Raising Kids With Character

If there anything is missing in our culture today it is balance. We are not good at living balanced lifestyles of rest and work, family and career, nutrition, or parenting strategies. And yet, we know that balance is a sign of health, which is also true of our parenting style. When it comes to the way that parents engage with their children, there are in general, two opposite extremes which I call “The Commanding Officer” and “The Hippie.”

Now, The Commanding Officer parent is more like a boot camp sergeant. This parent likes rules because, well, “kids need rules.” In fact, they are convinced that they are less than loving unless they are enforcing rules. They may believe that corporal punishment is ok. Their kids were potty-trained at 10 months old. They are the heavy-handed grounders, taking away kid’s privileges for months or years at a time. The kids’ beds are made, their clothes are folded (if not ironed), window curtains are steamed and “so-help-me if there is dust on that bookshelf.” They feel free to search their kids’ rooms whenever they choose because it’s “their house after all!”

Structure.

Control.

Discipline.

Respect.

These are the power-words of the CO parent.

The Hippie is entirely different. Their kids are rarely clean because they run barefoot everywhere, and eat dirt because “that builds their immune system.” They homeschool their kids for a year to travel the continent in their renovated 1967 Airstream trailer. In their home, there is no such thing as a bad kid, only bad parents. Their kids will have every opportunity afforded them. Art class. Soccer. Robotics club. Drama. Cooking class. They don’t “ground” their children, because “love doesn’t punish.” (Vaguely alluding to a Bible passage.) Their kids have their own space which they can paint with murals of their choice and clean up as they feel like it – the mess is a “creative space.”

Freedom.

Expression.

Individuality.

Love.

These are the mantras of the Hippie parent.

(And then you have the completely unpredictable, and even unstable parent, who swings wildly between the CO and Hippie. That parent presents a challenge that is beyond the scope of this blog to address.)

The debate between the CO and Hippie parent comes down to two concepts in parenting: nurture and structure. The truth is that both parenting styles have redeemable qualities. Kids do need order, predictability and chores, and kids do need to get dirty, learn to express themselves and run a little wild from time to time. But this is precisely the issue, it is a rare parent who had has the self-confidence to parent with a proper balance between nurture and structure.

When is it time to “lay down the law?”

When is it time to “just let it go?”

Every day throughout every home, there are literally hundreds of opportunities to bring both structure and nurture. There are dozens of incidents where our kids push the rules, talk back, get overwhelmed, outright rebel against our authority, run, hide, freeze, fight or flee, and in each instance, we tend to respond with nurture, structure or ambivalence.

I’m going to assume that if you are taking the time to read a blog on parenting, you aren’t the ambivalent type and you want to engage with your kids. That’s a good thing.

Here’s the key, think of it as a two-step kind of dance. For example, if we laid down the law last time, try to find a way to let the leash out a bit the next time, and vice versa. It might even come as a shock to your kids! If your boys are constantly getting in trouble and you respond to the 14th fist fight of the day by saying, “Boys, I love you. You clearly have energy to burn, the three of us should play a bit of basketball before bed” you may just confuse them long enough to stop the fight.

On the other hand, if your kids are used to whining their way into a cookie everyday after school (and ruining their appetite for dinner, because let’s be honest, if they get one cookie, they know how to get five), and you respond with a firm, “No, sweetie, not today. I’ve worked too hard to make supper for you to leave it on your plate again.” Well you may have just set up an uncomfortable, but entirely fair boundary for your child. They probably won’t like it, but in the long run learning to hear and accept “no” is a critical life-skill. Boundaries help our kids feel safe because they know there is a limit to what they can get away with.

This is what balanced parenting looks like. It isn’t afraid of the occasional stain on the carpet, because kids are more important than carpets. But it doesn’t let them ruin the house just because “kids will be kids.”

I would encourage you to take stock of your style of parenting today. It is rare that any parent is a pure CO or pure Hippie all the time, but we all have tendencies in our parenting. What is your tendency? Are you balanced? Do you need to follow through with some promised consequences? Do you need to go to your kids and apologize for expecting too much of them?

Whatever the case, it is worthwhile to take time to think and not just act in parenting. Our kids are very precious and we want them to be balanced individuals as they grow older.