|
Parenting
2. The Potential of Parenting
A
series that helps parents raise their children
Introduction
to this Page:
The
purpose of this page is to pause up and ponder on the possibility that
life does not have to catch you or your children by surprise. It suggests
that it is a good plan to think about
your potential as parents in the years to come, thinking
about some of the ways in which you can help your child grow and develop.
It is about awareness of your child and their world, especially their
future world, and the potential of family
life.
Again
the style of this page will be short paragraph or ‘bullet-point' style
to separate out individual things for you to think about. Each individual
bit needs thinking about.
Contents:
1.
Pictures from the Past
•
The difficulty
of learning from the past
2.
The Difficulty of Painting a Picture
•
A glance
at a writer from the past
3.
Seize the Day
•
Safeguards
against living in the future
•
Making the
Most of Today
•
Holding onto
good memories in the Past
4.
So Look Forward
•
Identifying
some of the areas where we can be there for our children
•
Coping with
the ongoing and rapidly changing world
5.
Recap
| 1. Pictures
from the Past |
| I've
never come across any book that paints a picture of what parenting
could achieve. As a result I think most people become parents
without any vision of what they could achieve as parents. Many
of us, if we do think about what we're aiming for, have in mind
our own parents, and what we know of parenting through them.
There
is a problem with this however: all parents are imperfect! None
of us ever get it all right and our parents certainly didn't,
however good they were. So we come into parenting with our minds
full of our past experiences which, for some of us, were bad!
So we resolve not to be like that! Our parenting will be a knee-jerk
reaction to what we saw with our parents which we didn't like.
|
|
For
others of us, we have good images from the past, from our good upbringing
and we want to impose them into the present, without realising that
our partner may not have had the same upbringing and may be struggling
with their history.
Of
course it is quite possible we've never consciously thought about
it, and so each day comes as a surprise and the thing about surprises
is that we're not prepared and therefore get caught out and don't
handle them as well as we might.
Return
to top of page
| 2. The
Difficulty of Painting a Picture |
 |
The
problem with trying to create a vision ourselves, is that we
haven't been there yet and so we're going to have to rely upon
other people and there aren't too many good examples.
In
1975 Edith Schaeffer wrote the book, “What is a Family?” a creative
approach to the various facets or goals of a family, possibly
the nearest thing to creating a vision for family potential
that I've come across.
The
following are the titles of the chapters of that book and a
little of what those titles suggest, although this no way covers
the rich diversity of the things she speaks about: |
1.
A Changing Life Mobile
•
a
growing and constantly changing group of people
2.
An Ecologically Balanced Environment
•
a
unity of imperfect people who nevertheless form an environment
for growth
3.
The Birthplace of Creativity
•
a
place of choice, development, creativity, appreciation for
all ages
4.
A Formation Centre for Human Relationships
•
a
place where we learn to interact harmoniously
5.
A Shelter in the Time of Storm
•
a
place of security where we learn to cope well with the knocks
of life
6.
A Perpetual Relay of Truth
•
a
place where wisdom and experience are passed on from generation
to generation
7.
An Economic Unit
•
a
place of learning to control choice of spending wisely
8.
An Educational Control
•
a
place to oversee and ensure good and varied learning by the
next generation
9.
A Museum
of Memories
•
a
place where life is lived and memories are created that strengthen
stability
10.
A Door that has Hinges and a Lock
•
a
place of hospitality but also security where it is possible
to draw away from the world
11.
Blended Balances
•
a
place of variety, order, dependence and independence, and
accountability within relationships.
|
Parenting
material that we have used in the past to teach, had as a goal, “to
raise a confident, respectful, self-reliant, co-operative child”.
Although
we worked very happily with this and considered this a good goal,
it is very limited and doesn't pick up on all of the wonderful areas
of family life that Edith Schaeffer referred to.
EXERCISE
:
Even if you don't ever get and read her book, it might be worth
pondering the subject matter indicated above and let your own
ideas grow. If you are a ‘journal person' write down your ideas;
create your own vision of what could be. |
Return
to top of page
| Carpe
diem,
which is the Latin for "seize the day”, crops up all over
the world as a cry to grab the moment and not lose it. The Roman
stoic philosopher, Seneca in his ‘Shortness of Life' wrote,
“Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing
for the future and weariness of the present.”
No
more true is this than in parenting and so, before we move on
with this idea of having a vision for parenting, let's suggest
some safeguards.
‘Having
a vision' seems to suggest constantly looking to the future
and therein is our danger. The most important day of
your life is today; you can never repeat it. When I
look back on my life, one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't
spend more time with my children. |
|
Given
that some surveys say that busy working fathers overage only about
four minutes a day with their child, I'm perhaps not unusual. The
objective is not to spend every available moment with your children
(they wouldn't want it!) but simply to manufacture meaningful
moments that make magical memories (6 m's!)
Having
a vision means you can do things today, either with the objective
of working towards something else good tomorrow, or simply doing good
things today as an expression of the vision you had which is being
worked out NOW.
And
while we're at it, don't lose the past! If one of my regrets
is not spending more time in the past with my children, another regret
is that I have a terrible memory. My wife can give a blow by blow
account of how each of our three were born, and I say, “They were
born?”
There
is an American fashion hobby that is starting to boost the economy
of the UK
– scrap-booking!
Now that form of scrap-booking is an art form and some of us
think that is beyond us, but actually creating a simple scrap book
(or ten!) over the year or years, is within the reach of all of us.
It helps us hold onto the memories.
You
go for a day out somewhere as a family. Take some photos and print
them off on one page to remind you what you saw. Put in entry-ticket
stubs, or brochures, catalogues or flyers, that you can use to build
the picture and remind yourselves years later what you did. A year
later, go through the scrap book with the children and get them to
recall what happen. You teach them to value the good times and to
hold onto good memories.
Memories
are a gift, so don't lose them. Anchor them with a scrap book or pictures
or videos stored on your computer. Make a family notice board somewhere
in your home and pin up the things that remind you of what you've
done and where you've been this year. Grab the day and hang on to
it.
| EXERCISE:
Dream! Think of ways that you can manufacture
meaningful moments that make
magical memories (The 6 m's!).
Think about what each of the ‘m's means. Again if you keep a
journal, jot these ideas down. |
Return
to top of page
So,
creating a vision of what could be. Let's pick up and develop some
of the things that come out of the chapter headings by Edith Schaeffer:
Helping our children to:
- Realise
that change is here to stay
- teaching
them that change is not to be feared but embraced
- Learn
to understand and respect themselves
- teaching
them self-esteem with humility
- Learn
to cope with being imperfect
- not
being put off when they fail or get it wrong
- Express
the creativity within them
- encouraging
them to express themselves in art or music or whatever other
creative form is in them
- Learn
to relate well within the family and outside it
- teaching
them to respect and honour others
- Experience
the security of a home that picks them up when they are knocked
down
- teaching
them to care and show compassion by the way you do it for
them
- Develop
in their capacity to learn school work, and life skills
- helping
them enjoy learning of all sorts.
|
Perhaps
we might combine some of these and summarise them as:
a)
Life Formation
- Knowing
who you are and enjoying who you are
b)
Learning
- How
to relate well to others
- How
to cope with all types of circumstances.
|
|
Two
other things to think about:
- Living
with Change
-
Learning
within Change
i)
Living with Change
- A
little while ago I came across forecasts that suggested that with
the nature of the Western world today, the average person
starting out in their working life would change their Careers
(not just jobs) at least fifteen times before
they reached retirement!
Now
you may find that difficult to believe, just as I did with the three
career changes twenty five years ago, but this is the nature of the
world in which we live.
ii)
Learning within Change
- If
you are just about to start a family, it is going to be quite
a lot of years before your child will be entering the job market.
There are likely to be even more changes in that time.
- To
change my complete career three times has meant that life has
involved a lot of ongoing learning.
- Computer-use-analysts
suggest that many children are more computer literate than their
parents.
- It
suggests that if we are parents we have got a lot of learning
to do ourselves if we are support and encourage our children (and
that doesn't mean do their homework for them!!!)
Another
facet of living and learning in the twenty first century is teaching
our children not to repeat the mistakes society is making today. The
term dysfunctional is quite common today, referring to families or
individuals. To educationalists it suggests families who have lost
orientation of who they are and what they could be, and parents who
have lost sight of the potential of their roles as parents.
If
you have read this far, it suggests that you are not such a parent
and you want to think through and then work through the issues suggested
on this and the other pages here in this Parenting series, so that
you and your children will not go down the painful path that so many
others seem to be go ing down.
EXERCISE:
Reflect on the changes in your life that you have seen. Assuming
the next generation will see even more changes, what sort of
environment do we need to create for our children and how do
you think we may go about doing that? |
Return
to top of page
On
this page we have seen:
1.
Pictures from the Past
•
The difficulty
of learning from the past, and our own parents
2.
The Difficulty of Painting a Picture
•
A glance
at a writer from the past and some things to be considered
3.
Seize the Day
•
Safeguards
against living in the future
•
Making the
Most of Today
•
Holding onto
good memories in the Past
4.
So Look Forward
•
Identifying
some of the areas where we can be there for our children
•
Coping with
the ongoing and rapidly changing world
To
conclude, determine that you are going to be parents who will think
about the future and work on it for the benefit of your children.
Return
to top of page
|
Sunday Services
Back to Parenting Contents Page