Parenting Your Child’s Story 1: Why?

I’m so looking forward to the “Lunch and Learn” time today with some great EDS parents who are always seeking to grow. We’ll be doing a quick survey of a one-day seminar I lead, called “Parenting Your Child’s Story.” Since several people have asked me what that’s all about, let me give you a brief overview.

We need all of the parenting tips and tricks and insights and wisdom we can get. When my babies were young, I tried all of them, especially the ones related to getting them to sleep and some of them actually worked. But one thing I didn’t spend much time on when they were young was thinking about “what I wanted them to be when they grew up.” First of all, I couldn’t see far enough into the future to think they would grow up. Secondly, all I cared about was that my almost-three-year-old would be potty trained in time to go to preschool in the fall. (Okay, I cared about more than that – I also wanted him to quit hitting his sister.) The point is, at all stages of parenting, it’s easy to get lost in the nitty-gritty of the daily ins and outs and forget the big picture. Parenting Your Child’s Story is about taking some time to think and pray about that big picture.

The first thing to ask ourselves is, “Is there a bigger story than my child or my family?” I often struggle to see the forest for the trees – that is, I am so busy attending to the make-it-or-break-it moments of parenting (keeping my child from throwing a tantrum in the grocery store; not making a scene when I say good-bye to them at college). In what I have always called, “the ongoing pursuit of the ever-elusive-mother-of-the-year award,” I often forget the big picture. I have learned the hard way — when my child or my parenting becomes the center of the story, I’m in trouble. I begin to give extra pieces of candy (or extra time added to curfew – the stakes always increase) for the simple reason that I want to be liked. Or I create limitations to “protect” them because I really don’t want to deal with the stomach turbulence I will experience if my 5-year-old goes to the beach with a friend, or my 20-year-old travels to India to study abroad. There must be a story bigger than us.

And I just realized this is going to be more than one blog. Stay tuned for more on that bigger story next week. Meanwhile, what about you? What do you want your children to be like — next year or in 20 years? What daily struggles cause you to forget the big picture? How do you think having a big story for them might help you in the daily struggles? (No, these aren’t rhetorical questions:) I’d love comments.)