that if you just do the right things in the right way you can create great kids that become great some day. The truth is that it is our job as parents to set the best possible environment and put the best ingredients into the product we are working towards, but that fantastic parents often have worthless kids who reward their hard work with defiance, and just as often horrible parents do everything wrong and end up with fantastic kids. Ultimately what they become is up to them, so stop blaming their friends for corrupting them and stop blaming yourself for every wrong decision they make. God is our heavenly father but he isn't responsible for the bad decisions we make.
That said, I think it is important to determine an end goal as early into parenting as possible - what end product am I wanting to put out into the world at the end of 18 years of parenting? You have some options here and some pitfalls to avoid. The first is training your kids to avoid annoying or irritating you by snapping at them when they do anything out of line with your constantly shifting whims and desires - make everything a battle from how they chew their food to what grade of gasoline they put in their tank. This creates a finished product that learns to avoid you when you are in a bad mood, placate you in your presence, and do whatever the heck they want when you aren't around and unless they have a boss some day with all the same annoyances and preferences as you then they haven't really been prepared for life. The second option is to immediately do anything and everything you can to make them happy non-stop every day which creates a very frustrated adult that walks into life as a dictator who has lost his only subjects. Another goal might be just trying to make them look good in comparison to other people's kids - are they better dressed, act better at parties, get better grades, score more touchdowns, and have more Facebook friends? This is the parenting message our culture gives us which is to focus exclusively on the achievements of our kids and look at them as a walking report card of our parenting based on what they are able to accomplish. When asked about our kids we will likely spout off their GPA, sports involvement, relative attractiveness and such like we are a promoter describing a boxer or a headhunter raving about someone's resume.
What if our focus and goal was on our kid's character rather than their achievement, what if when asked we described our child as responsible, compassionate, respectful, and hard working? Rather than letting kids do whatever they want or trying to perfectly mold them into a telepathic robot that can read your mind and always do what you want, maybe we should pick our battles and just fight hard on a few things. What are those things? Well, that depends on what values and character traits are most important to you and your spouse. I say pick like 3-5 character traits and enforce them over 18 years with rewards and consequences and you might have a shot at making them stick. The Prasse family is shooting for Respectful, Compassionate, Responsible, Faithful, and having Integrity but your family may include things like being a Servant, being Hard Working, or Generous. Get on the same page between parents or else you will bicker and cut each other off at the knees constantly because you have two different goals in mind and if you sabotage each other then neither set of values stick. Whatever your main values are catch them doing it well, catch them going against them and if anything bugs you but doesn't correlate to one of the values then it is your problem not theirs. Kids are supposed to be annoying at times, we're just supposed to have maturity, grace, and the ability to see our kids as distinct human beings from us.
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