Faith Forward with Jason McKnight: Four unexpected tools to help children mature
As parents, our job is to help “grow our kids up.” We focus on sleep, food, school, athletics, homework so they can grow strong, advance through life.
But, we often miss a key aspect of our job of “raising adults”: Emotional maturity. A person’s emotional resilience is the simplest key to their ability to thrive in life.
What does emotional maturity look like? They’re mature when… they can bounce back from setbacks; they can control their impulses; they can digest a “no” answer without a tantrum or depression; they navigate the world as it is (instead of demanding a dream world); they reach their potential; they admit their wrongs & also forgive others for wronging them; they engage others around them, instead of thinking only of themselves; they exhibit the ability to care for themselves and for others; they can delay gratification. Things like these demonstrate real growth in emotional resilience. In Maturity.
How can we help our children, grandchildren, neighborhood kids take real steps to adulthood and emotional maturity? Here are four simple tools:
Tool #1: Smile at them genuinely.
The simplest and greatest tool we have is our SMILE. The God-designed highway to emotional attachment is a face that is glad to see you!
That’s what your genuine smile is: an instant, pre-cognitive message that communicates “you belong and I’m happy you’re here.” This sense of belonging is what every child longs for. This sense that “I’m a joy to someone” is part of our deepest human need.
We intuitively grasp this because when we come upon a baby, we all seem to do the same thing: we try to make the baby smile. How? By smiling at them. We are pursuing them, letting them know they are wanted and valued. That’s what a smile conveys.
Did you know that God smiles on his people? Every day, the Israelite priests were to pronounce this benediction over the people: “The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:22-25).
God’s face shining upon us, the light of God’s countenance… This is God’s blessing.
Let us as parents imitate the Perfect Father: let us make sure our kids know—many times a day—that we are delighted to see them, glad to be with them, and thrilled they belong with us. You’ll be amazed how soon they will start to grow in confidence and courage.
Tool #2: Modeling Matters.
As the old saying goes, “Children learn what they live.” Your lecture (or sarcastic comments) just won’t teach as much as your actions & habits. They things you do is what they will do. Life is CAUGHT more than TAUGHT.
This is common sense and we’ve all experienced it. But it’s also neuroscience: our brains are wired to follow the leader in things. That’s why we just do the things we saw our folks do. Or, say those sayings we vowed we’d never repeat to our kids: “I’ll give you something to cry about.”
Do you model an ability to return to a baseline of joy & peace, after hard interactions? Can you quiet yourself well from raw and high emotions? What lifestyle and patterns are your children watching in you? These are the very patterns and habits they’ll repeat. Constantly spending more than you have? They’ll do that too. Sarcasm and bickering to your spouse? They’ll do that too. Never going to church with God’s people? ...you get the idea. Children learn what they live.
Tool #3: Gentle Correction.
Our children will need to be corrected, disciplined, punished. They too are sinners. The key is to be firm yet gentle. Deal with the problem in front of you. Don’t address an entire character. If your son lied, don’t ever call him a liar. That’s an identity statement. Rather, handle the specific wrong: “Son, I love you, and God has created you to be a man of truth. To lie is to go against God’s own character. It also puts you at a disadvantage in life: someone who lies today might not be trustworthy tomorrow. Others won’t know when it’s truth or not. So, we can’t allow for lying. Do you understand this?” [genuinely listen, respecting them by not interrupting them, and then follow up with:] “Thank you. I love you. And here’s what we need to do: No screen time for the next 24 hours. I don’t love punishing. But, lying is wrong and serious, and this will help remind you.”
Gentle Correction does not mean “not correcting,” or being soft on them. It only means we don’t shame or demean them, nor characterize their identity, while we address the wrong.
Tool #4: Don’t Indulge Them.
The worst thing we can do for our kids—in terms of helping them grow to maturity, so as to thrive in the world—is to give them everything they want, and/or fear their pouting or angry reactions. They will not always like us or our decisions. But they will respect and can love us.
Our job is to help them grow resilient. To stand up to the winds that blow in life. To be mature and able to contend with the world as it comes at us. Not indulging them takes two forms.
First, give them household chores. Help them accomplish things, help them know they matter in the family unit. Help them learn we’re all in this together. They will play up in the long term, even if they complain in the moment. Work is dignifying, work is part of life, work is honorable. A child without chores is on his or her way to being spoiled, which is the opposite of mature.
Second, don’t always feel you must say yes to every request. There are life lessons to be learned through enduring disappointment and denial. While we don’t try to be mean, we do try to fit everything in together, and sometimes the answer to this request has to be a “No, I’m sorry, we can’t make that work!” They can learn that they are not the center of things as they have to fit into bigger factors than their wishes or whims.
Imagine learning to navigate disappointment in healthy ways while young. What a gift! You’re not a bad parent just because you cannot always say yes. Quite the opposite.
Four great tools to help us help our children take real steps to maturity. And, here’s a bonus tool that always grows them:
Linger with them. We are so planned and programmed in our day. Busy. Active. Frenetic. High speed. Every second you spend with your kids, on the floor wrestling, at the gaming console together, doing the chores together, around the dinner table, helping them get ready for bed... just be available to them. Be with them. Honor them with your attention. Put the phones away at mealtime, bedtime, playtime. Attend to them. Listen to them. Linger with them. You’ll see their emotional maturity grow. And you will raise the level in life to which your children can attain!
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