Jun 18, 2018 | Nurture
By Tara Miller, guest blogger
The mother of a 16-year-old girl decided that instead of giving her daughter relationship advice– which she knew would likely be unwelcome and unheeded– she’d take a coaching approach instead. She’d ask questions and reflect back only what she was hearing. So she said to her daughter, “I know you’re struggling with your relationship with your boyfriend right now and considering whether to break up with him or not. I have something I think might be helpful. What if I ask you five questions, and just listen to own responses without giving any advice or feedback or suggestions?”
“Well…” said the daughter uncertainly, “What are the questions?”
“They are five basic questions that can be applied to almost any situation: What’s working? What’s not working? What are you learning? What needs to change? What’s next?”
“I guess those sound safe enough… not like they’re trying to push me into making a particular decision.”
“Okay, what’s working?”
“We have fun sometimes when we’re hanging out. He can be really funny and I like going out.”
“Anything else?”
“Also, it’s really nice just to have a boyfriend. It’s not like I’d be going out with anyone else if I weren’t going out with him.”
“What’s not working?”
“Well, he can be really argumentative sometimes. And he talks a lot… often about things I’m not very interested in like video games. That can be boring. Sometimes it’s hard to me to get much airtime in our conversations. And when I do, he kind of dismisses my opinions if I disagree with him.”
“What are you learning?”
“Some of the things I thought I wanted in a boyfriend are important– like wanting someone who is outgoing because I’m really not. But also I’m finding there are limits to that. Maybe being outgoing, but not talking ALL the time.”
“So you’re re-thinking through what qualities are important to you?”
“Yes. And I’d like someone I agree with on some basic beliefs. I’m surprised how differently we think about important issues like politics and what’s important in life and how we interact with our friends.”
“What needs to change?”
Without a breath or a pause, she responded, “He does!” Then both mother and daughter started laughing. Because when you realize the whole person needs to change, rather than just making adjustments in a relationship, the decision has become clear. This couple was simply not a good fit.
“What’s next?”
When they had recovered, the mother asked, “What’s next?” And they talked through a plan how for to break up in a respectful and appropriate way that would take into account that they still had to see each other in various settings.
These five questions can be applied to just about any situation where you want to leave a person room to reflect and consider an issue without being told what to do. Simply ask the five questions, asking “anything else?” to make sure you have gotten all of their thinking, and give them space to process. You’ll be amazed at how much becomes clear and how empowering the process is for teens.
Tweetable: You’ll be amazed at how much becomes clear to teens when a parent simply asks these five questions, asking, “anything else?” to make sure you’ve got all of their thinking–and give them space to process. Click to Tweet
Jun 4, 2018 | Nurture
Lucky moms! Kids are in school when Mother’s Day rolls around. Teachers and aides orchestrate the card and gift projects. Dads are not so fortunate. But you can step into the teacher’s shoes and provide fine gift ideas–and for the cards, some messages for the handmade Father’s Day card, courtesy of those holiday professionals at Hallmark. See the complete article here.
Try to make this fun!
Start by asking some conversation starters to help you and the child focus.
- How are you and your dad the same?
- What is your dad really good at?
- What makes you proud of daddy?
Father’s Day message starting points:
Now the child might be more ready to write a brief message of appreciation.
- “You taught me many of the important things I know like….
- “I don’t know where I’d be without your….
- “You’re in some of my favorite memories like….
- “Thank you for being there with just the___ (eg. love, wisdom, guidance) I need.
If the relationship is complicated
One Hallmark writer suggests that the child, “Be warm and sincere in your message. Focus on what’s positive and true between you. Tell him you’re thinking of him. Or simply wish him a great day.”
Family relationship not required for Father’s Day cards
There are plenty of father-like figures in people’s lives, even it’s they’re not officially relatives. Even if the child’s father is present in his or her life, a card for a man who is making spiritual, emotional or relational deposits in the child’s life deserves to hear about it.
- “Having you in my life has made all the difference in the world to me because….
- “You’ve always gone above and beyond to support me and celebrate important times in my life, like when….
- “I don’t know where I’d be without your….
If the child is very young
Consider doing a questionnaire or interview format with the child, like this example. It’s the kind of activity some teachers do for Mother’s Day.
“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”— Mark Twain
May 7, 2018 | Nurture
By guest blogger Tara Miller
Often in life, we are faced with choices between two—or more—good options, but we don’t have the time, energy or money to do all of them. We have to choose. It’s especially difficult to choose when both options seem quite good.
When the person making the choice is a child or teenager, it can be particularly tempting to simply tell them what you think they should choose. After all, you have experience and insight that they don’t. However, if you want them to truly commit to their own decision, they’ll need to take ownership of it themselves.
The “forced choice” approach
Here’s a coaching-based exercise you can use called the “forced choice” approach. In this case, I used it with my 18-year-old daughter who was choosing a college this spring, but it could be applied to any situation where there’s a choice to be made between options.
Knock-out factors
My daughter had first narrowed down her choices using some “knock-out factors.” These are criteria that would make her decide against a school outright. For a serious student athlete, a knock-out factor might be a school not having a good basketball team. My daughter had two knock-out factors: she wanted a school that was out-of-state and she wanted one where the campus felt like a positive fit on an intuitive level. One school looked perfect for her on paper, but when she went to visit it failed the knock-out test. It quickly fell off her list and she didn’t apply there.
After the narrowing process, she was left with two colleges. Both of them seemed to be equally good choices, she had been accepted to both, and she could picture herself attending either school rather easily. So how should she make this decision?
Think through the reasons
I started by asking the opening question: “What are you seeking to accomplish by going to college?” This question was designed to help her think through her reasons for going at all and to consider what she most wanted from the experience. She responded that she wanted to get a degree so she could go on to graduate school; she wanted the opportunity to make friends and live away on her own, and she wanted what she called, “the college experience.”
Criteria to evaluate
Then I asked her, given that processing, what criteria she wanted to use for evaluating a college. Here are the options she generated in no particular order:
- good opportunities to make friends
- professors who are engaged and available
- good preparation for graduate school
- good financial package/pricing
- opportunities for fun off campus
- good study abroad program
- an acapella group
Compare options: Which is more important?
Then came the forced choice part. I asked her to compare each option with each other option and ask, “Which is more important?” No ties or passing, and sometimes she found the choices very difficult, such as when I asked, “Which is more important—a good financial package or a good study abroad program?” Whichever option she deemed more important got a tally mark, which created rankings.
So she made 21 choices– comparing each item with each other item. Here are the rankings she came up with. The tally marks at the end of each item reflect how many times that item was chosen over other items, resulting in a weighting of how important each item was to her.
- good financial package/pricing (6)
- good study abroad program (5)
- good opportunities to make friends (3)
- professors who are engaged an available (3)
- good preparation for graduate school (3)
- opportunities for off-campus fun (1)
- acapella group (0)
Some takeaways
The financial package held a lot of weight for her as she was concerned about going into debt. She really, really wants to study abroad– even more so than she had thought. An acapella group is just a nice-to-have, not an essential. Off-campus fun doesn’t mean as much to her as opportunities to make friends on campus.
She can now use these criteria—weighted by importance—in order to decide between colleges. And if two schools come out basically the same even when compared, there’s always the coin flip test: toss a coin in the air, call it, and when it lands gauge your level of disappointment or excitement.
What are some choices the kids in your life are currently facing? How might you use this exercise to help them make decisions that are most in line with what they value?
Tweetable: Is your son or daughter processing an important decision? One mom shares a coaching exercise she used that helped her daughter choose which university to attend. Click to Tweet
Feb 5, 2018 | Nurture
To a culture increasingly entertained (or disgusted) by its own superficiality, the role of grandparents as spiritual guides seems like a good use of one’s later years. Who better to draw young family members into deeper life issues than their most credible, experienced elders?
Grandparents can find simple guidelines from Rabbi Edythe Mencher. I’m quoting her, but personalizing it for grandparents. She writes, “The earlier we facilitate [a child’s spirituality] the better prepared the child will be, now and in later life, to turn to God for assurance, comfort and understanding.”
Tip: Confront your own misgivings. You don’t have to resolve all your doubts in order to talk to your grandchildren about God.
Each of us can come to a unique knowledge of God just as our ancestors did. It’s the struggle to find God that counts and we should not shy from it.
God is the lover of the human race… our aim is to emphasize that the relationship between God and God’s creations is one of love. More important than the love of God is the child’s awareness of it.
Tip: Learn to interpret questions your grandchild asks about God before replying or changing the subject.
Don’t impose pat answers. Allow children to take their own journey of discovery by expressing their ideas freely. Make sure you are listening carefully to their questions– they may not be asking what you initially think they are asking, and it’s important not to answer what they’re not asking. They’ll feel missed in the conversation. Ask follow up questions if you need to.
Tip: Share your own wonderings about God and the universe.
Include God in everyday play activities. Acknowledge God’s place in our day by day reality. One way to do this is to notice when a person’s conduct resembles God’s action as it is manifested in the world and in life. Human beings are [created in God’s image]….They are godlike when they act with decency and compassion or when they… still forgive the flaws of humanity.
Tip: Help your grandchild develop trust through your loving care, supported by your faith.
The biblical term for faith designates an attitude of trust between humanity and God. To have faith… is to “entrust” oneself to God and to feel secure in this trust. The believer, as Shalom Ben Chorin put it, ‘does not believe in God; he or she believes God…’ expressing trust that the living God is near us….”
See Rabbi Mencher’s complete article here.
Tweetable: #Grandparents! Convincing a culture increasingly entertained (or disgusted) by its own superficiality that your grandchildren’s belief in God should matter to them seems like a good use of one’s later life. Interested doing this better? Click to Tweet
Jan 29, 2018 | Nurture
I love a word puzzle or quiz that comes with the answers at the bottom of the column, sometimes upside down — A. What is the name of the highest mountain in Africa? B. What is the largest brass instrument in an orchestra? *
A question I puzzle over as I engage with a child’s spiritual development is — What habits, if instilled with love, will most likely lead kids into a richly satisfying life of doing right by each other and walking humbly with God?
How would you answer this question for the children you love? For me, here would be the upside down answers at the bottom of my column: compassion for other living things, rituals providing structure and safety, and the following —
Forgiveness and humility
One father spoke to me about this commitment: “Because our family acknowledges God’s involvement in our everyday life, we understand that God desires to be with us and this desire doesn’t arise because we are perfect people. We do wrong and make mistakes yet God still loves us. The result is that we as parents are better able to admit our mistakes (which our children recognize anyway), and we model how to tell on ourselves, apologize and show our family how to forgive and move on.”
Gratitude and generosity
Ms. Kerry provides this example in her book Self-Sufficient Kids: “….. “Mackenzie was 13 years old when she began collecting children’s books for shelters in and around Alpharetta, Georgia. It soon became a family project with her 2 brothers, Alex and Benjamin, working alongside her. In total, they have collected and donated over 360,000 books for shelters across the world through their charity, Sheltering Books.”
Seeking God and truth
Erin James, a mother of three, recently told a story of what happened to her last Sunday at church, The congregation sang a hymn and she let go of her anxieties and concerns as she sang the words with her whole heart. She closed her eyes and felt tears well up at the goodness and love of God. Then, “[m]y oldest daughter tapped me on the shoulder while I was praising God and asked me why I was crying and closing my eyes. I whispered to her that I was thanking Him for everything. As I began singing again, I saw my daughter emulating me out of the corner of my eye. It was beautiful to see her, so young and eager to praise the Lord.”
Kids find better answers to life’s puzzles when we are there to light their way.
* A. Mount Kilimanjaro – B. The tuba
Tweetable: What habits, if instilled with love, will most likely lead kids into a richly satisfying life of doing right by each other and walking humbly with God? Read more here. Click to Tweet
Dec 4, 2017 | Nurture
Christmas. The late journalist Harry Reasoner called it a “tremendous burst of gift buying, parties and near hysteria [done in the name of] a quiet event that Christians believe happened a long time ago.” Let’s be people who show kids how to do December with a different attitude.
Attitude #1: Be gracious
If you are a non-Christian — Accept Christmas graciously.
Maybe you have personal history of your deeply held, non-Christian perspective/faith being trampled on by the majority. Perhaps they’ve been insensitive to you since childhood, but you can aim high and wish your fellow citizens all the joys to which their beliefs entitle them.
If you are a Christian — Accept unbelief graciously.
Some Christians feel such a dramatic shock in their heart when others find the birth of Jesus to be irrelevant. You can become angry and lose the capacity to promote peace. Different people have different beliefs and you really can’t expect that everyone should share yours. Aim high and remember that different perspectives are okay.
Attitude #2: Remain composed
If you are a non-Christian — Accept Christmas respectfully.
The Christmas story has a magnificent appeal, Jesus coming as a baby to show what God is like. Most people like babies–if God wanted to be loved, God moved correctly here. If God wanted to be intimate with humankind, God moved correctly, for the experiences of birth and familyhood are among the most intimate and precious experiences.* It just might be easier to remain composed when you focus on this perspective.
If you are a Christian — Accept unbelief respectfully.
The whole story that a virgin was selected by God to bear God’s son as a way of showing love and concern for humanity is not an idea that has been popular, even with some theologians. Remain composed by admitting that it is a somewhat illogical idea and God does not, and you ought not, force anyone to accept it. Instead, focus on loving people as Jesus did.
Attitude #3: Cultivate and feed goodwill
How? A lesson in these excerpts from the poem Anyway by Dr. Kent M. Keith
- People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered. Forgive them anyway.
- If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
- The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway.
*I’m paraphrasing Harry Reasoner here.
Tweetable: Goodbye Christmas hysteria. Show kids how to do December with a different attitude. Click to Tweet
My new book, Child-centered Spirituality: Helping children develop their own spirituality, is now available on Amazon – just in time for the holidays!
Where did Grandma go when she died?
Why doesn’t God stop bad things from happening?
Many parents have experienced a child asking difficult spiritual questions– usually at inopportune moments. While we stumble around trying to think of an answer, we feel inadequate… and sometimes startled by their questions. If you’re like most adults, you try your hardest to avoid thinking much about questions like these. So why on earth is a child asking you about them?
We talk with our children about the importance of school work, about physical health, about how to navigate social difficulties. We even talk with them about sex, drugs, and internet safety… or if we don’t, we know we should.
So why do we find it so difficult to talk with children about God?
Whether you are a parent, grandparent, teacher, foster parent, or other caregiver, this is a book to help you engage with the children in your life about their spiritual needs.
Purchase your copy in paperback here.
If you prefer the Kindle version, you can purchase it here.
