A Really Good Place to Be {in parenting}

We had a conversation with our children last week and it all started with this: Child: Mom, what is the password for Netflix? Me: Why? Child: I want to start season 5 of White Collar while I run on the treadmill. Me: What? Season 5? Are you telling me you’ve seen seasons 1-4 already? Child {suddenly sheepish}: Uuuuh, yes? When I hear about kids making bombs in their garage I’m floored, even a bit judgmental, that the parent had NO idea such activity was happening in their midst. Well, suddenly I’m a little more gracious toward the unawareness. It’s no destructive weapon, but I still felt foolish that my child had invested a lot of time into something without me knowing. We foster a lot of freedom in our home – the freedom to fail, disobey, express anger, explore, challenge – all with the understanding that there will always be consequences to our choices and behaviors. So in an effort to encourage obedience as a harvest of our relationship {rather than forced behavior}, we try to communicate clear expectations of respect and submission, instead of parenting with a lot of rules. However, we are serious about limited technology use. We simply do not trust the grab it has on people, particularly children, so we create flexible boundaries that help us to make good choices with our time. Our television, which isn’t hooked up to local networks or cable, is mostly used for shows watched together as a family. Video games only surface during winter months, and ipods are primarily for communicating with a few friends, have restricted use in bedrooms, and are often stored away. I refuse to let fantasy captivate my children, while shaping unrealistic expectations and numbing their minds and hearts from the story of life happening around them. So…you can imagine how frustrated I was to learn that hours of screen time happened in a sneaky manor. Everyone to the family room….pronto! I’m the kind of mom that might fly off the handle over something silly like spilled milk, but I’m cool as a cat in these moments. Its like God pours his grace over me, and I have a clear vision how to move forward through the conversation and straight into the heart of my child in a way that will reap growth and understanding. I ask questions soaked in genuine concern. I’m not afraid to paint a picture of how their behavior might look in the form of a habit or more captivating sin. I’m patient in the conversation, willing to abandon whatever else we have going on that day – because these are the moments when our spirits are sharpened as a family. I also let my children express their motivations and frustrations, and I listen really, really well – because more than I want them to understand me, I want to understand them. So I will know how to anticipate them, pray for them, walk with them through the things they struggle with. After Mark and I addressed the hidden activity and idleness, we tried to understand the magnetism of books and television for this child, despite the lack of productivity and disengagement they foster. Regardless of our restrictions on technology, our son said what we have always feared about the virtual world: that it can be more exciting than the conversations and activities in real life. His confession made my heart ache and head spin. We invest all our resources into creating a life for our family that is faithful, productive, interesting, and intentional. But of course we can’t compare to the orchestrated outcomes and intense drama of movies! And there’s no way we’ll be able to be as funny as the intelligent humor written into television shows. And real life creativity is way messier and riskier than virtual imagination, which creates a false sense of accomplishment and produces nothing tangible. But come on! We do things like up and move to Africa for goodness sakes! We buy a house on ten acres and start filling it with animals. We have long standing family traditions that root us in deep togetherness and great adventure. We bake and read and laugh and work and play throughout our days. We are part of an amazing community of life long friendships who school and worship and play and struggle together…What more does this kid want? If we had stopped the conversation right here, we all would have left discouraged, and with a misunderstanding of what is really going on. I’m thankful we pushed through, and the more our son talked and the more we listened, we started to understand his heart a little more. He shared how, in truth, he likes his life and he recognizes the unique experiences he’s been given, the rich relationships that surround him — but how sometimes he needs the escape. Oh, we all get that, don’t we? And he also shared how he needs some broader boundaries with his possessions and interests. With five and six year olds still in our midst, sometimes I forget I no longer have a bunch of little chicks in my clutch. I have ones who stand eye to eye with me now {insert tears}, ones that don’t need me quite as much {more tears}, ones that do need increasing freedoms to explore their own morals and limits {insert fear}. Our son’s private watching of White Collar was his way of stealing some independence by doing something without asking and watching something we hadn’t approved. It doesn’t justify his behavior, but it helps us understand where he is right now. He turns 14 in May and we agree it’s time he explore his world with greater freedom. We already entrust him with a good deal of responsibility and work around our property, but maybe we’re choosing the freedoms that feel safest to us. Yet,  what he needs is to take our trust with him to some of the places he wants to go.  I love that we can come together as a family and discern how it might look for him to have more independence. That it’s not an assumption made unnoticed or a milestone that happens without intention. But that we feel the tension and stop and consider the blessings and risks inevitable with liberty. I need these talks as much as he does because these growing up moments in my children’s lives grow me up too as my heart stretches with every step they take into those expanded territories. Truly, the most wonderful part of the conversation is that our son is talking and we’re listening. And I know without a doubt, that’s a really good place to be.