Parenting is hard: What do I teach my children?

This week, we’re discussing parenting. I think the best way to start this off is to explain the purpose of parenting. We all want our children to have better, more fulfilling lives than we have had, and if we could we’d give them the whole world. We want our children to be safe, happy, and prepared for the world. Parenting is an act of charity and love. Parenting isn’t about the parents, it’s about the children and cannot be done selfishly. Just like a marriage where we give our whole selves to our spouse, as a parent, we must put in 100% to our children. So, parenting has two main purposes. To protect a child and prepare that child to survive and thrive in the world we live in.

This takes on many different shapes as we look at the world at large. If you live in a country that is highly restrictive, has lots of rules and regulations, and will severely punish you if you step out of line even a little bit (Like the Soviet Union), you will probably teach your children to obey and obey immediately without question. This would be the best way to protect and prepare the child to live in that world.

However, if we live in a country that has many freedoms and a lot of mobility (like the US or UK), then you’ll probably teach your children to think critically about their decisions and actions. You might teach them to ask questions regarding rules, regulations, and laws so that they can gain a better understanding of the world, participate in the government, and maybe help change and modify those laws to be more effective and less harmful. Most of the world lives in countries like this where our children have personal freedom and social mobility. We are lucky enough to be able to ask the big questions and even level some criticism at the government and hold them accountable for their actions.

So now comes the question, what can I do to protect and prepare my children to survive and thrive in this kind of world? Often, most parents focus on just getting their kids to listen and obey, but this is just superficial and selfish parenting. There are Five qualities we should endeavor to teach our children to develop: Courage, Self-esteem, Responsibility (Response-Ability), Cooperation, and Respect.

Five Qualities – a brief definition

First, Courage. Courage is having the confidence to take a known risk for a known purpose. Without courage, you won’t be able to do anything, and you will feel like a failure. Courage is foundational to every other good attribute.

Second, Self-esteem. Having self-esteem is not just having a high opinion of yourself, it means having confidence in your ability to succeed. Having high self-esteem leads to children being able to make decisions and accept the consequences of those actions.

Third, Response-Ability (responsibility). This quality allows children to make decisions and accept the outcome of those decisions. Sometimes, being responsible does not mean that you obey. A classmate shared this example, she was home watching her siblings and her parents had given them a rule: do not go outside. Well, somehow one of her brothers got out of the house without her seeing. She went and got him even though she had to disobey her parents in order to do it.

Fourth, Cooperation. This is the ability to work with other people towards a common goal.

Fifth, Respect. Recognizing that everyone is a worthwhile, valuable human being with innate, unalienable rights.

Think of the polarization that exists in our world today, think of any of the problems I’ve mentioned in this blog before. Can you see how developing and teaching these qualities will empower us to overcome these issues? Let’s take last week’s discussion on fathers for an example. Fathers who fail to be accessible, responsible, or involved (or all three) might lack any if not all of these. Here’s how each of these individual qualities could solve just a failure in being accessible

Failing to be accessible. If a father is courageous, he will understand the role he has as a father and will be willing to make personal sacrifices in order to be more accessible to his family. If a father has high self-esteem, he will trust that even if it takes a bit, he will be a good father. This in-and-of-itself could be enough to encourage him to try to be a good dad. Responsibility fits into the same pattern as courage and self-esteem here. If a father is good at cooperating, he will work with his wife and his family to find a way that he can become more accessible. If a father has respect for others, this will translate to his children and wife. He will believe that they are worthy of his time because he will understand that they are unique individuals who have needs of their own. He will stop putting himself first if he has respect for others.

Teaching our children these qualities will be different with every couple and every child but having in mind the goal of imbuing our children with these qualities will set the stage for a life of fulfillment and success for us and our children. Counsel with your spouse about how best to teach these. If you’re not married, then work on developing these qualities yourself.