3 Things I Did Right While Raising My Kids
They’re 16 and 17 now. Here’s what paid off.
Apologizing
Parents make mistakes. I tried to be self-aware and take the time to deliver an apology whenever I discovered a mistake I had made, whether it was momentary and minor or deep regret for a big choice long ago. This has had four major benefits.
- It kept me humble
- It built trust
- It modelled behaviour I wanted my kids to emulate
- It introduced various opportunities for them to practice forgiveness, an important life-skill
UNFORTUNATELY… I recently learned that sometimes I was apologizing in unhelpful ways, or worse, in ways that may have done more damage. According to a podcast with Brene Brown and Harriet Lerner, I should NEVER have said, “I’m sorry, but…”
Encouraged Independent Thinking
- YES I want them to learn critical thinking skills
- NO I do not want them to bow to strong personalities
- YES I want them to stand up for themselves and their friends
- NO I do not want them to shape their lives based on what’s popular
- YES I want them to learn how to discuss and argue in respectful and intelligent ways
- NO I do not want their desires directed by advertisements
- YES I want them to question all authority, even mine
There have been some interesting outcomes. After a week of lively (and sometimes frustrating) debates about the JK Rowling situation, she led me to dig deeper and I wound up changing my mind on a BIG topic. But then, based on my discoveries, I initiated a conversation with the intention of admitting I had been wrong, but based on the discoveries I made and explained, she also changed her mind. We switched positions. Life is strange.
I Enforced Best-Friendship
The importance of my kids’ cherishing and investing in their friendship with each other was the number one emphasis of my parenting. I couldn’t have made a better choice. Things they heard out of my mouth thousands of times:
- Friends come and go but your sister will ALWAYS be in your life
- No one else on the planet will understand how crazy your parents are
- God said our number one job is to love each other
- Learn from my mistakes: I was a terrible big sister to my own siblings, and I had to do a LOT of reparative work when I became an adult (and still do)
It helped that they were they were only a year and a half apart, because they shared toys, friends, and interests. Besides preaching, I really did enforce it. When they were toddlers and would fight I would make them hug and say nice things about each other until they forgot their unhappiness and would usually start giggling and playing. The older they got, the more they resisted and they longer it took for the anger to dissipate, but I was amazed that they not only never outgrew this tactic, they now seek each other out and do the make-up work without me whenever they do have a fight. They always have each other’s back. Their phone lock screens feature a picture of the other. That makes me feel all warm and gooey on the inside.
Sibling relationships can be so intensely complicated, which makes them the best place to learn how to love, because loving isn’t always easy. Loving through difficulty builds stronger and more enduring love: the kind of love needed to heal the world from hate-damage.
BUT, I have to admit. All of this has recently come back to kick me in the butt. My oldest daughter transitioned to living with their dad full-time a few months ago, after she graduated from high school. This made me sad, but I totally get it. What’s happening now, though, is that my youngest daughter is starting to spend more time there too because she misses her sister so much.
And I miss them both so much! Ouch! C’est la vie.
