This post is part of an ongoing monthly newsletter for parents of preschool aged children at Hope United Methodist Church entitled, "Spiritual Parenting."
"The Kids are Alright?"
Okay. So I have to admit that I was a little discouraged to read a study featured in the Fall 2012 edition of Real Simple's seventh annual Family issue that found that having 'hurried' kids doesn't necessarily equate to creating little stress monsters. Ironically, as a working mom who signs her kid up for every class that comes across my desk and then volunteers to bake cookies for all the kids in the classes, you would think the study would give me a sigh of relief; "Oh, maybe she will be able to use her savings on college and not therapy!" But that's not how I felt. At all. I guess I wanted an excuse to pull back and breathe...and to know ultimately that a study proved beyond a reasonable doubt that that the break I needed is what "good parenting" looks like.
To the credit of the study its sub-title was, "Here's how to know when to stop the madness." You know, that 'I don't need to exercise because we are all in perpetual motion madness'? Of course you can read the article yourself (it is a good article) but here's my concern with our current epidemic of over scheduling from a spiritual perspective. The article says that while the rush of life might not be stressing out the kids, it is definitely stressing out the parents and the problem with stressed out parents is that stressed out parents are in survival mode. The survival mode that prevents us from doing all the things our kids need from us most; snuggling, tickling, laughing, playing, and, perhaps most important of all, listening.
If we need any parenting tool to guide our decisions to stop the madness it has to come from an intentional process of listening to our children. If we are so hurried that we are stressed, how in the world can we responsibly determine that they aren't? Spiritual parenting is about creating sacred space where the voices of the smallest among us can be heard and validated. It requires us all to stop, reflect, and just be. Spiritual parenting recognizes the activity that happens when we create intentional space to step back and look at our lives through our children's eyes. It say's, "you, my child, have a voice worth hearing and I want to listen. I want to learn."
So since I did not find adequate permission that living the typical over-scheduled American life will forever scar my child in this article, here's my radical proposal for us as we rush out to the madness of a new school year. What if we schedule an hour a week to check in and listen to our children? What if we let their words settle in our hearts and then guide our actions as over-stressed, over-scheduled parents? Because the truth seems to be coming to the surface that it's not our kids we need to worry about as much as it is our selves as parents. As keepers of these beautiful souls, really, we have the most to lose and because of this I would propose, they have the most to teach us.
