In her first column, Rhiannon Goulding says it is time to consider what we want to pass on to our children without simply following what everyone else is doing
Not many of us have studied the cognitive development of children or have a degree in child psychology. So how do we learn how to parent our own children? Most of us just pick it up along the way. We may instinctively copy the parenting styles of our own families as we were growing up – or, if we didn’t like our upbringing, we rebel against it and do the opposite. Some of us will watch shows on TV or read magazine articles or ‘How to…’ books.
Some of these things have been really helpful to me: I’ve read the books and watched friends who are ahead of me in their parenting journeys and picked up some really good ideas. But other things have been less helpful, and sometimes even destructive.
‘Five tips for the perfect family life’, apart from being over-simplified (if only it was that easy!), can also imply a lot of hidden expectations. Yours may not be a ‘typical’ nuclear family of mum, dad, and 2.4 children (ours isn’t). We don’t live in a perfect house with a perfect garden and perfect children – and that can make us feel as though we’ve failed. (I’m not perfect, so why should I expect perfection in anyone else?)
And as we try to meet those hidden expectations, what pressures are we putting on our children?
Reorientating our parenting priorities
Maybe it’s time to unlearn some of this stuff that we’ve picked up subliminally and take a hard look at what we really believe about parenting.
God is the Father who is always available to us, ready to listen to our worries and share our joys. So, is having a perfect house more important than spending time with our kids? Maybe it’s OK to sit on the floor and play while the jobs pile up.
What about our expectations of holidays – what’s more important, the place we travel to, or the time we spend together?
We can’t unlearn these unhelpful responses if we’re not aware of them
Is joining lots of clubs and activities better for our children than just going for a walk in the park and chatting about their day? Those everyday conversations can be the place where our faith is ‘caught’ rather than taught – where we show them how we respond to things in obedience to God. “Commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands…repeat them again and again to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, NLT).
Trying to spot and then reflect upon our automatic responses can be quite tricky. I remember a time when my daughter asked me a big moral question. I was happy that I had the answer all ready for her, but I was taken aback by her response: “Is that what you really think? Is it in the Bible, or is it just what you’ve been told? Is it culture, or prejudice? Or what God says?”
I was stopped in my tracks. I realised I wasjust regurgitating things I’d had drummed into me years ago, without ever questioning them. She was doing better than me, working out her faith her own way and trying to understand for herself.
Learning to take time before I spoke, and thinking more deeply about my responses, was important. If you’ve been a Christian for a long time, you sometimes have the right Bible verse at your fingertips, but taken out of context it could be wrong. It took me a while to unlearn the mantra “It’s my job to have all the answers”, and instead to be willing to say: “I don’t know.” I needed to give her space to ask honest questions and get alongside her and examine her questions together.
Pursuing ‘unlearning’
We can’t unlearn these unhelpful responses if we’re not aware of them. So, it’s worth sitting down and deciding what kind of parenting we want to embrace. Not just a cartoon Christian family life, but the real, gritty, day-to-day honesty of following Jesus. What are our values? What do we want to build? What do we need to unlearn, and what do we want to reload into our family life and relationships? Ask God to point out to you where you need to rethink, and maybe put a note in your phone when you realise you’ve reacted automatically instead of thoughtfully. Then you can go back and examine what causes your reaction – is it fear, insecurity, worry about what other people think?
Ingrained behaviours are the hardest to notice and the hardest to unpick. Unlearning is harder than learning and can be painful. But it can bring growth too.
We can unlearn needing to give advice. Instead, we can say: “What you’re going through is tough, but I’m here and God is here. We’ll go through it together.”
We can unlearn feeling ashamed when things go wrong, and instead celebrate success when we see our kids attempt something again, and again.
We can unlearn demanding perfection – in ourselves and our children – and instead learn acceptance. We have a God who created us as we are (flaws and all) and loves us as we are. Can we offer the same generous, accepting, forgiving and empowering love to our children?
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