Reclaiming Our Children
We are trying to do all the right things for our kids but recent University of Minnesota research points out that young children spend more time in cars going to and from activities than they do sitting at the dinner table, involved in the simple ritual of the family meal. By trying to give our kids everything, we have overlooked the importance of surrendering ourselves to the art and science of building and sustaining a relationship with them.
With all good intentions, following the advice of experts, we have managed to cut ourselves off from our kids and thrust them into activities to fill them up. Working with parents, coaches and teachers, I am learning that many adults are so anxious about doing "the wrong thing" that we have become paralyzed. The contradictory advice which has been offered to parents over the past thirty years has contributed to the confusion about what to do. Looking for a one-size-fits-all theory, parents buy into one approach only to find in a short time that there is another theory which has superceded the last one.
Theory has proven to be ineffectual. The modern self-esteem industry which basically tells every child that they are "special" just for "being a person" has become just as hollow as tough love, consequences, time-outs and rewards. Medicating, punishing, providing alibis (diagnoses) for "spoiled" and "undisciplined children" hasn't made a difference either.
Parents, teachers, counsellors and child-care providers are stretched to the limit. We do spend more time with our kids than in past generations but when we look at what we are doing during this time, a troubling picture unfolds. Often, it seems we are engaged in parallel but separate activities. Mother may be supervising her five-year-old's supper while simultaneously arranging a meeting for the next day; brother is e-mailing several friends while talking with yet another friend on the phone; Dad is looking up from his computer every ten minutes or so to say to whomever will listen, "It's almost bedtime!".
There is no way to get to know children if we are doing something else. I remember clearly, many years ago, one of my children walking over to where I was, down on my hands and knees, washing a floor. Carefully, he put his hand on my shoulder, bent over to look into my eyes and asked timidly, "When can you stop being so busy and just talk to 'your little boy'?". This was a heartfelt response from my son who was desperate to be seen, heard, and touched, to feel that he mattered, that he belonged to me, that I loved him and that he was truly known by me.
When children aren't in relationship with an adult who wants to know them inside out, and to protect them from all the expectations burdening them, there will always be something else to fill the dark void. Parents, teachers and caregivers are floundering around in their own moral confusion but it doesn't have to stay that way; relationships are the answer.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld's book, "Hold On To Your Kids" is a good beginning to rethinking the relationship with our kids.
Copyright, 2010 by Susan Dafoe-Abbey. Permission to use this material, either in English or in translation, for educational purposes is hereby granted.
