What are our Hopes and Dreams for Children?

Surveys of Western parents indicate that most have high hopes and expectations for their adult children. Our top hopes include:

values needed to make good decisions
the confidence to pursue their dreams
getting a job they love
to be highly successful in their chosen career
achieving academic success.

The American politician Frank A. Clark once wrote, “The most important thing that a parent can teach their children is how to get along without them.”

A challenge of parenting (and sometimes teaching) is stepping back and allowing children to make their own choices and decisions. It seems a crazy thing that our parent role has the long-term aim to eventually make ourselves redundant, seeking to produce wise and independent young men and women.

When little our offspring are totally reliant on us. During the Primary years teachers spend more time with them than parents. In early Secondary School, peers and friends become the dominant influence, often resulting in them seemingly pushing adults away. A few short years later the child is ready for independence. The whole period flies rapidly.

The tricky bit seems to getting the balance right in giving the appropriate amount of responsibility to children at each stage. Too little and we ‘hamstring’ our children, making them over-reliant on us. Too much before they are ready can be just as harmful. Some parents tell me that, “They just want their child to be happy!”, yet most adults know that disappointment, failure, and learning from mistakes can be very helpful experiences (along with the successes and joys) that assist in developing children and teenagers into ‘flourishing” adults, who are balanced, well-adjusted and mature.

Helping students to accept appropriate responsibility is vital as by 17 or 18 they will have all sorts of decisions to make about sex and sexuality, diet, health and fitness, driving, relationships, following Jesus and faith, how they spend their time and money and the direction their lives may take. For a parent it takes great wisdom as when to intervene or give room for choice.

Tim Ellemore (Growing Leaders) (1), in a blog post on growing independent adults, is quite blunt. He identifies the following errors of parents and teachers:

We risk too little
We rescue too quickly
We rave too easily.

He advocates the following:

Help children and teenagers to take calculated risks. Encourage them to try hard things, talk with them, but let them do it. Prepare them for how the world really works.
Discuss how they must learn to make choices. School age students must learn to both win and lose, not get all they want and also learn to face the consequences of their decisions.
Choose positive risk taking options and launch kids into it (i.e. sports, jobs, etc). Give them responsibilities and when old enough encourage them to try new and hard things, like sports and part-time jobs. It may take a push but get them out of their comfort zones and trying new opportunities.
Affirm ‘safe’ risk-taking and hard work wisely. Help them see the advantage of both of these, and that stepping out a comfort zone usually pays off.

Ellemore states that teenagers do not have to love their parents and teachers every minute. They will get over the disappointment of failure and discipline but not the effects of being spoiled. He suggests that if we treat our emerging adolescents as fragile, they will grow up to be fragile adults. The most important characteristic he identifies is resilience, which is one of Calrossy’s four values.

I certainly believe it is okay to hold high hopes and dreams for our children. I also know that childhood and adolescence will have challenging moments for students and their parents. However, we should continue to recognise that the process of becoming independent and resilient requires allowing students to make their own mistakes and learn from experience, and consequences, with appropriate mentoring and support. Whilst we promote success in academic studies, it is vital that we never lose sight of the complexities of childhood or adolescence and the need to allow students the opportunity to become independent and make their own ways ahead into being successful, well-rounded adults.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Proverbs 3: 5-6

David Smith

Principal

Tim Ellemore https://growingleaders.com/dr-tim-elmore-millennial-expert-founder-of-growing-leaders/

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