Vernon and I have had a special privilege these holidays. It is to spend a length of time in our one-roomed beach-house in sometimes less-than-summer weather with our daughter-in-law, son and two little (20 months and 34 months) grandchildren. I feel privileged to watch two fine young adults make a great job of raising their children and fortunate to feel so welcome in their lives.
I have also had those particular delights of several firsts – the first dead starfish carried intact most of the way home, the first bucket full of mangrove seeds washed up on the sand and returned to the sea and the first discovery (by a fully clad toddler grand-daughter!) of the slope that lay under the apparently flat sea.
All of which leads me to ponder, why are we doing this? What are we trying to do in the raising of our children? What are the goals? How do we get there?
I remember reading somewhere, “If you don’t know where you are going, any path will do.” Now I do know that there have been many days in my parenting life when my sole goal was to get through the day. However, every now and again it is a good idea to wonder “Where are we heading and is it a direction I want to go?”
I have found it useful to think of the four strands of development along which we guide our children until they are independently functioning young adults.
These are:
1) From emotional dependence to emotional independence
2) From undisciplined to self-disciplined
3) From unskilled to skilled
4) From amoral to moral
From Emotional Dependence to Emotional Independence
The first strand underpins everything else and is crucial to raising wholesome, well-functioning adults with a good sense of self and compassion for others. All our babies start entirely dependent upon us to respond to their calls of distress (initially in response to hunger or loneliness) and to do our best to meet those needs. As they grow older (3 months to 20 years!) their needs become more complex but our response is pretty similar.
How can I comfort my child in such a way that he or she feels calmer and can get into a thinking mode about how to solve the problem? Preverbal children respond well to a cuddle. Once they can speak, a warm arm around their shoulder and a patient listening ear does wonders. When they are teens and are unwilling to listen to us, our willingness to listen to them will help keep our relationship intact.
The mark of a mature adult is the capacity to tolerate the ordinary frustrations of life and the capability to handle the extra-ordinary frustrations that inevitably come our way. If we can support our children (without taking over or taking away) as they struggle with ordinary frustrations, they learn that they can handle irritating events and people. This helps them in their journey to becoming emotionally mature young adults, capable of solving problems without losing their temper or giving up.
From Undisciplined to Self-disciplined
The second strand involves recognising that, to quote Richard Gordon, “A baby is a short person with no discipline at either end”. It is our job to start with this small and appropriately undisciplined baby and raise her or him to being a self-disciplined adult. We do this by showing our children what are the boundaries of decent and acceptable behaviour and by not allowing them to behave badly.
One-year-olds grasp the concept that there are certain behaviours of which we disapprove. Two-year-olds need to accept that their parents are the arbiters of imposed discipline. Three-year-olds need to have limited choices (Wheatbix or Kornies, red T-shirt or green T-shirt), so that they learn the self-discipline of committing to a choice and then seeing it through – always knowing that tomorrow you get a chance to try a different choice. Four-year-olds are capable of stringing three or four tasks together eg “Go and get ready” meaning “clean your teeth, brush your hair and put your lunch in your bag” or “Let’s get your room tidier” meaning “Put the books on the shelf, put the blocks in the block-box, put your shoes in the cupboard, hand up your clothes.”
If we have ferried our children through these phases, we have children who are capable of planning. They can see what needs to be done; they are capable of breaking a bigger task down into “manageable bites”; they have enough self-discipline to see the steps through. As they move towards and into the teen years, they need lots of experience of not-quite-enough planning on their part to get tasks completed in time – and the consequences of what happens as a result.
Our job becomes less that of forcing, cajoling, persuading and warning and more of watching, waiting and supporting…and comforting without lectures when it doesn’t quite work out. Childhood and teenagehood is the best time for children to have the experience of making “safe mistakes” so that they can do their own learning.
From Unskilled to Skilled
The third strand involves all the skills that our children – having begun (with apologies to our beautiful babies) as fairly unskilled individuals – need to function well as skilled young adults. This involves all the social skills, domestic skills (from tying shoe laces to eking out their prepay phone to the end of the month’s pocket money), sporting skills, cultural skills and academic skills that children need to function as independent adults. Many of these skills we teach our children ourselves and many of the teachings we delegate to others.
To raise young adults able to handle their emotions, to tolerate the ordinary frustrations in life, to be self-disciplined and to have developed an array of skills is quite daunting enough for us all as parents. However, for most of us, that isn’t enough. We wish to have also developed a fourth strand in our children.
From Amoral to Moral
The fourth strand of development is that of bringing out of virtues, values, morals and ethics in our children. We want our children to develop values (eg. health, security, relaxation, acceptance, respect, curiosity, forgiveness) and virtues (eg compassion, honesty, kindness, courage, tidiness, caring, sensitivity). We want them to have developed morals and ethics to help them deal with the inevitable temptations and difficult decisions that will come their way.
Now for the bad news! The development of virtues, values, morals and ethics need to be “caught rather than taught.” Imagine the ridiculous contradiction of our puffing away on a cigarette while telling our children that they should never even begin smoking. We cannot tell our children how to be moral and ethical; we need to demonstrate it in our daily lives. We cannot instruct our children to develop virtues and values; we need to live these and trust that they will rub off on our children.
So where do we start?
Support our children’s feelings, don’t allow them to behave in an unruly and undisciplined manner, teach them the skills that they will need to live independently, and let them (safely but uncomfortably) experience the consequences of bad choices. By doing these things we set a framework for the development of the fourth strand.
And as for their moral and ethical development? Remember that our children learn what they live. Is there anything that you would rather your children didn’t learn from you? Do your best to change that behaviour…or at the very least, make sure you are not caught!
