Part 2: Emotionally Drained and Relationally Strained

“How many times do I have to tell to brush your teeth and get on your PJ’s and GO TO BED!” My voice would be raised, my blood pressure mounting, and my patience worn thin. The last thing my kids heard from their dad that night was yelling. I hated it. They hated it. And, all of us went to bed feeling like they had done something wrong, and they didn’t know how to fix it. We were emotionally drained and relationally strained.

Rethink: (These steps work with all relationships, but let's stay focused on our children for consistency sake. You can make the necessary adjustments to other relationships.)

Make a plan. Something isn’t working in your relationship. Part of it is you and that’s where the repentance comes in. And, part of it is your child. But, as you may have guessed, you are not responsible to change him or her. That is up to them. It is out of your control. Trust that part to God and do your part.

But, there is the in-between part: the relational space between you and your child. Maybe right now it is filled with angry words, painful events, or emotional distance. So, you need a plan. How do you rethink that space?

Part One: You will have already confessed your part and cleaned up your side of the relationship. But your child still has memories and distrust, and lingering pain. So, the first part of the plan is to stop adding to those.

When you deal with the why behind the what, you demonstrate to your child that you are serious about making your relationship with them a priority. As much as you can, be honest and tell them why you acted the way you did and what you have done to change your perspective. Tell them what God has taught you about yourself and demonstrate a spirit of humility and continued growth.

Don’t promise that you won’t ever blow it again because you might. But, commit to them before God and whatever witnesses seem appropriate that you will never stop trying to get it right. Be quick to confess when you blow it and quick to reaffirm your commitment to keep working on being there for them. (Remember your actions are not dependent upon your child’s response. Depending upon how deep the rift is between you, the habits that your child has formed, and the level of support you both have, your child may not be ready to reenter this relationship for a long time. Be patient.)

Part Two: Be creative. In your time of difficulty, you may have gotten stuck in some relational ruts. Break out of those. Be proactive and find something that you and your teen can enjoy together. It is a lot easier to believe that you care if you are observant enough to know what kind of things your teen would enjoy, are willing to sacrifice the time, energy and money to enjoy it with them, and give them the opportunity to help make it a success.

This is not easy! It takes a plan. It takes time. There may be some little things you can do that would be appreciated and noticed. Do those too! But, also take the time to make a plan. Something big. Something that they won’t soon forget. And, something that will remind them how much you love them every time they think back to it.

One Small Change we made for Ethan.

Ethan loves to talk. So, I changed my plan. It meant sitting with him at bed time and listening to him, letting him tell me about his day, about his imaginings, about his future. In the quiet, with no distractions, he had my complete attention. My job was to listen with my whole heart. I would sometimes ask probing questions, maybe something that I knew was going on or something that had come up in last night’s conversation. But, my goal during that time wasn’t to impart wisdom or tell him what he should do. It was just to listen.

I would tell him that he was special, but assure him that his fears or worries were normal. I would show him love and acceptance and try to get to know him, to really understand him. And, often, I would hear him ask, “Could you come and sit with me tonight? I want to talk more about what we were talking about yesterday.” And, I knew that we were on to something good.

It was a sacrifice for me. I had to change my routine. The norm was rush and get the kids to bed by 9... or so, so Rachel and I could have some peace and quiet together before bed. Some "us" time, adult time. Time to talk or watch a movie or read together. We just needed to reconnect. I felt like I needed that, we needed that, so I resisted giving it up. I felt resentful that I had to give it up, especially since it felt like I was rewarding bad behavior. Ethan makes a fuss, so I spend more time with Ethan. That's not right.

Then, I was convinced through prayer and confirmation from Rachel and that feeling in my gut that it was the right thing to do. So, I did it. I sacrificed. I gave up a half hour of my time with Rachel to be with Ethan before bed with the lights out, just listening and attending to his emotional and relational needs. And, it was real. The change was incredible. I loved being with him. I grew in my love for him and value that time.

Sometimes, before, I would feel so angry when, after they were supposed to be in bed, we would hear a knock on the door and get a complaint or random question. "Just go to bed!" But, those mostly stopped when he would have that time with me to say whatever was on his mind or heart. And, when they didn't, he and I had just spent a half an hour connecting and my love for him and for all my children was made a priority and it didn't seem to me like such an interruption. It was ok.

My emotional and relational needs were being met as well. I could be patient and kind and loving to Rachel, my wife, and to my children. Something good was happening in Ethan and in me.

A Bigger Deal was when we planned to go to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. We planned ahead, looked up pictures on line, checked the train schedule and headed off. I followed his lead. We went where he wanted to go, and we saw what he wanted to see. We read the signs he wanted to read, and we only stopped when he wanted to stop or when his Dad’s legs got tired. When he was done, we left. We got an Italian ice and a pretzel from a street vendor, and we headed back to the train station.

If you want your child to make a great memory, get them laughing. The endorphins released when we laugh reduce our pain and you will be associated with those positive emotions. So, get them laughing and then tell them how much you love them and how happy you are to be their parent. Tell them what is really on your heart and mind but keeps getting pushed aside because of the busy lives you lead and the difficulty of your relationship right now. Speak the truth in love.

Ethan loves to laugh, so we did a lot that day. We looked with wonder at the size of the blue whale floating in mid air, looked up close at the wings of the hawks which we normally see flying high above us, and were amazed by the size of the condor. Ethan has a memory that reinforced what I had been telling him. “I love you. You are so important to me.”

Be careful that you don’t plan a trip that is hectic and busy and stressful. If you wind up yelling at them to hurry up or don’t do this or don’t touch that, you’ve lost the point. There will always by time constraints, money limitations and acceptable behavior, but take this time to try to engage your child fully. If they are disappointed, join in with them. “I know! I wish we could do this all day! Maybe we can plan another day when it can be just the two of us again! I love you and I love spending time with you. You are so fun to be with." Tell them the truth in the most positive way you can.

Repent first. Then, Rethink.

The process of Remembering looks something like this: Repent, Rethink, Redo, Respond, and Restart.

How did you try to rethink the relational space between you and your child? More ideas would be great. What worked? What didn't? 

Part 1: My Kids Push My Buttons

I was angry and impatient with my children, especially my first son. “He knows how to push my buttons,” I would say in my calmer moments.

Each time I would struggle to control my temper and hold my tongue. Sometimes I succeeded and too often I did not. Each time I failed, I would confess my sin to God, ask His forgiveness and then do the same with my son. Every time, God forgave me. Every time, Ethan forgave me. But, it wasn’t getting any better. I wanted it to stop.

While counseling with a pastor friend who had opened a counseling center nearby, I realized that my anger was triggered by frustration. That frustration stemmed from my son not obeying me and my desire to control my life and also my image, the person I wanted to believe I was. I wanted to be a good father and in order for me to be a good father, I reasoned, my children must obey me. So, my son disobeying me was sending off all kinds of red flags for me emotionally. I was not a good father!

I had to prove to myself that I was a good father, so I had to make him obey.

So, in order to prove that I was a good father, I became what I loathed, an angry, yelling, out of control father. It reminds me of Paul’s thoughts about the fight against our sinful nature:

      I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

     So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom 7:15-25, NIV)

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

How often I struggled to understand this passage. Yet, even as I struggled to understand it, it brought me hope and encouraged me. Even Paul, the great apostle, struggled with sin. But, during this time I became aware of the hold that my sinful nature has on me. Even in trying to do good, to be good, “evil is right there with me” distorting and deceiving. I believed that in order to be good, I must act good. And, so my actions, though appearing to be good, were based on my desire to appear to be good rather than on my love for God. And, so when the actions reached their logical end, I was forced to act bad in order to continue to appear to be good.

And, so I concluded, with the help of Rachel and my counselor, “What a wretched man I am!” Who will rescue me from always having to try to be good. “Jesus Christ our Lord!” It is only by His grace that I could be healed. It was only by surrendering my desire to be “good” and simply letting Him declare me good that I could be free from that prison of anger and frustration when I couldn’t control those around me.

Then, I could truly repent of the core issue. Then, I began to see my patience grow and my anger subside. Ethan’s disobedience didn’t determine whether or not I was good. It was Christ who determined that. Then, living in Christ, drawing strength and hope and having faith in Him, allowed me to begin to love Ethan with the same patience and grace that Christ had for me.

Is it too late for you to have a good relationship with your children?

Believe this…

It is never too late.

Never.

While you and your child have breath in your lungs, it is never too late. If there is a schism between you and your child that seems to huge to cross, it is time for you to make restoring this relationship your primary goal

The way is clear. It isn’t easy. And, it may not seem direct.

But, you can build a new relationship with your child that is healthy and filled with love and respect. You cannot guarantee that they will respond the way you want, but you can move toward loving and respecting them more each day. Depending on the past, it may take days or decades, but it is possible. Don't give up and don't lose sight of the prize--a healthy relationship with your child.

You cannot charge after your child, stumbling headlong into their lives, and hope for the best. You have to REMEMBER.

Remembering is the act of putting your members back in the right order. Getting it all together. In order to Remember, you need to think through the process of beginning again, see what is most important, where things have gotten off track, and commit to doing whatever it takes to get them back on track. The process of Remembering looks something like this: Repent, Rethink, Redo, Remain, Respond, and Restart. Today we will start with the first step on the list.

Repent:

You need to get honest. What have you done? What have you thought? What have you said? You cannot skip this step. You cannot even rush this step. This step may take an hour or a year. Give it all the time it needs. You may need counseling to help you think through it all. You need to get this right. You need to face what you have done and figure out why.

For every harsh punishment or unloving word you have spoken to your child, you need to ask for forgiveness, first from God and then from your child.

But, then take it further. That is the what but now explore the why. Ask yourself, in the presence of God and possibly with the help of your spouse, a close friend, or even a professional counselor, why you have done what you have done, said what you have said.

Explain that as much as is appropriate to your child. Teach them the process of repentance and help them to see how you are growing in your relationship with God and in the process you will grow in your relationship with them.

Repent. Repent of your actions, the what and understand your why so you begin to change your perspective and rewrite your future. Repentance is the start to a new foundation that you can build your relationship with your child on.

PS - If you haven't ever repented before, you really need to try it. It is so freeing. You will feel a huge burden lift from your heart and soul. God promises always to forgive. Our children may hesitate or refuse, but that is not up to us. We can only do our part. Getting right with God must be our priority. Repentance isn't a one shot deal. We continue to repent throughout our lives as we continue to sin and uncover new ways in which we sin. peel back the layers like an onion.

 Check out these practical  suggestions for when your kids don't want to spend time with you.

Don't Wait until Your Children are Teens.

Yesterday's blog was about improving communication with our children. And I talked about the value of youth centered conversations.youth centered conversations

Can you imagine any adolescent who wouldn’t appreciate a good youth centered conversation?

That’s not a hypothetical question. Can you?

Me too. What are they like?

Angry.

Mean.

Cold.

Abrasive.

Distant.

And… 

Hurting. Have they had their trust broken? maybe multiple times?

Exposed. Have they seen and experienced things either in person or through media and online that have stolen their innocence, twisted their perspective, broken their hearts?

Afraid. Afraid of who will hurt them next. Struggling to know who is safe and who they can talk to. 

Do they feel...

Unloved.

Unaccepted.

Unwanted.

What these teens need is a time machine. I wish they could go back before these things happened to them, before they made those bad choices and before they felt that despair. And, in those quiet moments of their childhood, I wish they had a parent or adult who would love them and accept them and put a priority on a relationship with them. They need these youth centered conversations to start as early as possible.

So for those of us with children who are still willing and interested in talking to us and opening their hearts and their imaginations to us, we need to listen. We need to stop doing all those important things that won’t matter a week from now, let alone a decade from now. We need to stop and listen to our children.

We need to teach them how to communicate by communicating with them. We need to teach them that they are loved by loving them. We need to stop making excuses and believing that we can focus on them later. From the moment they can communicate, we need to make communication with them a priority. Here's some tips on communicating with your child from All Pro Dad.

Start today! And if it feels like it's too late, like you've already lost your voice, tomorrow, I'll share with you a path to follow to bring healing and restoration to your relationship with your child.

Have you had a time when you stopped and listened to your child and was amazed by what you heard or learned from them? Please share in the comments.

How to Have Life Changing Youth Centered Conversations

I ate a healthy chocolate chip cookie the other day. Here's what the advertising says: "As much fiber as a bowl of oatmeal. As much iron as an 8oz cup of spinach. As much Vitamin E as 2 cups of carrot juice." My first thought was, "We are talking about a cookie, right? This is too good to be true!"

Then, I tasted one. And, thought, "This is definitely not too good to be true!"

Just for the record. I don't blame them for not making them taste good. Chocolate chip cookies aren't supposed to be healthy. Actually, saying "healthy chocolate chip cookie" is kind of like saying "beef-flavored turnips" or "turnip-flavored beef." They just don't belong in the same sentence let alone the same recipe.

Chocolate chip cookies should be tasty. And kale should be healthy.

As parents, we all want our kids to be healthy. We want them to grow and develop and when they don't, we do whatever is within our power to help them.

What can parents do to help their children be healthy spiritually? That’s an important question. 

Before we answer that we must ask another question that might turn our thinking on its head.

What can’t parents do to help their children grow spiritually? Or rather...

What can a child only do for themselves? As parents we try to interfere in lots of ways to supposedly help our children through life, but many of those things wind up hurting our children instead of helping them.

We can easily cross that line as parents:

We want our child to look the best or at least not stand out because they have clothes without name brands. But, they wind up learning that their worth is based on their appearance.

We cheer them on a little too vehemently from the sidelines or maybe even coach their team to show how much we care. But, they wind up learning that their value is based on their performance.

We work extra hard on their lines for the Christmas play so they won’t forget their lines. They learn that remembering the true meaning of Christmas isn’t as important as other peoples' opinions of us.

But, where is the line? How do we do all that we can to help and support and encourage our kids to be healthy without sending the wrong messages about what’s really important?

First of all, let me tell you what you know already, “It aint easy!”

You will mess up. The harder you try to control every possibility and figure out every angle, the more likely you are to either be paralyzed with fear and never do anything or, on the flip side, teach your child that they have to always be in control, always be perfect (and always be paranoid). Either way, you lose.

“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one” ~ Elbert Hubbard

So, go and do and parent your kids and plan to make mistakes.

Alfred Adler, “Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!”

In the process, you will teach your kids that they, too, must learn how to live. They, too, must make mistakes in order to succeed.

So, how do we teach our children what’s really important? We communicate. We listen to them with our full attention and we speak to them with our whole heart. We think out-loud with them; we explain what we are thinking about and why. We talk to them about how to communicate, how we talk to one another. We listen to them and teach them to listen to others. Our children will learn to communicate by seeing us model it.

Then, we tell them what is most important to us and we listen to them tell us what is most important to them.

David Dollahite and Jennifer Thatcher decided that the best way to find out about the connection between spiritual growth and communication was to do some in-depth interviews with highly religious families. 74 families later, they found some interesting facts about communication with adolescents. See the chart below. It describes how adolescents react when parents take these proactive steps in their communication. Dollahite and Thatcher call them youth centered conversations. You’ll see why from the chart.

When parents…	Adolescents…
Listen more attentively	Talk more openly
Are understanding and compassionate toward the teen and their circumstances	Receive understanding and then begin to seek it from parents
Find specific applications where religion or spirituality could help in the teen’s life	See religion or spirituality as practical and useful
Enjoy talking with the teen and leave the door open for future communication	Enjoy talking with parents and leave the door open for future communication
Make nurturing the relationship with their teen a high priority in their lives	Make nurturing the relationship with their parents a high priority in their lives

These youth centered conversations demonstrate a parent’s awareness of and desire to specifically care for the child’s spiritual needs. It’s simple, but the response is a life-changing relationship between parent and child. And as a result, their research shows that adolescents from highly religious homes desire to grow spiritually, appreciate their parents’ involvement in their spiritual lives, and do grow spiritually.^[1]

That's all we want as parents isn't it? We really just want our kids to be healthy, to grow and develop. We don't have to wait until they are adolescents to start this though. My 8 and 10 year old are able to have these kinds of conversations with me already. They know I love them, that I am willing to listen and hopefully when the tough times come, they'll know that they can trust me and talk to me.

So, in the spirit of helping my kids be healthy, I only ate that one healthy chocolate chip cookie and saved the rest for them while I grabbed some Oreos.

---

[1] David C. Dollahite and Jennifer Y. Thatcher, “Talking About Religion,” Journal of Adolescent Research 23, no. 5 (2008): 628–29.