Squash or Inspire the Child's Desire

In a sharing moment, my 13 year old son says to me, “I feel like I do most things because of what I don’t want to have happen.”  It hits me like a ton of bricks and begins changing my parenting immediately.  Is this the pattern I want to set in him?  “No!”  But, it IS (I realize now) the default pattern my parenting style is creating.

My dream would be for him to be a person that can create a vision of what he wants and make it happen.  To me, this is what it means to live by faith.  I want him, and all of my children, to know that with the help of God they can do anything they set their minds to.  What the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.  I believe these words to be true.

And yet, years ago I figured out that if I could a) think of a good creative consequence that the child hates more than the chore he had been asked to do, then b) follow through with that consequence if he did not do the chore, c) I got results.  If your children know you’ll follow through with the consequence, this can be a very effective method of getting them to perform.  It has worked so well for me.

But now…I realize it is not a method that teaches my child to reach and create the results he wants.  It is, rather, a method that inspires the minimum action necessary to avoid the hated consequence.  And, no doubt, it is inspiring deep in that child a disdain and resentment for me, for chores, probably ultimately for life.

 

So, today I begin an intentional shift.  A shift than will transform the lives of my children, I hope.  I will help my children determine what they want; help them discover what they want life to look like for them; and then, help them learn to achieve it; help them see how each thought and action contributes to their results. 

Make no mistake, I believe in clear consequences for lack of performance.  The consequences will remain.  They will be clear and understood.  The focus, however, will be on the positive results that come from doing the necessary tasks and making wise choices – whether that be chores, homework, choice of entertainment, etc.