Letting your children struggle...
It's counterintuitive.
The instinct of a parent is to guide and guard. So when something is hurting your child (at any age) it's like second nature to intervene and protect from harm or the threat of harm. So to let your child walk into situations that could and probably will hurt them trusting them to work through it and trusting God to help them work through it isn't easy. But I think it's critical to their development and their sense of identity.
Here's what I mean.
When I listen to my daughter sharing her ache, the writhing and wrestling of her soul, I want to cut her from the chrysalis. I hate seeing her twist and torque struggling inside the papoose of pain. Even though I know critical formation is happening in that process, it takes everything in my power to refrain from running interference. Just like the caterpillar needs the conflict in the cocoon to strengthen its wings in order fly when it finally breaks free, my daughters actually need that tension and constriction to form their spirits and wills. To rescue them is to curse them.
There are certainly times to intervene if they are in physical danger or overt abuse of some sort, but run-of-the-mill conflict and suffering is something they have to encounter and overcome. The will stay immature in their behavior and premature in their decisions if they aren't given the opportunity to form strength in the struggle. The refiner's fire that separates the dross from the gold. The farmer's sifting that separates the chaff from the wheat. These things aren't pleasant, but our goal as parents isn't to ensure pleasure. It's to forge maturity. It's to raise up men and women to grow with the body that envelopes them.
Too many grow up to live as boys and girls in adult bodies ill-equipped and ill-prepared to face the unpleasantries and depravities of the real world. They haven't build the muscle tissue needed to withstand the onslaught of less-than-ideal conditions. They haven't learned how to live with disagreement, to function in harsh environments, to rise up when challenged, to get back up when knocked down. And often it isn't their fault, at least in their childhood. If their parents didn't force them to work, do hard things, face rejection, encounter resistance, live with disagreement, negotiate tension, fight fair, practice diplomacy, look for the good in the bad, realize life isn't always fair, or learn how to find orientation is destabilizing situations, the children are deer caught in the headlights when they strike camp and head out on their own.
That's the thing, they have to practice being on their own while they are in your home. You have to let them make their own decisions and then own the outcome of those decisions. Let them fail while they live with you so that you're there to help them process failure and realize it's not the end. Let them be in environments that make them question their faith while they're under your roof and then talk through the counter-arguments as you're tucking them into bed at night. Obviously you have to discern danger, but I think in an effort to protect our children, we think everything is dangerous if it's the slightest bit adverse. But adversity is essential to developing maturity. I would go beyond "letting" our children facing adversity to "facilitating adversity labs" as experiments to test and try their formative and forming souls, trial runs if you will. Don't alway prevent it, let them hit it like a brick wall and then walk with them through it. Talk about it...what it felt like, what they did in it, what some of the other options are if it happens again.
There is a time in parenting when you move from telling your kids what to think to teaching your kids how to think. And in order for this critical right of passage to occur, we have to let our children struggle and to join them in the struggle with great questions that lead to self-discovery and self-recovery. I'm not going to be there forever, they have to learn how to discover and recover without me...this starts much earlier than we think it does.
They need roots and wings as someone said. And in order for them to have wings, they need the chrysalis of conflict...and we have to fight the instinct to cut them out of it thinking we're helping them. To cut them out is to kill them. But to walk with them as they fight to grow strong enough to break out is to give them the gift of strength. A strength that their wings will need when they fly away from your home into the wide wild world.
This is what I hope I'm preparing my kids for...but it doesn't make it any easier to watch them struggle and suffer. It just helps me let it happen knowing it's the loving act of a caring parent.
The instinct of a parent is to guide and guard. So when something is hurting your child (at any age) it's like second nature to intervene and protect from harm or the threat of harm. So to let your child walk into situations that could and probably will hurt them trusting them to work through it and trusting God to help them work through it isn't easy. But I think it's critical to their development and their sense of identity.
Here's what I mean.
When I listen to my daughter sharing her ache, the writhing and wrestling of her soul, I want to cut her from the chrysalis. I hate seeing her twist and torque struggling inside the papoose of pain. Even though I know critical formation is happening in that process, it takes everything in my power to refrain from running interference. Just like the caterpillar needs the conflict in the cocoon to strengthen its wings in order fly when it finally breaks free, my daughters actually need that tension and constriction to form their spirits and wills. To rescue them is to curse them.
There are certainly times to intervene if they are in physical danger or overt abuse of some sort, but run-of-the-mill conflict and suffering is something they have to encounter and overcome. The will stay immature in their behavior and premature in their decisions if they aren't given the opportunity to form strength in the struggle. The refiner's fire that separates the dross from the gold. The farmer's sifting that separates the chaff from the wheat. These things aren't pleasant, but our goal as parents isn't to ensure pleasure. It's to forge maturity. It's to raise up men and women to grow with the body that envelopes them.
Too many grow up to live as boys and girls in adult bodies ill-equipped and ill-prepared to face the unpleasantries and depravities of the real world. They haven't build the muscle tissue needed to withstand the onslaught of less-than-ideal conditions. They haven't learned how to live with disagreement, to function in harsh environments, to rise up when challenged, to get back up when knocked down. And often it isn't their fault, at least in their childhood. If their parents didn't force them to work, do hard things, face rejection, encounter resistance, live with disagreement, negotiate tension, fight fair, practice diplomacy, look for the good in the bad, realize life isn't always fair, or learn how to find orientation is destabilizing situations, the children are deer caught in the headlights when they strike camp and head out on their own.
That's the thing, they have to practice being on their own while they are in your home. You have to let them make their own decisions and then own the outcome of those decisions. Let them fail while they live with you so that you're there to help them process failure and realize it's not the end. Let them be in environments that make them question their faith while they're under your roof and then talk through the counter-arguments as you're tucking them into bed at night. Obviously you have to discern danger, but I think in an effort to protect our children, we think everything is dangerous if it's the slightest bit adverse. But adversity is essential to developing maturity. I would go beyond "letting" our children facing adversity to "facilitating adversity labs" as experiments to test and try their formative and forming souls, trial runs if you will. Don't alway prevent it, let them hit it like a brick wall and then walk with them through it. Talk about it...what it felt like, what they did in it, what some of the other options are if it happens again.
There is a time in parenting when you move from telling your kids what to think to teaching your kids how to think. And in order for this critical right of passage to occur, we have to let our children struggle and to join them in the struggle with great questions that lead to self-discovery and self-recovery. I'm not going to be there forever, they have to learn how to discover and recover without me...this starts much earlier than we think it does.
They need roots and wings as someone said. And in order for them to have wings, they need the chrysalis of conflict...and we have to fight the instinct to cut them out of it thinking we're helping them. To cut them out is to kill them. But to walk with them as they fight to grow strong enough to break out is to give them the gift of strength. A strength that their wings will need when they fly away from your home into the wide wild world.
This is what I hope I'm preparing my kids for...but it doesn't make it any easier to watch them struggle and suffer. It just helps me let it happen knowing it's the loving act of a caring parent.
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