Win-win suggestions to get you from where you are to where you want to be.
While driving down my street in Arizona one day, I spotted something that resembled a small rock . . . but it was moving. Getting out of the car, I moved closer and realized it was a good-sized desert tortoise. So I did the only thing that a grandpa could do, and with great joy: I took him to Conner, my grandson, who loves desert tortoises.
Conner was ecstatic. Within seconds he was out in the backyard, building a place for the critter and playing with him. Conner named him George and cared for him as if he were a king. The next two days were blissful.
Then I got a call from Krissy. “Uh, Dad, did you see the sign in our neighborhood? It says ‘Lost Tortoise.’”
I was thinking, Oh no. Betcha anything the tortoise I found is this person’s. “Oh, honey,” I said to Krissy, “Conner will be heartbroken. But you have to do the right thing.”
Poor Conner. He was 6 years old at the time.
Krissy—being the balanced, mature mom that she is, thoroughly schooled in the Leman technique of being an authoritative parent instead of an authoritarian or permissive parent—thought through how to present the concept to Conner.
She told him, “Conner, there’s something I want to tell you. I want you to take a ride with me in the car.” And she drove him right past that “Lost Tortoise” sign.
Conner’s face said it all: “Uh-oh” and “Nuh-uh.” He knew it had to do with his tortoise, and he didn’t want any part of giving George to anybody for any reason.
So Krissy said gently, “You know, Conner, it’s probably that person’s tortoise that Grandpa found.”
Conner was grief-stricken.
If Krissy had pulled the authoritarian parent stance, she’d have said, “Conner, that’s not your tortoise. It belongs to another guy. We need to call that number and give the guy his turtle.”
That’s like grabbing a kid by the scruff of the neck and making his decision for him, without giving him any say. Just announcing the almighty-from-above parental dictate.
If she had pulled the permissive parent stance, she’d have said, “Oh, honey, I’m sure that can’t be the same tortoise. Even if he is, he’s your tortoise now.”
That would be like pushing all the dirt in your house under the rug and pretending it’s not there—until the seeds from your bird food sprout into plants through the rug.
No, instead, Krissy was an authoritative parent. She was the parental figure, but she put the responsibility in Conner’s court. She told him what the facts were—about how and where I found the tortoise, that they’d only had it for a few days, and that there was a guy in the neighborhood who’d had a tortoise for many years. Then she left it up to him to decide what to do. All she said was, “Conner, you gotta do the right thing.”
Conner took a day to think it over. He could have done whatever he wanted to do, but he chose to do the right thing.
The guy lived two streets away. He was ecstatic when he got the phone call and said, “We’ll be right over.” It wasn’t long before two people showed up—a young grandpa and a young man. They were so excited to see their tortoise again . . . only it wasn’t their tortoise. George was bigger.
Everyone had assumed it would be the guy’s tortoise. In fact, the other guy was so sure that, because he knew he’d be coming to a little kid’s house, he’d brought a little box turtle for Conner, and also one for his sister, Adeline.
So Conner not only did the right thing but got to keep George.
Have you ever seen a kid who has demolished a peanut butter and jelly sandwich but is still sporting the remainders of that lunch all over his face? Or a kid who’s just had a fudge sundae? Then you know what George looks like when he eats his favorite lunch. Once a year our very ugly cactus bears the most gorgeous red fruit, and tortoises love to eat it. It’s a hilarious thing to watch. I don’t know who’s smiling more in the photo I have: George with the red dripping off his face, or Conner holding him.
Every time I see Conner with that tortoise, I smile for three reasons: for the fun Conner is having; for his mom, who offered a teachable moment; and for Conner, because he chose to do the right thing.
Peek Down Your Child’s Road . . .
Ask yourself this question: “Where in life would I like my child to be X number of years from now as he leaves my nest, in regard to his work ethic, attitude, integrity, moral character, and behavior?”
If you could choose five character traits or adjectives for your child to have, what would they be? Take a few minutes to list them.
If that’s the kind of child you want, how are you going to get from here to there? From your 18-month-old or toddler or 5-year-old to an 18-year-old who is out of your feathered nest?
If you want an honest child, how will you work on that attribute?
If you want your child to be kind and thoughtful of others, how will you teach him that?
If you want a hardworking, diligent, finish-what-she-started kid, how will you get there?
If you want a responsible child who becomes a contributing member to society, how will you accomplish that?
Respected leader Stephen Covey always said, “Start with the end in mind.”
That means if you want an honest child, you first make sure you are honest, and your child sees you being honest in both little and big things. You return extra change that a checker mistakenly gives you. You tell your boss the truth on the phone about why you’re running late to work. After all, you are your child’s number one role model, and ears are listening and eyes are watching.
If you want your child to be kind and thoughtful, then you be kind and thoughtful. You go the extra mile for others. You provide opportunities for your child to give to others: “Let’s bake some cookies for the neighbors today, shall we? They’re having a hard time, and I know it will cheer them all up.” You serve on a Saturday morning in a soup kitchen.
If you want your child to be hardworking and finish what she starts, then you work hard. You start projects around the house and finish them—even better, with your child’s help. You say, “That A on your science project must feel so awesome. You worked really hard on a tough topic.”
If you want a responsible child, then you be responsible. You give him responsibilities, whether it’s feeding a goldfish, taking out the trash, or cleaning his room. And you teach him that he won’t always like to do the responsibilities, but they need to be done anyway.
An important thing to remember is that every child is unique. That means what worked with child number one won’t work with child number two. That’s because, as I’ve said earlier in this book, the secondborn child will take the opposite way of the firstborn since he can’t compete on the same level.
Powerful kids will go one of two directions—either they’ll become self-centered, hedonistic suckers who will sap the life out of others, taking instead of giving, or they’ll become kids with determination and balance who have discovered that they’re not the center of the universe.
Kids who are powerful have an insatiable appetite for attention, power, and control. They can become powerful adults who devour everything and everyone in their path. If they see you as weak, they’ll run over you.
Or they can become adults on a trajectory to make a difference in the lives of those on this planet. They’ll take high school and college in stride because they have a parent or parents behind them who believe in them and act as that circuit breaker on their life experiences. These kids will have a hunger to learn and to excel, and they’ll be kind to others, standing up for the downtrodden. They are the kids who can accomplish a great deal in life for the good.
That can be your powerful kid.
The Right Ingredients
I’m not much of a cook, but I do know something from my gourmet wife—if you want a dish to turn out right, you have to put in the right ingredients, or else it won’t taste anything like it’s supposed to. I can’t tell you how many times Sande has sent me to the grocery store with strict instructions, such as, “Get a devil’s food cake mix, and it has to be Duncan Hines. No other brand.”
Just like a good recipe, there are foundational things—certain basic ingredients—that you have to put into your kid:
Not only do the ingredients have to be in there, they have to be prepared right and baked at the right temperature. Pie doesn’t taste very good if the crust doesn’t have the right ingredients or it’s underbaked, because it’s the foundation of the pie.
So let’s take a look again at that list you made. For each character trait/adjective, make a separate sheet of paper that looks like this:
Character trait/adjective
What it looks like now in my child:
What I’d like to see in my child:
Ideas for getting from here to there:
Be completely honest. This paper is just for you (and your spouse, if you’re married). In the “What it looks like now in my child” section, if your child is really struggling in that area, write down how and why you think he’s struggling.
Move on to “What I’d like to see in my child.” This is your chance to dream, to imagine your child 5, 10, 15, 20 years down the road with that quality. How would it affect his life?
Under “Ideas for getting from here to there,” jot down ways you could help your child develop this quality, starting today. Jot down little things, big things, practical steps, brainstorms.
Let’s take the character trait of honesty for an example. Here’s what your page might look like:
Honesty
What it looks like now in my child:
He wants some money of his own? He’s a sneaky, dishonest kid?
He didn’t feel like it? He felt bad because he forgot and didn’t know how to get out of it?
He lied? He was lazy? He was downright disobedient? He wanted to be in control of his schedule, and I was harping too much?
Maybe his friends are changing, and he doesn’t know how to tell the kid that? Maybe he felt like being lazy? Maybe he was tired and just wanted some time alone?
Focusing in on the possibilities for the child’s behavior disengages your emotions (often anger, in the case of a powerful child’s actions) and engages your mind so you can effectively think through your strategy.
What I’d like to see in my child:
Ideas for getting from here to there:
See how it works? Now you try it with the five character traits you’d like to see in your child. Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you come back. . . .
Now that you’ve completed that exercise, congratulations! You’ve given yourself a road map to get to the destination of the kind of kid—and someday grown-up—you want your child to become. All journeys are undertaken one step or one mile at a time. You don’t need to do it all at once. But as you kick off your ideas, here is what you can do for yourself and what you can do for your child.
What you can do for yourself
Some of what you’re facing may be real guilt for things you did do wrong. Or it may be false guilt—owning situations that aren’t yours.
What’s in the past can’t be changed. What you can change, however, is your path from today on. Don’t allow the past to tug you backward into guilt, shoulding, and despair. If you do, you will stay mired in the mud and you won’t get anywhere.
What you can do for your child
Take yourself out of the position of being the enabler. Don’t feel so bad about your child’s plight that you let that guilt become the propellant for the decisions you make. Like the woman whose 18-year-old son has already totaled three automobiles. It’s amazing the kid still has insurance. He’s been kicked up to the highest bracket there is. But guess what his mom wants to do (against his dad’s vehement protests)? She wants to buy him a new Mustang with a big engine in it because that’s what he really wants. Now let me ask you, who’s nuts? The kid or the mom? The kid might be half nuts, but the mom could sell herself to a fruitcake company.
If your son crashes his car or gets his car taken away, don’t drive him to work. Let him get his own tail there—whether on a bicycle, with his own two feet, or by bus. Have you ever noticed how many parents line up at school to pick up their kid on a rainy day versus a dry day? Rain doesn’t melt your kids’ brains. In fact, Gene Kelly did a great job of “Singin’ in the Rain,” if you ask me.
Or there’s the mom who wants to send her son to a heavy-duty university and pay 50 grand a year, but he’s smoking dope and drinking and has no respect for her. Again, who’s out of whack—the mom or the kid? Both, but the mom started it all.
Many parents today are so overprotective that it’s to their kids’ detriment.
Let’s say you have a 15-year-old who is a pain in the keister and won’t do a thing around the house. She’s sassy with her siblings and expects Mom and Dad to be her slave dogs. In my view, Little Miss Princess needs a dose of reality: “Listen, you’ve got three more years to be with us in this home. They can be the three best years of your life or hell on earth; it’s your choice. But a few basics are going to happen as long as you’re living under this roof.
“First, you’re going to help out around the house. This is a home, not a hotel or your personal spa. We’re all going to work together to help maintain it.
“Second, there are basic rules of mutual respect that we will all adhere to. When they are broken, there will be consequences that neither you nor I will like.
“Third, you will not continue to blow off school as you’re doing now. I know what you’re capable of doing, but you’re underselling yourself. Why you would choose to put yourself down is beyond me.
“To sum it up, how you live your life is your own business. But how you live your life in this home is both your business and mine.”
The reality is, your kid wouldn’t even have underwear and socks without you. You are her bank, advisor, attorney, primary caregiver, health practitioner, personal limo service, and a whole lot more.
The best place for your child to learn the lessons of life is in the confines of your home, where failure is not only expected (we’re all human) but almost encouraged. That’s because it is only through failure and mistakes that we learn. A home ought to be a safe place, a place of grace, with a mom and dad who understand that failure is a part of life.
I receive a lot of questions from parents about children who seem to be doing okay—well-adjusted kids who do well in school—and then hit a precipice where all of a sudden they get ugly and rebellious, their grades drop, and they run with a different crowd. It seems to happen in the blink of an eye. One of the most common reasons it happens is because there’s a parent behind the scenes who has been an authoritarian or permissive parent.
If you’re an authoritarian parent, you’re strong enough and powerful enough to keep your kids under your thumb for a while. If you’re consistently tough, you can control children. The problem comes when they get to that age where they’re ready to vote, own or drive a car, drink a beer, or whatever. If they’ve been brought up with a strictness and control that haven’t allowed them to make decisions on their own, they’re going to rebel. It’s only a matter of when. Think “pastor’s daughter.”
If you’re a permissive parent, you’ve brought up your child to believe that she always has to be happy, happy, happy at every turn. But that child will rebel too, because there haven’t been any rules or guidelines to give her structure.
Too much structure and control lead to rebellion, and so does the “whatever you want—I only want you to be happy” theory of parenting.
The midpoint is authoritative parenting, where you as the parent are the authority in the home. It doesn’t make you better than your child—you’re both equal in the Creator’s eyes—but you play different roles in the home. It means you don’t run over your child, and your child doesn’t run over you. When a mistake happens, it happens. You grant grace to your child, just as the police officer did to you last Saturday night when he gave you a warning rather than a ticket for not coming to a full stop.
Becoming Real
There’s a wonderful children’s story called The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. It was written in 1922, and it’s a classic tale about a splendid toy rabbit given to a child on Christmas morning. As the years go by, the Rabbit is loved so much that he starts to get a little shabby. His friend, the Skin Horse, has lived even longer than the Rabbit and has wisdom to share.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day. . . . “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”[1]
Being real is an essential ingredient to being a good parent. The imperfection of humankind is well established, so who’s kidding whom? Yet so many parents come across as know-it-alls—“I’ve never made a mistake in my life.”
Trying to be perfect only incites your power-driven child’s need to control—to prove you aren’t as perfect as you look and to knock you down a peg or two. But it’s hard to be knocked off a pedestal if you’re already standing on the floor, isn’t it?
Being real means that when a kid’s performance was rather mediocre, you don’t tell them how great they did. You might say, “Hey, a rough day out there today. Things didn’t go how you planned.” Then you put an arm around the kid, walk them to the car, and say along the way, “You know, we love you—win or lose.”
Being real means you tell it like it is with a degree of compassion, but the reality of the situation has to win out. Like the Skin Horse, you have to be honest.
As you are real with your kid and share your human imperfections, your attention-seeking and power-driven child will think, I remember when Dad got ticked off because he put an X with a permanent black marker on his sock so he’d wear it one more time before he tossed it, and then he put his foot down on the floor in the kitchen. We can still see that X! Dad was so mad, he told himself how stupid he was and danced around the kitchen growling for a while. Suddenly the stupid things your child has done gain him some perspective. That perfectionistic dad had finally made a boo-boo. I guess things aren’t so bad after all. And your child actually chuckles, remembering that scene. Perspective and being real halt the drive for power.
So share your failures with your kids. Believe it or not, that power-seeking kid, as much as he may diss you at times, thinks you’re perfect and that you walk on water. He can’t imagine you doing anything wrong or making mistakes, even though he likes to accuse you of them a lot of the time. So tell your child that you once got in big-time trouble for lying to your parents or you got caught stealing when you were a kid.
My granddaughter Adeline always says, “Grandpa, tell me stories about yourself when you were a little boy.”
Sande flashes me that grandma look of “Okay, but you better be selective,” since I was really something as a kid.
So I tell Adeline stories. Sometimes I embellish them a little. After all, that’s what fathers and grandfathers do. But through those stories, I share morals and teachings with my granddaughter that she will carry through life.
Keep It Simple
Bad habits are hard to break—both yours and your child’s. That’s why it’s important to keep your plan simple:
When you change your behavior as a parent, it necessitates that your child will change hers. And that means changing her life mantra too: I only count when . . .
Let me tell you about two girls in the National Honor Society. On the outside, both look successful and smart—the kind of kids that firms would like to hire someday.
Myna is the kind of girl who gets attention anywhere she goes. She’s determined, flashy, and a natural leader, driven to excel at everything she does. So much so that sometimes she takes shortcuts, like cheating to make the grade. After all, she has to meet the expectations of her perfectionistic business father, who has planned for her to join his company after she graduates from college. But as she walks onstage to be inducted into the National Honor Society, all she can think about is the paper she stole off the internet to finish her science project. If anybody ever finds out, I’m dead, because my dad’s gonna kill me. And then her chin firms up, because she has her own plans, and they don’t include ever working with her dad.
Addie has worked hard to get into the National Honor Society, because she’s a determined child. She comes from a family with a powerful work ethic, and she knows that being in the National Honor Society will help her get into the college of her choice. But academics aren’t the only things that make her tick. She’s developed a heart for the homeless, and for the past four years she, her little brother, and her parents have packed up a big bag of homemade sandwiches every Saturday and handed them out at a nearby park. They provide not only food but clothing and counseling. Her father recently helped one man, an accountant who had fallen on hard times, find a job. When her parents look at Addie walking across the stage to be inducted into the society, tears of joy flow. She was not only the kind of kid they’d wanted when they held that little 20-incher in their arms, but she’d gone far beyond their dreams. She is smart and hardworking, and above all, she cares about others.
Both girls are powerful children. Five years earlier, Addie’s parents went through a rough period with her where she constantly argued with them and fought with her brother. But with calmness and patience, they’d worked through it as a family. In fact, that rough period had launched their sandwich ministry, and they’d all grown to love it. With her parents’ help, Addie had turned her attention-seeking, power-driven behavior into skills that could help others.
So what kind of kid do you want?
Back to our pie analogy. On the outside, both girls appear to be browned perfectly; the crusts are flaky and appetizing. But inside, the ingredients are completely different. Myna’s is made with ingredients you’d never want to put into a pie. Addie’s is made with finely mixed ingredients.
But the proof of the ingredients is in that first bite of pie. There’s either a satisfied “Ahh . . .” from those around them, complete with a big smile at the tantalizing flavor, or there’s a shocked, dismayed “What the heck is in this pie?” response.
Are you raising a self-absorbed child who thinks she’s the best thing since sliced bread? Are you giving her real-life tools she can use, or just allowing yourself to be dragged along for the ride?
What you put into your kid’s pie makes all the difference in the fragrance she will make down the road.
Will she be a mud pie, or a fragrant, homegrown, melt-in-your-mouth kind of pie?
The choice, parent, is up to you while that child is still in your home.
After that, the choice is up to your child.
Powerful Ideas That Work
My son, Peter, was 7 when he flattened another boy on the playground who had tried to add the top ball to his snowman. At 9, he was sent home from a school field trip because he pushed another kid into a pond when they were touring a garden. At 13, he decked that same kid—knocked him out cold—when he made a comment about Peter being black.
I’ve made more trips to the school office than I care to say. Peter is a very physical kind of kid, and he tends to react quickly if he thinks he’s being wronged. I was that way as a kid too, so I get it. But I’d never told him that.
I took him for a father-son weekend to a cabin a friend let us use for free, and we grilled hot dogs, roasted marshmallows, and had snowball fights. We also sat around the fire a lot and talked. I told him about the trouble I got into as a kid, and he told me how frustrated he got with the kid at school who called him names because he’s black. I told him about my own experiences growing up as “poor white trash.” I talked about the times I handled things badly and then how good it felt when I realized how insecure those other guys were, and that when I fought back, I gave them exactly what they wanted. I could tell the lightbulb went on.
The two months since then have been fistfight-free. Peter told me the kid at school tried to get him mad, but he just shrugged. He heard the kid walk off and say, “Well, that didn’t work”—out loud. We laughed about it. It’s sure good to hear laughs instead of yelling in our house now.
Lambert, Oregon
Power Points