What is it you want most for your kids?
Obviously there are lots of things we want for our kids, but have you ever considered how our dreams and desires for them impact our parenting? For instance, if we want them to be kind and involved citizens we will promote ways to give back. If we want them to grow up to have a good job, education, grades and high academic performance will drive us. If we want them to be a collegiate, professional or Olympic athlete we will sacrifice to provide for playing opportunities. If we want them to be “good” people with nice manners we will focus on behavior. If we want them to love Jesus, we will prioritize worship and spiritual conversations.
What about happiness?
I haven’t taken a survey, but it seems to me when the question is asked, “What do you want most for your kids?” the #1 answer parents give is they want their kids to be happy. And, happiness is also what I hear teens say they want for themselves. But, I want to tease this one out and challenge our thinking a bit.
If happiness is our aim, we go to great lengths to give our kids what they want. We work really hard to control circumstances to our child’s benefit and secure what’s best for them. And yet we wonder why we have a generation of entitled kids and helicopter parents!?
Seriously!
If we want our kids to be happy, we try to make life easy for them so they can be successful at everything and have fun doing whatever they want. We neglect our parental authority to keep them from being the “only one” not getting to do something. We jump in to protect them from all adversity and conflict. And we spare them from having to make sacrifices or being forced to do something they don’t want to do.
Through our catering we have taught them inadvertantly that the world centers around them and what they want is most important. Therefore, when the time comes for them to make decisions – big and small – their guiding force is “what makes me happy” instead of “what is the right thing to do.”
This week our daughter found herself in a situation requiring her to evaluate exactly these things. Considering she will soon be college-bound and faced with more and more situations where she has to make choices, it is our belief we have given her the tools to do so and now was the time she needed to make her own decision. My husband did aid her by asking some questions for her to consider as she evaluated her two options and prayed through “the right thing to do.”
What ultimately influenced her is what we want most for her. More than anything we want her to find her story in the bigger story of Christ (you know, Get Your Story Straight!) Because when she knows who He is for her and who she is in Him, her foundation will not be centered on self and her own personal happiness. Her perspective will be bigger than that – it will be more about His glory. What He wants for her because it is what He says is good and right and for her best and for the good of others.
After her decision was made and the pressure and stress she had felt began to lift, a friend texted her to commend her decision even though it meant going against the majority’s call “to do whatever YOU want to do.” I am thankful for this friend affirming truth to her. What concerns me is seeing how the driving influence of happiness at all cost is what determines the decisions for many.
With this being the case just consider what this could look like in the future on much bigger issues with more far-reaching consequences. How this will effect marriages? commitment? other relationships? professional integrity and responsibility? future parenting?
How should this affect our parenting now? Perhaps it’s time to evaluate what it is we want most for our kids and stop putting such a premium on happiness above all!
Amen!!