I was having a stressful morning today trying to get the kids organized so we could get out the door on time for school. As my wife was leaving for work she was telling me to relax and that it would all work out. I had to explain to her that, yes, it would work out because I will tell the kids 35 times that it’s time to get out the door and because of that, we’d probably make it on time. This got me thinking. There has to be a better way!
We are raising our kids the way I think most people raise their kids. We started off doing absolutely everything for them as babies. We had to of course; and as they’ve gotten older, we have given them more and more responsibility. This seems to make sense. The older they get, the more they can and should handle. This does mean that we, as parents, have to spend more time reminding them of their responsibilities until they reach the point of taking full ownership of those new duties. This is where the wheels might be falling off of our plan.
Let’s face it, everyone is busy, especially in the morning! So in our heads, when we pictured ourselves gently reminding the kids of the things they need to be doing, we didn’t take into account how that would really go. Breakfast time is fun and calm but then the morning turns into a Tasmanian devil-esque swirl of chaos! Our “gentle reminders” are usually just bellowed out as we walk briskly by their bathroom or their bedrooms on our way to handle some other task. I’m guessing we aren’t the only parents facing mornings like this! I think what this does is set up a conflict that might follow us around for years, maybe forever!
It seems very difficult to get kids to understand that in almost every case, they are the direct beneficiaries of meeting their own responsibilities. I think they often see the things that we are telling them (nagging them?) to do as “boring parent stuff,” that exists in direct conflict with the “fun kid stuff” they would rather be doing. So instead of appreciating the clean, healthy, cavity-free mouth that comes from brushing their teeth, they instead think of it as time wasted when they could have been playing. (This is more our 11 year old son. Our 7 year old daughter brushes and flosses without being asked!)
This carries over to other responsibilities as well. We tell them to clean their rooms, put dishes away, fold their laundry, take care of this and that all because they, ” have to” and because it’s “their responsibility.” They gripe and complain about it and we insist and it keeps reenforcing the same pattern. It’s adults vs. kids. Maybe nothing new there! But here are the scary ones: it’s also setting up “work” vs. “fun” and “responsibilities” vs. “recreation.”
Why are those scary? They’re scary because I have a theory that those same battles follow us into adulthood and we end up with very clear distinctions between these “good” things and these “bad” things; the things that we want to do and the things we have to do; “work” vs. “fun.” And then we lump all of the bad/have to/work things into a category we label as painful. After all, many (most?) of us grew up with people nagging us about these things. Telling us it was time to do these things or similar things when we most definitely wanted to be doing other things, “fun” things!
The trouble here is, as I mentioned in my article on discomfort, is that humans seek to avoid pain and if my theory is true, we have now just lumped a whole mess of our responsibilities into a category we call pain that we will work hard to avoid. Even though, like the kids brushing their teeth, we are the direct, and often sole beneficiaries of meeting those responsibilities! By seeking to avoid those “painful” responsibilities, we are only hurting/cheating ourselves. And if we don’t find a way to change our associations to those responsibilities, we will either continue to avoid them or be miserable doing them.
So how do we changes these associations or reframe these responsibilities? I think we need to shift our focus. We need to stop looking at the “what” we do and focus on the “why” we do it. Any responsibility we handle, we do so because we want the benefit that comes from having handled the responsibility. (I’m talking here about those things where we may not just love the process but want the outcome. We could, over time, learn to love the doing AND enjoy the benefit but that’s for another day. This is more about those things we tend to avoid.)
Here’s a fun example: we were watching Marie Kondo on Netflix with the kids and I worked with Eric (11) to Marie Kondo his dresser. It looked great! We got rid of a ton of clothes and made it all neat and tidy. The next day he came and thanked me for helping him with that because it made it so easy for him to pick out his clothes for the day. And I said:
Well, I didn’t say that, but that’s exactly what I thought! I was so happy that he realized the benefits that came from taking the time to do what we did.
And I think it has to be about enjoying the benefits. We cram our lives so full of responsibilities that I know personally, I rarely take the time to enjoy any of the benefits. I feel like all I do is take care of one thing and move on to the next thing that I “have” to do. In reality, I don’t “have” to do anything…..unless of course I want the benefit that comes from having met the responsibility! I’m going to see if I can make that shift, focus on why I do what I do and maybe turn some of these “have” to’s into “get” to’s. (Maybe help the kids do the same!)
