What Children Really Need

Should we chain our children to the bedpost until they reach adulthood? Should we shield them from all negative influences until they can make mature decisions? 

When Dr. Willis Tate was at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, he told of a mother who gallantly tried to protect her son. She wrote a long letter to Dr. Tate about her son who was coming to enroll as a freshman. She wanted the president to make sure that the boy had a “good” roommate who would encourage him to go to church and not use bad language. She did not want the roommate to smoke or otherwise negatively influence her son. 

But the mother’s closing remarks make the letter unforgettable: “The reason all of this is so important is that it is the first time my boy has been away from home, except for the three years he spent in the Marines.”

Parents want to protect their children. But perhaps more importantly, most parents want their children to develop sufficient inner resources to protect themselves in potentially destructive situations. They want to equip them to be independent, to make responsible decisions on their own. 

Educator Leo Buscaglia said, “Don't smother each other. No one can grow in the shade.” Which means that, as their children grow into adulthood, parents must gradually learn to give up thinking that they can protect them and learn better ways to be helpful. Maybe their most important job is just to love them. And isn’t love really what children of any age truly need from their parents?

-- Steve Goodier

Image: freeimages.com/sarah bruker

Another Word for Love

I knew a woman who always found an excuse to love.

I met her working at the most difficult job of my life - as a helper in an after-school daycare center. I was completely unprepared for the work; I had no training and my temperament seemed to be particularly unsuited to the position.

I reminded myself that I was hired to watch the children, play with them and lead arts and crafts - not fix all of their problems, of which there were many. And my only help was Mrs. Tucker, a 73-year-old retired social worker who worked with me. All that stood between the kids and disaster was me and a 73-year-old woman. And I wasn't that sturdy a defense. But I soon learned that Mrs. Tucker was a master with these children.

"Some children just need more love," she always said. A case in point  was Timmy. Timmy received special help at school because of his emotional problems. He was developmentally delayed. He often fought  with other children and was a compulsive hair-puller. I could never get close to Timmy - he did not trust anyone. Anyone, that is, except Mrs. Tucker. He responded her. He genuinely loved her because, I came to believe, she loved him.

One day a fight broke out between Timmy and one of the other children. After separating them, Mrs. Tucker directed Timmy to sit in a chair. He screamed, "I HATE YOU, Mrs. Tucker! You're a mean, old lady! I hate you!"

"I know you hate me right now, Timmy," she said firmly, "but I'm sure not going to let you pull the other children's hair."

After a while Timmy had calmed down and Mrs. Tucker called him over. His cheeks were still dirty and bore dried tear streaks. I could not hear their conversation, but I saw Timmy put his arms around her neck. When I walked by I heard him say, "I'm sorry I called you a mean old lady, Mrs. Tucker." I knew he meant it.

A little later Mrs. Tucker said to me, "Timmy just needs more love than other children."

On another occasion I heard Timmy's mother say, "You work magic with him, Mrs. Tucker. He doesn't respond to anybody like he does to you."

Maybe so, but sometimes "magic" is just another word for "love." 

-- Steve Goodier

Image: Flickr.com/Lance Neilson

What Are We Doing to Our Children?

 

Image by Marg

Karl A. Menninger said, “What's done to children, they will do to society.” 

One proud father said to his little boy, "I've got news for you, my big boy. You are going to have a beautiful baby brother."

"Great!" yelped the little boy. "Where's Mom? I can't wait to tell her!"

His sister, however, wasn't nearly as excited about the arrival. After a few days her father asked, "Aren't you happy about having a new baby brother?"

"Not really," she admitted. "I wanted a little sister so we could play girl games when she got bigger. And we can't give him back. We've used him for five days."

However, she may yet grow to love her little brother. If not now, later.

Psychiatrist Karl A. Menninger spent a lifetime studying mental illness. He observed that “what's done to children, they will do to society.” There is nothing new here. We all know that abused children often become abusers. Children taught to hate or children raised in violence commonly become dangerous and destructive adults.

But there is a positive side, too. Children nurtured in kindness learn the value of understanding. Children taught to be self-sufficient, to respect others, to value education and to build life up rather than to tear it down will become adults capable of leading us to a brighter future. For what's done to children, they will do to society.

An unknown author put it succinctly: "A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He or she is going to sit where you are sitting and attend to those things that you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they will be carried out depends on our young people. They will assume control of your duties, states and nation. They are going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporations. All your books will be judged, praised or condemned by them. The fate of humanity is in their hands. So it might be well to pay young people attention."

What are we doing to our children?

-- Steve Goodier

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A Parable of a Child

Image by Anissa Thompson

There is a difference between education and experience. Education is what you get from reading the small print. Experience is what you get from not reading it.

But isn't it true that great learning comes from both education and experience? Let me tell you a parable:

A young school teacher had a dream that an angel appeared to him and said, "You will be given a child who will grow up to become a world leader. How will you prepare her? How will you challenge her intelligence? How will you help her grow in confidence? How will you help her develop both her assertiveness as well as her sensitivity? How will you teach her to be open-minded and, at the same time, strong in character? In short, what kind of education will you provide that she can become one of the world's truly GREAT leaders?"

The young teacher awoke in a cold sweat. It had never occurred to him before -- any ONE of his present or future students could be the person described in his dream. Was he preparing them to rise to ANY POSITION to which they may aspire? He thought, 'How might my teaching change if I KNEW that one of my students were this person?' He gradually began to formulate a plan in his mind.

This student would need experience as well as instruction. She would need to know how to solve problems of all kinds. She would need to become knowledgeable, but more than that. She would also need to stand firmly on strong values and grow in character. She would need self-assurance as well as the ability to listen well and work with others. She would need to understand and appreciate the past, yet convey a realistic hope about the future. She would need to know the value of lifelong learning in order to keep a curious and active mind. She would need to grow in understanding of others and become a student of the spirit. She would need to set high standards for herself and learn self discipline, yet she would also need love and encouragement, that she might know compassion.

His teaching changed. Every young person who walked through his classroom became, for him, a future world leader. He saw each one, not as they were, but as they could be. He expected the best from his students, yet tempered it with gentleness. He taught each one as if the future of the world depended on his instruction.

After many years, a woman he knew rose to a position of world prominence. He realized that she must surely have been the girl described in his dream. Only she was not one of his students – she was his daughter. For of all the various teachers in her life, her father was the best.

I've heard it said that "Children are living messages we send to a time and place we will never see." But this isn't simply a parable about an unnamed school teacher. It is a parable about you and me – whether or not we are parents or even teachers. And the story, OUR story, actually begins like this:

"You will be given a child who will grow up to become...." You finish the sentence. If not a world leader, then a superb father? An excellent teacher? A gifted healer? An innovative problem solver? An inspiring artist? A generous philanthropist?

Where and how you will encounter this child is a mystery. But believe that one child's future may depend upon influence only you can provide, and something remarkable will happen. For no young person will ever be ordinary to you again. And you will never be the same.

– Steve Goodier

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Aren't They All Our Children?

There are few things in this life more difficult to experience than the loss of one's child. Jim Wallis, in Who Speaks for God? tells about a sad and terrifying incident that occurred during the tragic war in Sarajevo not too many years back. A reporter who was covering the violence in the middle of the city saw a little girl fatally shot by a sniper.

The reporter threw down his pad and pencil and rushed to the aid of a man who was now holding the child. He helped them both into his car and sped off to a hospital.

"Hurry, my friend," the man urged, “my child is still alive.” A moment or two later he pleaded, "Hurry, my friend, my child is still breathing." A little later he said, "Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm."

When they got to the hospital, the young girl was gone. "This is a terrible task for me," the distraught man said to the reporter. "I must go tell her father that his child is dead. He will be heartbroken."

The reporter was amazed. He looked at the grieving man and said, "I thought she was YOUR child."

The man replied, "No, but aren't they all our children?"

I think that is one of the great questions of our age. Aren’t they all our children? It is a question that deserves an answer.

Aren't they all our children? Those who live under our roof and those who reside with another family? Those to whom we are related as well as those whom we have never known?

Aren't they all our children? Those on our side of the border as well as those on the other side? Those of our nation no more or less than those of another?

Aren’t they all our children? Those who worship like us and those who worship differently? Those who look like us and those who do not?

Aren’t they all our children? The well-educated and the under-educated? The well-fed and the under-fed? Those who are secure and those who are at risk?

Aren’t they all our children? The highly valued and highly esteemed as well as the castaways and the lost?

Aren’t they all our children? Aren’t they all our responsibility? ALL of them? Ours to nurture? Ours to protect? Ours to love?

I don’t think it is an exaggeration to say that the survival of our world hinges on the answer to that question.

To say they are NOT all our children is to condemn the world to more struggle – family against family, group against group, nation against nation.

Aren’t they all our children? If we say yes, can we ever again pit them against each other? "If we have no peace," said Mother Teresa, "it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

Aren’t they all our children?

There may be no greater question for our generation. And how we answer that question will determine the shape of our world for years to come.

-- Steve Goodier