88 - Parenting with Heart: Parenting and the Four Realities
The "Living with Heart" Podcast is brought to you by Chip Dodd Resources (www.chipdodd.com) and The Voice of the Heart Center (vothcenter.com). You can connect with Dr. Chip Dodd at chip@chipdodd.com. Contact Bryan Barley for coaching at bryan@vothcenter.com.
2 Helpful resources along the parenting journey:
Link to 8 Feelings for Children Chart
Four realities that no one will defeat, this side of heaven.
1. The best we ever get at living is clumsy.
No one can become perfect, even though we carry a picture of it in our hearts. Ecclesiastes 3:11 (NIV) says, “He has set eternity in the human heart.” No matter our determination or information, we humans will always have to struggle with mistakes and sin.
2. We have to live on life’s terms, not our terms.
Death and the unpredictable are a part of this life. We cannot know the future. We are dependent upon our need of each other and God. If we do not face, feel, and deal well with our neediness in a healthy way, we will become defended against the pains that come with love. No one can change or defeat this fact about life. If we don’t learn how to need others and God, it increases the negative consequences we don’t want for ourselves or those we love.
3. Everything in life is practice.
Doctors are practicing, and lawyers are practicing. Parents are also practicing, as are children. We are not works of perfection. We have to keep learning and risking without knowing all of the outcomes. We are in this life together; the more proactive everyone is in helping each other practice living fully and loving deeply, the better the outcomes.
4. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live.
Whether we are eight, twenty-eight, or eighty, we are still asking many of the same questions throughout our lives, like, “When will we get there?” “How much will it hurt?” or “Will you be there to get me?” No one has all the answers to life. We have to keep learning how to live, even as we gain wisdom about doing so, hopefully. There is not a destination of “having it all together.”
We are all works in progress.
Rather than the facts of reality defeating us, they can actually give us permission to gain more humility.
Healthy shame is the humility feeling. It is the recognition that we all,
need each other,
make mistakes,
don’t have all the answers,
and we are not God, but need God
This “humility factor” can actually create a more tolerant, understanding, compassionate parent. This parent doesn’t have to become the enabling parent or use tolerance as a form of excusing themselves or their children.
The humble parent:
recognizes their own limitations and can become more accepting of the child’s need to struggle
is simply less demanding because they are more able to relate
actually give the child more permission to learn because they accept trial and error
Our greatest learning comes from improvement, which has inherent in it, taking risks, failure, and not giving up.
Parents who cannot tolerate their children having feelings will be parents who enable.
Enabling is a form of codependency that robs the child of their need to face, feel, and learn how to deal with life’s realities.
We are all works in progress, just like children.
The realities of life can improve a parent’s acceptance of life and its struggles. This acceptance can give permission to their own children to struggle, which means that the child will be freer to deal with the pains of life, or have permission to feel and grow.
What is struggle?
Struggle is living in the knowledge and awareness that we must contend with the realities of life.
We struggle by clinging to God and His four counteractive promises that allow us to depend upon Him and others for help in this difficult life.
God promises to be with us
God promises to go ahead of us.
God promises to never leave or forsake us.
God promises to make us strong and courageous.
Struggle is living in faith in Him and His promises in a world that is broken, and simply hurts.
We struggle by facing reality and by clinging to God’s promises, which means that we will need to face, feel, and deal with questions, pain, loss, and life not working like we wish it would.
Thankfully, we have a place to go that permits struggle, for example when Jesus says:
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
(Matthew 11:28-29, NIV)
Implied in Jesus’ invitation is the assumption that life is hard, and often tragic. Jesus is a place to go to rest, be revived, be redeemed, be restored, and to struggle.
We must teach our children how to struggle, as we ourselves have to learn how to do.
We must give our children permission to remain truthful in being human instead of perfect. Importantly, we ourselves must show them how to do so.
Permission to struggle reduces stress.
When a child, or even a grown up, knows that they will still belong and matter as they struggle with imperfection, they will be much more prone to live less afraid of taking risks. They will be more willing to learn as they deal with trial and error.
They will be less anxious about being rejected or humiliated.
This reduction of anxiety allows greater focus on the task to be done, which is stress reduction.
This reduction of stress actually has been shown to reduce errors.
We cannot love without experiencing pain.
When a parent “signs a contract of love” towards a child, they are signing up for struggle, the joy of getting to do so, and the pain that comes with love.
The more willing a parent is to accept struggle, including the struggle with God’s promises, the child’s worth is reinforced.
The child will be much more willing and able to be a work in progress, just as the parent is.
This process increases the probability of a child developing greater stress tolerance and resilience.
They will be able to say along with the parent:
“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears.
It’s a world of hopes and a world of fears.
There’s so much that we share that it’s time we’re aware,
it’s a small world after all.”
(“It’s a Small World”)
https://youtu.be/2rTZ9UndNeI?si=kbG-pk7eD3zQWBEW
Dr. Chip Dodd
Voice of the Heart Center