What I've learned about parenting, pt. 1

It's embarrassing to realize that I promised this post a full 4 months ago, and am only now finally sitting down to write it. My excuse? Umm . . . parenting??

Actually, it's true. My son waited until he was 6 months old to sleep more than 2 hours at a time at night, and my daughter hit that wonderful 2 1/2 stage. I though maybe I should figure out some of my own parenting puzzles before writing about "everything I've learned about parenting." What I've learned in the past 4 months feels nearly equal to the previous year! So this one post will actually become two, and yet, in the end, really only cover two things: what I see as my job as a parent, and the parenting philosophy I've sort of settled on after a few years of hearing everyone else's advice and watching how everyone I know does family.

My least favorite part of parenting is the enforcer role. You know, the one that feels like a kill-joy ("Don't push your brother around the dining in his highchair!!") and so often ends in discipline ("Go to your room, NOW!"). I hate it. I hate that I have to emotionally distance myself from my kids to discipline them well. I've discovered that if I let myself stay emotionally invested in the situation, I react emotionally to their disobedience, and disciplining my kids when I'm emotionally involved always ends up feeling like punishment instead of discipline. I want to train my children even in the consequences they face for bad behavior. I don't want to just shut them down. So I've developed a mini-speech I always give my daughter after I discipline her. First we talk through why she got disciplined. Then I tell her I love her, and that my job is to help her grow up and be safe, and that's why we have rules and consequences.

Those two phrases--"grow up" and "be safe"--have come to summarize (to me, at any rate!) my job as a mother. So how do you define these? Safety is the obvious one. If the hurt you'll do yourself is not worth the cost of the injury and what you'll learn from it, don't do it. But what about "grow up"? I define that as preparing my kids to one day enter the real world as healthy and responsible adults capable of successfully navigating the confusing decisions of adulthood. As a Christian, a huge part of that for me is introducing them to the God of the Bible, who loves them profoundly and practically, and to Jesus, who walked in their shoes and offers the way back to God and to the kingdom reality we were meant to experience in complete trust and confidence in him.

Nearly every rule, every situation in parenting so far fits under being safe and growing up. Disobedience? It's part of growing up healthily, because we all need to be able to take direction and obey authorities. Don't play with hot water? Be safe. Don't hit your brother? It's part of growing up to be a healthy, responsible adult. Loving other people? Same thing. It helps my daughter understand I have reasons, and that these reasons are to help her, not just to shut her down. But then, that's her personality. I have a feeling that it will be more important to just say "I'm mommy, and get over it!" to my son!

The side benefit of consistently reminding Jenna of this is that I remind myself of it, as well. And that encourages--well, it challenges--me to parent thoughtfully, with one eye on my children and one eye on their future. And the idea of taking the long view on my kids actually brings me to the second part of what I've learned parenting: my parenting philosophy. It's based on our need as parents to get to know our own kids and to parent them based not on today's needs (at least, not only!) but on the future adults we see in our children.