A Strange Subtitle: Don’t Believe Them, Don’t Defend Them, and Don’t Feel Sorry for Them
By Mark DuPré
We parents live in scary times. Wars and a roller-coaster economy are enough to make many of us lose sleep. Some of us are more deeply disturbed by violence, “the wrong people” getting into office, and the obvious decline of social manners on just about every level.
But there is another, near-invisible development over the last several decades that makes the future appear an even less-inviting place for us all. That development is the continuing deterioration of loving, tough, sacrificial, intelligent parenting. Parents who understand what they are doing are rare. Parents who understand what they are doing, and what they are doing is strong, clear and based in the real world—they’re even rarer.
I’ll leave it to the psychologists and sociologists to determine the whys—perhaps we weren’t raised well ourselves, perhaps the pressures of modern life don’t seem to leave us the time to do a good job, or perhaps we all just want our children to love us more than we want them to be successful. My concern here is not the why, but what we as parents actually do, and I suggest that we not do these things if we want our children to be all God wants them to be.
There are only three categories here. I don’t pretend that they cover the spectrum of all the important issues in child training. But these three issues are interrelated, and that they involve a conglomeration of perspectives and feelings found in our minds and hearts.
The challenge here is not to our children, but to us. These short articles don’t present a bag of tricks or behavioral incentives that make life easier for those of us who are discovering that having children can be challenging. I am laying down a challenge to do some real wrestling inside. I’m asking every reader to be open to a new point of view—or several—about their children.
We need to face the fact that the best parenting comes from folks whose minds and hearts have been freed to BE parents, who have been delivered from some of the “stinkin’ thinkin’” of the age, and who are not looking to their children to fill in what’s been missing in their hearts up to the point of reproduction.
Being a good parent has more to do with slaying the dragons inside of us than with learning all the tricks of the trade. I can promise the reader that the one who wrestles with the issues surrounding the three categories here will undergo significant and fundamental transformation in parenting. Go ahead—let the headings throw you a little. That’s a good start!
Don’t (necessarily or automatically) believe them.
First of all, we’re talking here about day-to-day behavior. The great exception, which needs to be mentioned first off, is any kind of physical, sexual or emotional abuse. Any accusation made by a child against another person in the area of abuse needs to be taken seriously and investigated. That’s another issue entirely.
When I say not to believe them, what I’m saying here is that a child’s version of an event or situation can never be the full truth with a totally accurate context. There are several reasons for that:
1) Kids lie all the time.
My favorite example of parental denial on this subject was the simple statement, “My child wouldn’t lie.” Wow. Let me say that again: Wow. Now if the person had said, “My child didn’t lie about that,” at least that might have been an informed opinion—perhaps the parent actually knew enough about the situation to make such an unequivocal statement. Even “I’ve never known my child to lie” at least provides for the possibility that the parent might be unaware of instances where their little darling might have stretched the truth beyond repair.
But “My child wouldn’t lie”? Seriously? That’s simply being naïve beyond words and demonstrates a denial of reality that doesn’t serve either the parent or the child. A parent who believes that is already in trouble. Reluctant as I am to quote anything from a Star Wars film, I have to ask you to consider the words of Darth Vader to us here: “Search your heart—you know it to be true.”
We’re a fallen race; original sin is real, and the selfishness and self-centeredness of little children is evident daily. Part of the wonder of children is their breathtaking self-centeredness. In many ways, kids are innocent and surprising and delightful. Watching them discover and grow and begin to put things together is one of the great delights of being a parent or grandparent. But at the same time, children are the center of their little universes, and often react badly to challenges to their position. It’s not a reflection on us that our young children are selfish creatures. What is a reflection on us is how we handle that fact.
According to scripture, Jesus learned obedience through the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). While He remained sinless, Jesus had to learn and grow. And he was tempted in all points as we were (Hebrews 4:15). He had to grow in fighting the enemy and in overcoming temptation. If our Lord and Savior had to grow into the fullness of obedience, then we must extend the same courtesy of spiritual development to our children.
Children are more instinctive than we are—we who have learned rebellion or manners, or both. Being instinctive is not the same as being innocent. Children instinctively work to survive, shift blame, create diversions, and divide-and-conquer. Due to original sin or whatever you choose to call it, children are often brilliantly able to assume an innocent posture while deviously diverting all attention from their sinful actions. They will sometimes lie, half-lie, point the finger, “forget,” and in every way do whatever it takes to temporarily NOT be the center of attention if the situation warrants.
I’m not saying that children are evil; most of the time, they are only half-aware of what they are doing. But they have an innate sense of what it takes to get them off the hook. Take a step back and watch it sometime. It’s a sight to behold.
2) Kids don’t possess anything close to adult perspectives on situations, especially when they are involved.
Great story: My son and my niece were playing together in a room when he was two, she was three. Suddenly my visit with my brother was interrupted with a loud cry. My brother went in and surveyed the situation: my son was crying and my niece wasn’t. My brother asked what happened, and her response was, “[He] got hit.” Now this was completely true, and while I remain impressed by the use of the passive tense to evade punishment at such a tender age, it was a truth that suggested a lie—that the hit might simply have come from outer space. Decades later, we still laugh about this, but if we’d taken my niece simply at her word, we’d still be scratching our heads to this day as to just how my son got hit.
Parents need to develop loving, thoughtful and creative interrogation techniques. The first thing is to assume that you don’t know the real story, and that your child is capable of contributing only a portion to the full story. We need to learn how to draw out the facts—and hope that the facts may eventually lead us to the truth. Even if the child tells the full truth as he or she sees it, that can only be a small portion of the story. It’s unfair to our children to think that they can provide us with all the facts, and then go on to provide us with a full, well-rounded context in which to understand all those facts. Most adults in full possession of the facts can’t do that! In fact, we have an entire system of justice that fails to do that every day. We can’t expect a child to be aware and sensitive enough to pull all the facts together—that’s our responsibility! We need to bear that weight.
We need to ask what happened from their point of view, and then begin the real questioning. The first thing they have to share is simply the most important thing for them to say at the time; it may be pure self-defense, or it might be the biggest impression they have of the event. But once their first impression is out, we need to take a step back and draw out “the rest of the story.”
After our children give their first version of the story, we have to ask the other questions:
“Do you remember anything else that happened?”
“Who else was there?”
“How did you react?”
“Did you provoke anyone in any way?”
“Did you say anything that might have been taken wrong?”
“Was any adult involved—and how?”
“If I asked ___________ about what happened, what do you think they would say?”
The assigning of blame is always a key issue, of course, when something happens. No one likes being blamed, and especially unfairly. Most children, even those well trained in telling the truth, will struggle with any version of events that allows blame to fall on their tender shoulders. Adults struggling with this same issue occupy about 20 minutes out of every hour of TV crime drama. By instinct, most children will string together a series of observations that puts blame anywhere else.
Try questions like this:
“After such-and-such happened, what did you do that was right?”
“What did ______________ do that was wrong”?
“Did you do anything wrong?”
“Is there something else that you think you could have done?”
“What do you think should have happened?”
These are great teaching moments for our children, if done briefly and with delicacy. If we can steer their thinking just a little toward a larger perspective—without coming down hard on them—our children can learn some major life lessons from these moments. By asking the right questions the right way, we can do three things:
- We can diffuse the intensity of the situation, because we are bringing in a larger point of view that reduces the passion of the moment. That larger perspective can help diffuse the intensity that they fear is going to be aimed at them. By asking questions of our children, we are inviting them to be a part of the process of discovering the truth—and consequently, what ought to be done. We’re inviting them to be the junior partner in the search. This can, over time, transform their goal from avoiding blame to helping you get the facts.
- We affirm our love and support for our children. I am the first to roll my eyes at most self-esteem activities, but children need to be affirmed constantly, and especially in situations where they feel they might be blamed. Even if blame is rightly destined to descend upon their guilty hides, by wisely bringing them into the “search for truth” dialogue with questions, we are affirming our love and respect for them as individuals, even if the truth ends up making it hard for them to sit down for a while.
- We are teaching them the incalculable lesson that truth is not at their disposal, to be used towards their own ends, but is something to be searched for, something to be found and honored. We are letting them know early that their perspectives are wanted and respected, but are not to be confused with the overall truth of any situation. We are teaching them that their feelings are genuine and worthy of acknowledgement, but are not the final word. We are demonstrating that facts are indeed important, but they are not the full truth. And lastly, we are presenting them with the gift of learning at a tender age that it is something (and eventually, Someone) outside of their thoughts and feelings that is the final interpreter of an event.
Part Two is my next post (Friday the 11th)
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