Category: parenting

  • Daddy, if you love me…

    I love spending solo time with my kids. And I really want them to enjoy spending time with me. We spend lots of time doing stuff together as a family, but I think there’s something special about the ratio being 1:1 (or 1:2) instead of 5:2.

    At least once per month I try to take them out to do something– just the two of us. It’s often something simple. Like a trip to Target or Home Depot or out for a taco. But my goal is always to do something a little bigger. Something that’s really special. (When you live in a tourist destination like San Diego, this is actually pretty easy.)

    I also try to mix passions in hopes of passing on some of the things I love. My love for college sports was passed on to me by my dad taking me to Notre Dame football, basketball, and hockey games as a kid. So they go with me to San Diego State football and basketball games. And this year we added the San Diego Padres to the mix because they both seem to enjoy baseball.

    In March, Paul and I were walking to the SDSU vs. Utah game. The Aztecs were ranked in the top 10 in the country. The game was sold out. And the country was just discovering that Viejas Arena had become the most exciting venue west of the Mississippi. Paul dragged his feet a little as we walked across campus.

    “Paul, don’t you want to go to the game? It’s sold out. The Aztecs are awesome this year. And I love sharing this with you.” He got up the courage to tell me the truth. “I really like hanging out with you dad. But we always do things that you love, like sports, and it doesn’t count as a dad date unless it’s something I want to do.”

    My 7 year old prophet hit me… Right. Between. The. Eyes.

    What do you want to do?

    In some ways it seems silly to miss this. But I had a default to want to take my kids along to things I wanted to do. And they picked up that I would have gone to this stuff with or without them, so it didn’t feel as special. While they liked the games they wanted me to come spend time on their turf. They felt loved as we went to games. But they would really feel the love if I’d bypass what I wanted to do for what they wanted to do.

    Yesterday was case-in-point as we went to the Pokemon World Championships. (Pictures above) Thousands of people geeked out on Pokemon. They spoke a language of characters I couldn’t comprehend. The card games, the collectables, the people dressed like the characters. I couldn’t have been more out of place.

    But my kids? It was a giant “I love you” card for them. They couldn’t believe we actually went. (Paul asked me about it months ago but thought I had forgotten.) I didn’t rush them. I just tried to figure it out. I sat and watched as they played in table tournaments. I got excited when they won. I was disappointed when they lost. We took pictures. We wandered around the hotel to make sure they’d seen everything. I learned the names of some characters.

    Parenthood is humbling. There’s times you think you’re winning when you are losing and visa versa. For every miss I’ve had– it felt good to get a win yesterday.

  • The Big Picture of Parenting

    Original Cartoon published in Wall Street Journal (July 2008)

    Thinking about this– I know I have two huge handicaps.

    1. I didn’t grow up under “ideal circumstances” but I still turned out just fine.
    2. My own kids are only ten, almost eight, and five months.

    I’m not a parenting expert by any means. In fact, because I didn’t grow up with a strong relationship with my own dad (or any male whom I’d label a role model) I’m still learning how to dad.

    While I might not be there yet as a parent, and while I might not have the best native skills as a dad, I still have the power of observation.

    Here’s what I know from doing youth ministry and ministering to adolescents and their parents for my entire adult life: Parents who focus on the Big Picture have a higher success rate than parents who get lost in the daily battles.

    They win the battle but lose the war.

    What do I mean?

    Parents who are highly controlling, who don’t let their adolescent children experiment and find themselves in middle and high school, tend to see their children go wild in their 20s. The mistake seems to be that they focused on managing behaviors instead of trying to parent a teenager trying to figure out who they are. (The primary task of adolescent development.)

    So they freak when their 14 year old makes out with a girl at a dance. Or put them on lockdown when they try alcohol at a party at 12. Or force them to attend a church camp when they are 15 “to fix that nasty attitude.” As if Repunzel-ing them were going to work.

    Sidenote: Isn’t the plot of every Disney movie a struggle to find ones self against the wishes of controlling parents? Ever wondered why those stories connect so strongly with adolescents? It’s powerful to them because it’s their life! 

    What’s the Big Picture?

    I like to look at my children with a long lens. What are the types of things I’d like them to be as adults? And then I work backwards.

    • I want them to be strong, independent thinkers. Not yes men. –> Arguing about things will be normal. Questions like “Why?”, my authority, and fairness are annoying, but fostering that.
    • I want them to enjoy simplicity. Reject the desire of plenty for the joys of saying no. –> While we live a pretty simple life, we allow them to experience luxuries. They want things, earn them, get them. In order to reject that stuff they’ll need to discover for themselves that there is no happiness in things.
    • I want them to have happy, healthy, and simple adult relationships. –> That means I can’t freak out about everything. They are going to like who they want to like. And they may make some mistakes along the way. But I don’t want them carrying around a daddy-phobia when they think about a partner. Is dad going to approve of this person? I want them to be happy. To have a healthy marriage. And to have simple adult relationships.
    • I want them to find pleasure in what they do. –> That means we want our kids to pursue their dreams for them, not ours. Not surprisingly, my kids are into nerdy things. (I mean, I’m kind of a nerd, right?) We’ve been open to letting the kids explore what they’re into. We exposed them to soccer early, I loved soccer growing up. But they hated it. So we didn’t force them to love it for us. Well beyond childhood we want to rally behind what they want to do vocationally. Sure, I have dreams for them. But their dreams for themselves are so much cooler than my dreams for them.
    What’s the Big Picture for Your Kids? Can you articulate it? And do you allow your Big Picture to overrule your cultural desires to over-parent?

  • The role of adolescent consent in parenting

    Kristen and I now officially see the precipise on our horizon.

    Megan, our oldest child, turned 10 yesterday. Within a few years we will be in the thick of adolescence. (And all of the parents I’ve worked with over the years will simple laugh. Not a polite giggle. An evil laugh because now I will know the terror they have gone through!)

    OK, not quite that dramatic. But change is definitely on the horizon for our family. And we know we’ll have to adjust our parenting skills as Megan enters into this new developmental stage.

    I recently read an article in Psychology Today that gives a high-level look at how parenting needs to adjust as you shift from having “a kid” to having “an emerging adolescent.”

    Thus, offensive though it may feel, the resistant adolescent’s words of advice to his parent have a ring of truth: “Get used to it!” Come the teenage years, compliance with parental authority is less automatic. This is why it’s easier to parent the dependent-minded child than it is the independent-minded adolescent. The harder “half” of parenting comes last.

    The formula for obedience to parental authority is simply this: command + consent = compliance. Parental authority is not automatic or absolute. It is not a matter of parents being able to control adolescent choices; it’s a matter of controlling their own choices in ways that allow them assert influence. And this takes work, working for consent.

    Consent can be secured by a variety of parental approaches – declaring your need for cooperation, making a serious and firm request, attaching consequences to compliance or noncompliance, repeated insistence to show you mean business, explaining reasons that are persuasive, negotiating a deal to get what you want.

    Read the rest

    I think it’s important for us to focus on the long-term goal. We want our kids to develop into strong, independent adults. In their relationships, we want them to have healthy, happy, and simple adult relationships.

    So, as we enter the precipice of the next 10 years, we are going to try to keep a long-lens on things. We know in the granular, day-to-day grind, that won’t be easy. And as soon as I wrote that down and looked back at it my youth pastor self said to my parent self, “Uh huh.”

    Parents of adolescents: Is the Psychology Today article on-point? Or do you just try to muscle your authority over your children through middle/high school?

  • Introducing lent to the kids

    Introducing lent to the kids

    Kristen and I decided to introduce lent to our church hating, Awana loving kids.

    Our kids aren’t game for anything. I get jealous when I go to my friends house and their kids would walk across the desert for a glass of water just because mom or dad said it’d be fun and meaningful. My kids are the exact opposite. I pitch going to Sea World on a Saturday and they glibly respond, “OK. I guess. There isn’t any good TV on today anyway.”

    Knowing that– we still had this crazy idea of bringing our kids into our observance of lent.

    Here’s how I did it.

    Jelly beans. Yup, jelly beans.

    On Sunday, I made a secret trip to Rite Aid and came back with a big 2 pound bag of fresh, delicious Brach’s jelly beans.

    Then I waited for them to be in a good mood. A good & hungry mood, that is. After school on Monday was perfect. Both of them were chipper when I picked them up from school (rarity) and yesterday’s lunch at school must have been especially nasty because they were starving for snack.

    On the way home I got them thinking. “Hey, have you ever heard of lent? Not lint like on your clothes… lent, the 40 days before Easter.”

    That got them thinking a little and asking questions about lent. By the time we pulled into the driveway they were curious and I had dropped hints that mom and dad wanted to talk about a lent challenge and that it had a reward on Easter Sunday.

    Mom had hot buttery popcorn waiting for them. They grabbed a handful and started to munch. I interrupted them, “Hey, why don’t you guys go to the bathroom and stuff and come back. We’ll have a snack and talk about lent.”

    My jaw dropped. They were into it!

    They came back into the kitchen and sat around our little island. That’s when I brought out the jelly beans. Their eyes got huge! They didn’t see that coming.

    Hook, line, and sinker… let’s reel them in.

    After that we talked about what lent is, why people observe it, why its important to sacrifice something important to us in preparation for Easter, etc.

    The whole time we’re chatting they are munching on popcorn & jelly beans. The treats were the oil that is lubricating this conversation! This was reinforcing the kinesthetic learning in lent while talking about why lent was a connection between our 40 days of sacrifice and Jesus’ 40 days in the desert.

    “Mom and dad are each going to give up something important to them for lent. We’d really like you guys to think about giving up something important, too. It’ll be a great way for you to prepare your heart for Easter.” Then we talked about silly things to give up, like foods we don’t like or impossible things to give up like peeing or breathing. And we asked them if they thought other kids at school were going to give something up for lent. They didn’t know… so we asked them to ask around, because a lot of kids give up things for lent.

    We ended our talk with a simple challenge. “Let’s talk tomorrow about what you want to give up. We aren’t going to tell you what  you should or shouldn’t give up. So think hard about it. Each of us will give up something different. And the only one who is really going to know if you’ve cheated is you. (And God) Lent starts on Wednesday.”

    I know this is a simple thing. 5 minutes. But for us, not having a lot of success at introducing Jesus into our family beyond praying for meals occasionally and going to church, this was a big success. Totally worth celebrating! And totally building our confidence.

    Parenting + spiritual formation? Yes, we can do this!

    Update: Click here for free, downloadable lent signs for your house

  • Tammy’s Christmas Present

    Tammy McLane's Christmas Present: A lump of coal
    Christmas, 2010

    Tammy, our fictional daughter, has once again earned a lump of coal as her Christmas present. This is all she is getting on December 25th. You can tell her now. She’s firmly earned it with yet another year of bad behavior. Such a brat!

    Megan and Paul, ever reminded of their elder sisters sinful life, have asked that Kristen and I extend grace to the little hellion and give her a full allotment of presents. To which we replied that we have– this year her coal has a red bow.

    Some children believe in Santa Claus. Ours believe that once upon a time an elder sister made mom and dad so angry on a road trip that they pulled over and left her on the side of the highway.

    At least our fable has an idol threat attached to it.

  • A culture of fear

    walk-to-schoolLast night I got a Facebook wall post by a former neighbor and childhood friend. He posted some Google Streetview links to the places where we grew up, including the elementary school that we walked to. It didn’t take me long to get curious about our daily walk to and from James Madison Elementary School. I was a bit surprised to see it pop up and say .7 miles.

    When I thought out my daughter, entering 3rd grade, I thought to myself “there is no way I’d allow Megan to walk .7 miles to school without an adult!“It’s too dangerous. Too many bad things could happen. Plus we would worry all day wondering if she ever even made it to school. Couldn’t the school call me when she got there? Would someone call the police on us for letting her walk?

    Isn’t that an odd reaction? My mom was not cruel in making me walk to school. Nor was she considered a bad parent for not driving me. In fact, all the kids in my neighborhood walked to school! She would have been seen as a bad parent if she had driven me each day. Culture in 1980s permitted– demanded that kids walk to school.

    But the world is way more dangerous than it was when you were a kid, Adam! crime-rate

    That was my first reaction, too. Until I did some research and discovered that our country is much safer today than it was in 1985. While there is a general assumption in our psyche that things aren’t as safe as they were when we were kids… in fact, the world is a safer place. Less violent crime. Less petty crime. Even less violent crime against children.

    The culture of fear in America

    So why is it that we live in a safer society today but I would never allow my children to walk to school unattended? Why is it that it seems ludicrous to allow an 8 year old to walk to school with some friends? Why is it that I would be viewed as a horrible parent if I allowed her to do that?

    The answer is that in the last 10 years we’ve allowed a new cultural more of irrational fear for our children to creep in. It wouldn’t be illegal for my child to walk .7 mile to school but it would feel wrong.

    Culture mores are not always logical.

    Cultural mores are not always reasonable.

    Cultural mores are sometimes counter-productive for a society.

    When I think back to my childhood most of the good stuff happened as a result of long periods of time without parents. We walked to school, we were at school all day, and when we came home we played with our friends. We spent epic amounts of time in trees or playing games or creating sandlot baseball tournaments. Now we take our kids to school, ask the teacher to report their behavior to us, and barely allow them any unsupervised time without us. In effect, normative parenting skills inhibit a childhood like I had.

    Remember getting on  your bike and riding around the neighborhood all day?

    Remember going to the park with no adults around?

    Remember disappearing into the woods to build forts?

    All gone. Not because we live in a society that is more dangerous or litigious. But because culture has taken these things away.

  • Danger Boy

    bike

    “That was so cool! A little scary. Can we go faster next time?“ These are the words of my five year old yesterday. Towards the end of the day Paul came to the office to spend time with me because it was abundantly clear mom needed a break from his antics. Not sure how I would transport home my bike, my normal gear, and a kindergartner via the trolley I just told Kristen to drop him off. I have unshakable trust in the theory of emergent plans.

    Standing on the street corner I decided that it was plausible to have Paul straddle the bar in front of me, hold onto the handlebars, and peg his feet into my bottle holder. The key to understanding this wild ride is knowing that the journey is .7 miles and nearly all downhill. Even by myself it is one of those downhill journeys that hovers right on that border between amazing and just-a-little-too-fast. So I picked him up, got him seated, and off we went. As daddy white-knuckled down the hill suddenly realizing how stupid this adventure was, Paul beamed with pride. Daddy is thinking about what he’ll tell the paramedics on the way to the Emergency Room and Paul’s wide-eyes glisten as he dreams of going faster. My inner actuarialist vomited all over his shoes. My inner 12 year old thought it was rad. A few minutes later we arrived at the trolley station. Paul got off my bike and sat down on the bench next to me. In that moment we both realized he was a little bit closer to manhood.

    Outside of the obvious needs of taking care of our children we are challenged with raising them. Kristen and I have been learning that raising a boy is entirely different than raising a girl. And we are having our eyes opened wider and wider every day as to what that means for Paul. Our son loves to live life a little dangerous. While dad dreams of playing rounds of golf at Torrey Pines, Spyglass, or even Pebble Beach… Paul is dreaming about jumping off of stuff, climbing mountains, and finding snakes. His dreams for himself are often more daring and dangerous than mom and dad can handle. And yet we long to foster this spirit of adventure in him. In fact, I want nothing more than a son who looks danger in the face and steps up to conquer instead of winnowing away his dreams because of fear. While I am always concerned he’ll get hurt I am more worried that my own fears will contribute to him not becoming the boy his souls longs to be. We constantly weigh the fear or danger vs. the fear of not enough danger.

    Yesterday was a reminder of my role in raising a son who is crazy enough to change the world.

    Yesterday was a reminder that behind great men lay great parents who reminded them that its not just about danger, it’s about embracing courageous danger.

    Yesterday was a reminder that our society cannot be filled with men who are always cautious and only seek adventure in measured amusement parks or other things that are pseudo-dangerous.

    Yesterday was a reminder that if I want my son to believe to his core in the theory of emergent plans he needs to see me go MacGyver here and there.

    Plans? Who needs a plan?

  • 5 Best Online Communities for Kids

    If you don’t have young kids, than you probably have no idea that social networking has really taken off for kids. In fact, I’d call these social play sites. Our kids are completely addicted to them. They are safe, fun, and most of them teach values that any parent would like to encourage. Here are the top 5 in no particular order. Our kids say “We like them all the same!”

    #1 Web Kinz (Cost: Stuffed Animal about $15) Chances are if you’ve heard of one site kids are hooked on, this is it. Parents buy a Web Kinz stuffed pet at a boutique store (like Hallmark) and once home parents create an account for that animal. Kids play games and do tasks to earn money. In turn, with the money the kids can buy accessories for their child’s online version of their pet, feed their pet, take him to the doctor, or even send them on vacation! What I love about Web Kinz is that the site is constantly updated with new challenges. I also love that kids learn a bit about the value of money, earning things, and trading. What I don’t like is that the stuffed animals are $15-20 each and the kids always want a new one.

    #2 Club Penguin (Cost: Free and subscription service) This is Disney’s entry into social networking. There are two levels, paid and free. Our kids only use the paid component and seem to like it just fine. Unlike Web Kinz, a child’s character in Club Penguin is decidedly social. Within their virtual world the penguins can go to a series of different rooms. Our kids love taking their penguins to parties! I love that the kids can play against each other on seperate computers. Snow ball fights abound here in San Diego! As a parent, I like that Club Penguin is a bit more narrative based, too. I often will see Megan reading pages of text. And every day I catch her reading the site’s blog!

    #3 HandiPoints (Cost: FREE Some pay upgrades available on Amazon.com) This is a really cool concept. Instead of games competing with parents to get stuff done, HandiPoints is built around the idea that playing games online is a reward. Our kids love to earn points online by doing chores around the house. Parents have their own login area where they set up their child’s task chart. Megan and Paul each have seperate tasks and they can login to their own area to check off their daily tasks and earn points. With the points you can buy stuff like furniture and clothes for your character.

    #4 Moshi Monsters (Cost: 100% FREE) This kicks the cuteness factor way up! Our kids love playing with their monsters. Kids adopt and name a monster they help create. The more they play that game and earn rewards, the more control they get over their characters environment and personality. Mom and dad don’t really get the point of this one, but kids love it.

    #5 Woogi World (Cost: Free and paid subscription) Our kids dig this site and it has a clear goal parents can understand. “Teaching kids internet safety, life values, and fun!” WW is run by a foundation with a specific goal for the site beyond commerce. So you may want to read up on it before letting your kids join. Individual kids can join, but you can also partner with schools so a whole classroom can create accounts to teach kids about safety. It’s a little like all the rest with a decidely educational and parental bend. Our kids like this one… and I can see teachers and homeschool parents endorsing this one as it is clearly the “safest” for kids, even if it isn’t the most fun.

    What do your kids play? What sites are they hooked on? What sites should I have mentioned?

  • Moms: What they Want from You

    Moms: What they Want from You

    This is appearing in the May issue of the Romeo Peach, our church’s monthly newsletter.

    May is here. A month of new flowers, school winding down,
    and your house is full of abnormal chaos. The grass is now green and the
    cobwebs are getting cleared as cabin fever turns into “end of school countdowns,”
    prom, and yearbooks.

    May is also a month where your mom may seem more tense than
    usual. Why is that? I’d like to offer
    a little glimpse into your mom’s thoughts right now. While she may be patient
    and while she may not tell you why she is tense, chances are mom is tense
    because of her children. You may be the
    reason mom is tense. Having kids in middle and high school is tough on mom… let
    me offer three reasons she may be tense and ways you can help.

    (more…)