What kind of parent are you?
What Parents Do Wrong
Naturally you want to protect your child who’s hurting. But you won’t help your child if you go about assisting him the wrong way. What do parents do wrong?
They react instead of responding.
Something bad happens to your child. First, you’re in shock. Then your blood starts to boil. You want a piece of flesh in revenge. What flies out of your mouth?
“She did what to you? How dare she do that! I’m going to . . .” You form revenge tactics immediately.
Just when a child needs calm, the parent provides more drama in a visceral reaction.
There’s a big difference between reacting and responding. When the doctor says, “You had a reaction to your medicine,” that’s not good. But when she says, “You’re responding to your medicine,” that is good.
Your normal reaction will usually be over-the-top. You’re wounded because your child has been wounded. That’s why it’s important to step back mentally from the situation. Hug your hurting child, but keep your mouth shut until you have time to think.
When you react, anything goes, and you’re often sorry later. When you respond, you take time to evaluate the situation and develop a realistic battle plan, and you go forward with a cool head and determination.
Remember that your child is always watching you. What you model is what he’ll follow in his own life. If you’re always going off half-cocked and angry when bad things happen, your child will tend to use that as his go-to strategy too.
Reacting isn’t helpful in the long run. Responding is.
They try to fix things for the child.
It’s not unusual for parents to want to eradicate the problem themselves. They want to fix things, make the situation return to normal. However, if the child is not involved some way in the solution (age-appropriately, of course, and depending on the nature of the problem), all you’re teaching her is, “There, there, dear, you don’t have to do anything. Mom or Dad will fix everything for you.”
That might initially sound nice and kind, but it isn’t good for her long-term welfare. If you fix everything for her, how can she cope without you around? Will you be around when she’s in college or has her first job?
Also, fixing everything for your child tells her, “I don’t think you’re capable of doing anything yourself, so I’ll have to do it for you.” Eradicating the problem without involving your child isn’t very respectful.
I saw an example of a parent trying to run interference for her child just yesterday. When I was walking into the grocery store, a kid about 5 years old was right in front of me. Frankly, he was in my way. He was dawdling unnecessarily, walking sideways, and exploring the toys in his hand. Clearly, he wasn’t paying attention to anything or anyone else around him.
The mom was quick to tug at his arm and say to me, “Oh, excuse him.” She shot me an apologetic smile.
Will she be doing the same thing when he’s wandering around in first grade and doesn’t line up with the others at recess? “Oh, excuse him—he just doesn’t know how to pay attention yet.” It would have been better if she directly addressed the child: “Ethan, a man behind you is also trying to walk into the store.”
If she had done so, that wandering willy-nilly child would have had a wake-up call that he and his toys aren’t the only things in the universe. Addressing the situation in such a way would have been age-appropriate and the right thing to do.
Running interference for any child so he won’t realize there’s a problem or pain associated with life is never a good idea. When problems and pain crop up, your child will feel isolated, thinking, I’m the only one in the world who ever has problems.
Down the road, who is the one who will make decisions about how to respond when bad things happen? Your child himself. So don’t be too quick to jump in and fix the situation. It’s a natural instinct, but fight that urge. Instead, use this situation—as much as you don’t like it—to assist your child in developing good decision-making skills.
In the Westerns I used to watch as a kid, if someone was going to have a baby, one person would say to another, “You better boil some water.” Then the first person would roll up his sleeves. Two minutes later, you’d hear the cry of a baby.
That’s what you do sometimes as a parent. You roll up your sleeves, dig in, and help as best you can. But you have to help that baby be born, not hinder it. Trust me, you’re hindering when you do everything yourself or you do too much of it. Each person has to go through a few birth pains and experience the process step-by-step.
Part of being a parent is learning that fine balance of letting go so your child can grow emotionally. It’s true in this case too.
Children who are a part of the solution to a problem develop higher self-worth and the ability to work through other issues with confidence in the future. They think, You know what? I can deal with this. It is getting better. I’ll get through it. They become inventive with solutions the next time something similar occurs. That’s because their parents treat them as competent, even in this difficult situation.
They become the children who stand up to the bullies of life, who say no to group peer pressure to do drugs. They also become the adults who can take the inevitable hard hits that come, get up, dust themselves off, and go on with determination and purpose.
They deny the situation happened.
The human mind doesn’t want to believe that terrible things happened. For example, what do you do when you find out Uncle Hal, who you always trusted to babysit, molested your 11-year-old daughter in your own home while you were on a business trip?
Your first response might be, “No way. That couldn’t have happened. Not Uncle Hal. He’s always been so loving and good to my kids.”
Denying an event happened, though, is the worst thing you can do to your 11-year-old daughter. Denial won’t eradicate the issue. Uncle Hal needs to be dealt with to the full extent of the law, even if he is family.
But first, your daughter needs to know that you believe what she said. You’re not going to merely swipe this issue out of existence like you do with unwanted dust so your upcoming guests can’t see it. No, this situation calls for a full cleansing of your house.
How you respond to your daughter’s words can be a turning point in your relationship. Either she will see you as her advocate and trust you both now and in the future, or, if you sugarcoat this event in any way or try to explain it away (such as, “Well, what exactly did he do? Maybe he only meant to . . .”), your daughter will never share anything beyond trivial details with you in the future. She will cut her heart off from you.
In any situation, you need to check out the details. Children have been known to lie. But that’s not likely to happen with issues that are out of their frame of reference. So, first and foremost, you need to believe your child and take action.
It isn’t fun to deal with real problems. In fact, it’s risky. Sometimes it means we have to grow up a bit ourselves. All of us are tempted to use the defense mechanism of denial at times. However, denial is much too costly when it involves your child.
Better to buck up now, accept the reality, and spend your mental and emotional energies enveloping your child in the safety and love she needs when she’s hurting.
They dismiss, negate, or deny their child’s feelings.
“You shouldn’t feel that way.”
“It’s not as bad as you think.”
“Now, you know that isn’t true. Remember when . . . [you cite a time when the opposite happened].”
Those are three of the worst responses any parent can give a hurting child. By doing so, you’re unintentionally digging for scraps to toss your child’s way.
Let’s say your adolescent stomps in the door and says, “Everybody hates me. Nobody likes me!”
You reply, “Now, you know that isn’t true. Just last week, that Jimmy kid called and invited you to go to a hockey game with him.”
You’ve effectively cut off at the knees any potential communication you could have with your son. He’s going to shut his mouth tighter than a clamshell, and you won’t get anything out of him about why he’s so upset.
Bluntly, feelings are feelings. They aren’t right or wrong. Let your child feel hurt, angry, or like an outcast if that’s his current situation. If he can’t express those emotions in front of you, what will he do with them? Bottle them up until there’s a big blowup sometime? Is that really what you want?
Many shrinks have made a living on helping people get in touch with their feelings. “If you get in touch with your feelings,” they say, “you’re going to be okay. You’ll know the right thing to do.”
Let me caution you for a minute. When your child is hurt by a life event or accused by another human being, if you as the parent get in touch with your feelings, you’re going to kill the other person and go to the state penitentiary.
You can’t just follow your feelings. You have to think things through first.
A lot of us aren’t comfortable feeling emotion, much less talking about it. Feelings are messy. We have a hard time controlling them, so many of us keep mum. In fact, while traveling recently, I sat in a diner and watched a middle-aged couple having breakfast together. Not a word was exchanged between them for the entire meal. What a sterile, emotionally bereft relationship.
That kind of environment is one you’ll create in your family if you deny, dismiss, or negate your child’s feelings.
However, if we simply wait until the pressure from all our squashed-down feelings builds up so much that we explode, that’s not good either.
The better way is to allow your child to express how she feels in her current situation. Her feelings are just that—her feelings. Don’t take the ownership of them away from her, or she’ll resent you and withdraw. Instead, accept them as her feelings and listen to her. If you do, you pave the way to also talking about solutions to her current situation . . . together.
They expect their child to respond the same way they would.
When a difficult situation happens, it’s normal to expect the hurting person to respond the same way you would. But you have to understand that your child is not a clone of you, as much as you think she is. Every person responds to the same stimuli differently, due to temperament, personality, and background. When facing hurt, one child might run to a corner, cower, and whimper. Another might shout back at the offending party. Another might fight back. Yet another might give the offending party the stink eye and go about his business as if the offender doesn’t exist.
Let’s say you spend several years caring for your parents in your home. Your kids are very involved with their grandparents and close to them.
When Grandpa passes away, you, Mom, are understandably sad. You had a great relationship with your father, and you miss him. You find yourself frequently in tears. One of your children—the more dramatic, expressive one—responds in a similar way. You grieve together.
But your other one becomes more stoic and grown-up. She stays even-keeled, helps you more in the kitchen, offers to run errands, and spends more time with her grandmother. You worry about her because you wonder if she’s processing her grief.
Actually, she is doing fine handling the grief on her own. She’s the logical one who is older, has experienced more loss, and realized a long time ago that Grandpa’s time on earth was short. She spent time loving him and has no regrets. She’s more concerned about the grief she’s seeing in you, and that you—usually the strong one in the family—are visibly hurting. Her caretaking urge toward you has kicked in. She wants to make sure you’re doing all right.
You might see her as unemotional. However, she’s a steady young lady who learned early on, through several traumatic experiences and a boatload of hurt, how to handle life’s hard knocks. That’s why she is able to sail through this death of a loved one with a broad perspective, even at the ripe ol’ age of 15.
Can such a perspective truly happen? Yes. The scenario I just shared with you is a true one about a family I know. If every young person was as well-adjusted as that teenager, the world would be much better off.
Your child can get to such a place too, with some wise shepherding from you.
They play favorites.
It’s a parental instinct that goes back to the beginning of time—playing favorites. Clearly, Abel was the favored son, but because of favoritism, jealousy reared its head. We all know how well that little episode turned out. Sibling rivalry and favoritism went terribly wrong and turned into murder. It caused a wide rift in humanity that still exists today.
But sibling rivalry isn’t the only area where parents play favorites. It’s normal to identify with the child who is the same birth order as you.
If you’re a firstborn, then you identify with and tend to overprotect the firstborn child in your family. You know what it’s like to be the guinea pig of the family and to have everyone overreact when something happens to you. You also know what it’s like to take the brunt of your parent’s critical eye if anything goes wrong. You are the one most likely to take the blame for your siblings’ misbehavior.
If you’re the middleborn, you identify with and tend to overprotect your middleborn child. You know what it’s like to have to play mediator between your peers and siblings—you’re very good at negotiating and walking that fine line keeping warring parties from killing each other. You also get tired of hearing about your older sibling’s achievements and think the baby of the family gets away with everything. (You’re right—he does. Take it from one who knows.) You don’t want to compete with anybody. You merely want everyone to be happy, the roads of life to be smooth, and to go about your own way—one that’s very different from your firstborn sibling.
If you’re the baby of the family, you identify with and tend to overprotect your baby. You know what it’s like to be treated as incompetent since you’re the youngest. You also are masterful at manipulating your parents and siblings to do what you don’t want to do. You like to be the center of attention, so you can take full advantage of a stressful situation. You can role-play your hurt quite well.
If you realize that you tend to identify with the same birth order as your child (see The Birth Order Book for more information), you understand why that child annoys you the most and pulls at your heartstrings the most. When that child hurts, you feel it more personally.
They are creatures of habit.
Scenarios tend to repeat themselves, and so do people. We are creatures of habit. If we’re used to responding one way, we continue to respond that way automatically.
Here’s a good example. Your child has had a very bad day at school, where a BFF betrayed her by sharing one of her deepest secrets. You can tell something’s wrong by her thundercloud expression when she slams her backpack down on the kitchen floor.
You do what you usually do. You fire questions at her to get to the problem quickly so you can help her.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Why does your face look like that?”
“Can I help?”
“That’s the second day you’ve been grumpy. What’s up?”
This series of questions shuts her down. She’s dealt with words being flung around all day, and she doesn’t want any questions at the moment. You’ve only added to the drama of her day, and she wants no part of it. It’s no wonder she goes to her room and shuts the door.
You’ve done what she expected you’d do. It’s like playing a computer game that’s stuck in a loop and plays the same scenario over and over. Groundhog Day may make for a good movie, but in real life, such a concept is bad all around.
If the way you respond doesn’t work, it’s time to try something else. The next time your daughter stomps in the door, think, Hey, this situation has happened before. How do I usually deal with it?
You recall the previous scenario. Ah, I see. I need to do something different to shake things up. Otherwise, you already know what the end game will be—you standing mute in the hallway in front of your daughter’s closed bedroom door. You’ll be no closer to finding out what happened to make her so upset.
So you try a different tactic. Instead of asking questions, you make a simple statement. “Wow, must have been rough today at school. I can tell you look upset. If and when you want to talk about it, I’ll be here. I love you.”
Then you turn your back and walk away. You allow her time to experience her feelings and vent them privately. You don’t poke and prod at her for information. She’ll come out of her den when she feels like it.
Think about it this way: if someone tries to forcibly extract information from you, do you feel like telling them anything?
Well, no. Neither does your kid.
But if someone simply goes about her business without being nosy or pushy, yet you know she’s there for you when you need her, you’re much more likely to loop her in when you feel like talking, right?
Case closed. Look how smart you are. You learned this important concept on the first go-round.
Now go practice it in real life. You’ll be glad you did.
What Parents Do Right
A parent is much like the conductor of a psychological orchestra or band. Though all are part of your family, each individual responds uniquely and makes different “sounds” when they’re hurting. Some evoke gentle sighs, like harps or violins. Some are loud and announce their intentions, like a brass section or drums. Some flutter from place to place, like flutes or piccolos.
Even in the same situation—for example, the news of cancer in your family—each individual will respond differently. That means you’ll need to respond (not react!) differently to each person, based on their age and temperament. However, there are some basic things skilled parents do right.
They listen, listen, and listen again.
One of the basic core needs we have as human beings is for others to consider us important enough to listen to us. If even one other person does so, we feel relieved, happier, and more able to deal positively and proactively with any hardship.
Wise parents excel at listening to their kids. The timing isn’t always convenient. In fact, it’s rarely convenient. My kids tended to want my ear right as I was about to pass out from exhaustion after traveling or I was already halfway to Sleepyville. Ironically, that was when some of my most intense periods of parenting started. However, I always propped my eyelids open at “Dad, are you sleeping?” because I knew that simple question was the precursor to an important topic. I listened because I wanted my kids to feel I understood and accepted them no matter what the situation was.
Because I established a pattern of listening, my kids—who now range from twenties to forties—still call me when they’re facing a difficult time. They know good ol’ dad may not always have the answer, but I’m a great listening post for their thoughts and potential solutions.
Part of any healing process is verbalizing what has happened. A child needs to get feelings out in the open. In other words, he needs to vent.
Think of it this way. When you blow up a balloon all the way, it becomes very tight and hard. It’s easy to break because it’s fragile. If you let a bit of air out, the release of pressure makes a terrible noise that causes you to flinch. However, the result is that the balloon softens and becomes more pliable.
The same principle is true with your hurting kids. When you allow your child to express his thoughts and feelings, a bit of pressure releases. What he says may make you flinch and may not be easy to hear, but your child is no longer as fragile. Some of his negative emotion about the event has been released.
When you listen to your kids, you show them that they are important. They are worth your time and energy. They are your priority. You care what they think and how they feel. Listening to them shores them up so they can pluck up their courage for the next steps in this situation.
They show empathy and compassion through touch and body language.
When your child breaks down and cries, he needs an embrace, a rub on the arm, or a pat on the shoulder. It doesn’t matter whether he’s 4 or 14. Even if you’re not a demonstrative family (you don’t hug each other often or naturally), break the mold. A gentle touch can connect your hearts in a way nothing else can. It’s critical to help heal the wounds of a hurting child.
When you touch your child, you’re physically saying what words can’t. I know you’re hurting. I want to share your pain. I understand this is hard for you.
In times of grief, sometimes the best you can say is nothing. Only a hug will do. Touch says, “This isn’t easy, but I’m right here with you. There are no explanations for what happened to you, but I care.”
Body language, too, is important. A relaxed, open stance is an invitation for a child to share with you. Crossed arms or a tense facial expression screams, “Stay away!” An attentive, I-care-about-you look is also welcoming. You might be incredibly busy, trying to meet a deadline for work. But when your child lingers outside the door of your home office, you know she has something to say. A smart parent will swivel from her desk in the den and give that child her full attention.
They use words that model understanding, belief, acceptance, and affirmation.
Smart parents say things like:
“Oh my goodness, that had to hurt. You have to feel so bad. I can see why you’re crying.”
“That had to be heartbreaking. I understand why you’re upset.”
“I bet you couldn’t believe it when it happened. It would have shocked me too.”
Rather than:
“I can’t believe she said that to you. How could she? Well, I’d . . .”
“When your father gets home in a few minutes, he’ll know exactly what to do.”
“Are you sure he really did that? He’s not the kind to . . .”
The first three responses come alongside the child and provide a natural connection, so the child thinks, Wow, Mom and Dad know what I’m up against. They get it. The second three reactions provoke fight responses, try to take over the problem, or question the child’s words.
Kids aren’t dumb. They know when the odds are stacked against them, and they will suddenly become mute to protect themselves. You would too if you were them.
They allow the child to come up with their own solutions (appropriate to their age and situation).
When another child says something nasty to your child at school, it’s not your problem. It’s your child’s problem. You’re not technically the one in the situation. Your child is. The wise parent comes to terms with this reality, as angry as she might feel about the comment. She doesn’t take over and announce the solution. “Well, what we’re going to do is . . .”
The wise parent says, “Wow. I see what you mean. That would upset me too. So, what are your thoughts? What would you like to say to that person who was so mean to you?”
Doing this allows the child to brainstorm his own solutions. Some might be downright crazy or inappropriate, but don’t react to them. Instead, use your active listening skills to draw a plethora of options out of your child. That kid is smarter than you think.
The wise parent keeps herself in the background and her child in the foreground of problem solving. The parent who reacts would go over to the other kid’s house and raise heck by getting into an argument with the kid’s parent. But does that really solve anything? It usually ups the ante further. In today’s sue-happy society, you don’t want to go there. Not to mention both kids have to continue to go to the same school.
The parent thinking of the long term draws out of her kid what he already knows. “This is a really uncomfortable situation. I don’t like what that kid said to me. If I don’t want it to happen again, I need to say to that kid, ‘What you said was hurtful, and I don’t like it. Please don’t say it again, or I’ll have to get a teacher involved.’”
Some friends of mine have an adopted child who is of a different ethnicity. When she was in a basically all-Caucasian elementary school, one fourth-grade classmate picked on her relentlessly for being different. Her mom could have swept in like God Almighty and hammered the other kid and his parents for such comments. Instead, knowing such barbs were made out of ignorance, that mom took the high road. She decided to turn this trauma into a life lesson to strengthen her daughter’s character when she was faced with prejudicial statements.
She and her young daughter came up with what they called a “1, 2, 3 Plan” together. The next time that boy made fun of the girl for being different, she’d look him straight in the eyes and use #1 of the “1, 2, 3 Plan”: “What you just said isn’t nice, and I don’t appreciate it. Please don’t say it again.”
If the boy made another comment, she’d look him straight in the eyes again and employ #2: “I asked you not to make comments like that. I don’t appreciate them. If you say anything like that again, I’ll get a teacher involved.”
If the boy didn’t heed that warning and made a third pass, she’d once again look him in the eyes and employ #3: “I asked you not to make comments like that. I don’t appreciate them. But since you continue to do so, I will tell Mrs. Smith and get her involved.” Then she’d march straight to Mrs. Smith’s desk.
Note in the “1, 2, 3 Plan” that each time the little girl looked the boy straight in the eyes as she was making her statement. She didn’t back down. She stood firm but then got an authority figure involved when she needed to.
The girl did have to follow through to #3 . . . one time. The shocked boy soon realized that she meant business and wasn’t playing around. Mrs. Smith did get involved, and the boy’s parents were informed. He had to publicly apologize to the girl and her parents.
Interestingly, after that the boy continued to get in trouble with others because of his mouthiness. However, he never again talked to that little girl with disrespect. Although he outweighed her by a good 50 pounds, his repeated ethnic jabbing at her ended because she’d stood her ground. Instead, in a twist of irony, he became that girl’s advocate. When he was around on the playground, no one dared to treat her roughly or talk bad about her.
What did that girl learn because of her wise mom? That even a petite female could defeat a much larger enemy with an action plan and a determination not to back down. Those learned skills have served that now young-adult girl well all the way through high school. Though she’s only a 100-pounder, she holds her own as a respected leader among her peers.
Guess where that track started? When she was in fourth grade, with that initial situation.
Now if there had been physical violence involved—shoving, pushing, guns, knives—I would have advised that mom differently. I would say, “Get the teacher and school administration involved right away. Don’t return to school until action is taken.”
However, in most situations, coaching a child to solve her own problems is exactly what the doctor ordered. It isn’t comfortable for either parent or child, and we all tend to avoid situations that are uncomfortable. But none of us would improve in any way if we weren’t nudged.
Kudos to that mom and daughter who hung in there when the going was rough. You can too.
Especially for Parents of Faith
If you’re a person of faith, you understand well when I say this: Without God Almighty in your life, you will lack motivation, purpose, and meaning. You will lack hope that things can change in your situation. You will be unable to forgive yourself and others. That’s because an essential piece of the puzzle of you is missing—the one at the center you were created to have. Without a personal relationship with God, nothing in this life makes much sense. You will feel aimless.
I know well what that aimlessness feels like. That was me, until God got ahold of me in my early twenties.
I was always up to something as a child, and church wasn’t an exception. Even when I was just 3 years old, I would get away from my mother. She used to say that she could follow my path around the sanctuary as I traveled like a mole under the pews. She could tell exactly where I was by which people were looking down at the floor. To make it even more fun, frequently women would take their shoes off—I suspect because their feet hurt. Even at that young age I was enterprising enough to think, Wouldn’t it be funny if I took those black shoes in aisle 4 and swapped them with the brown shoes in aisle 3?
At church camp, I was asked to be an usher at an evening service. So a buddy and I sneaked into the worship tent, found the worship plates, and hid them. When we were called up to serve and the pastor looked under the pulpit for those plates, they weren’t there. We simply stood there, innocent as angels, waiting for those plates. Nobody ever knew at that time that it was us who took them.
In high school, I’d stay in the balcony at church with the youth group just long enough for my mother to peek up from her spot down below, make sure I was there, and smile. She had no idea what else I did during those times, and I won’t tell you either.
When I was in college—the only one I could get in, by the way, due to my antics and a poor academic record in high school—chapel was required. I hated every minute of it. I had to sit in a specific chair since someone took attendance. There were 36 songs in the songbook, and a theology student would pick two songs to sing, which we all had to stand for. For amusement, some of us started a game of chance. We’d all put in 50 cents and pick a number. When number 8 was chosen, you’d hear 35 guys moaning and one guy saying, “Yes!” and pumping his fist in the air because he’d gained 18 bucks.
I was part of a group that played other tricks too. We hated the Christians who got up early on Sunday morning for church and therefore got the best food at the dining hall because they were in line before us. In those days, most students woke up to alarms through their radios. So we thought it would be funny if we turned off the electricity for one hour in the middle of the night.
One time we did just that. All the Christians slept in and were late for church. We non-churchgoers were first in the dining hall.
I had difficulty taking religion seriously, even at a religious school, because to me the concept was simply “out there” and not “in here”—in my heart. I also saw “religious” kids not holding up their end of the bargain. How could I believe that being a Christian was anything more than a label when the president of the religious council knocked up his girlfriend, for example?
When I look back now, I realize that I wasn’t ready to believe in God. Like many kids, I had to take a tumultuous, winding path to get there. I once told my beloved wife, Sandra, “I’m so glad you didn’t know me as a teenager.”
She shot back, “You’re not the only one.”
You see, parents, you can do all the “right” things—like my mother did—and still have a kid who goes down a different path. My mother was a staunch believer, and every day I’d see her on her hands and knees, praying for me. She had good reason to. I needed all the prayer I could get.
Your child may have a tough time believing in God right now. Or she may be rebelling against God and your religious “rules” with everything she has. She can’t believe that any God could exist or care about her if he’s making her face what’s happening to her.
It won’t work for you to become the hammer: “We’ve raised you like this—to go to church—and you’re going to follow our rules.” No person likes to be told what to do, and that includes your hurting kid. If she’s facing a tough time right now, she doesn’t need lectures. She needs you to stay by her side and ride out the storm with as much calm and patience as you can muster.
I once gave a gruff old coach, who usually had a two- to three-inch cigar in his mouth and a towel over his shoulder, a copy of a leadership book I did with Bill Pentak called The Way of the Shepherd. The next time that coach saw me at practice, he turned to his graduate assistant and gave him a sign to take over for a minute. He headed toward me and, in true football coach style, said, “Read your book. Liked it. Let me see if I have this straight: ‘They don’t care what you know until they know you care.’”
I was impressed that a tough coach who’d put many college players in the NFL could cite such an important point from that powerful little book.
“They don’t care what you know until they know you care” is true for ballplayers, and it’s true for your child too. Every hurting child wants to know that her parents care—about the situation and about her. She’s already faced the hammer of the situation and is feeling bruised. Now she needs comfort and understanding. She needs your listening ear.
It also won’t help for you to say, “God knows, honey. He knows that you’re hurting.” To your child, all that says is, “So God knows about this, huh? Then how come he’s so mean? Did he make this happen or allow this to happen? How can he love me if he treats me like this?”
Fact is, bad things do happen to good people on this earth. It’s been that way ever since Satan entered the Garden and maliciously destroyed Adam and Eve’s perfect existence.
Some well-intentioned parents of faith also add, “It’ll get better in time. God heals all our hurts. Someday you’ll understand why this happened to you, and you’ll be able to help others too.”
What’s your hurting child’s response to this? She thinks, Better in time? This is the end of the world. It’ll never get better. So God let this happen and then wants to wave his magic wand and make it better? What is he anyway? Some sick kind of person? I’ll never understand why this happened to me.
Your child also doesn’t have the capability right now to think about this situation helping others down the road. At her developmental stage, she is only thinking about herself and the pain she’s in. That’s only natural, especially when she’s right in the middle of the situation.
So, parent of faith, play your cards wisely.
If you are a churchgoing family, you may want to say, “I know it’s rough right now, so we want to give you a bit of extra time by yourself. For the next four weeks, your sisters and I will go to church, but we’re going to give you a little vacation. After that, you’ll come with us again.” Such a brief statement lets her know you understand her reticence to go to church and that she’s struggling, but also that there is a timeline for when she’ll join you in this family activity again.
My kids always knew that when they were under my roof, we Lemans went to church together. Once they were out on their own, they could decide themselves what they wanted to do.
The biggest thing you can do, after acknowledging your child’s hurt and grief, is to get on your knees and pray for her. As the old saying goes, “Prayer changes things.” I saw it frequently in my home as I was growing up. I recall it now when I think of the hours my mom spent on her knees on my behalf.
Prayer did indeed change things. It took some time, but eventually prayer won out. God Almighty entered my life and revolutionized it.
The same can happen for your child, whether now, in a year or two, or ten years down the road. Just wait with hope and anticipation.