A New Way of Parenting... and Being

Are you frustrated that your disciplining is not working?  Are you so overwhelmed with the stresses in your marriage and family?  The most influential course I ever attended during my college days was "Moral Foundations of Family Life."  Through reading many articles and the book "Leadership and Self-Deception," our professor took us on a journey to discover a better way of parenting... and living.  He introduced us to the Arbinger Institute - a scholarly research and consulting group who trains "organizations and individuals to solve their deepest and most difficult people problems - problems that have persisted despite all efforts to solve them."  Arbinger wrote this amazing article explaining "The Parenting Pyramid" which diagrams how to be more successful in our marriages and families.  I highly recommend reading the article and here's the main message:

We tend to focus most of our time and energy on what to do when things go wrong - reacting to and correcting our children once they misbehave.  Parents and parenting books tend to focus on what to do once they hit, scream, throw food, won't share, talk back, ...

     But the Arbinger Institute explains that "the key to effective parenting is to... begin focusing [more of our time and] energy on helping things go right rather than on handling them once they have gone wrong."  In the article, they have you ask four basic questions in order to understand how to be more effective.  

     These little people that come into our families have SO MUCH to learn... and so do we as their parents.  We take on the responsibility to correct and discipline them - but this is only a fraction of the whole picture.  As you travel down the pyramid, each underlying level is more fundamental and dramatically impacts the success or failure in correcting children.  "The solution to a problem in one part of the pyramid lies below that part of the pyramid."

• Am I correcting my children without TEACHING them?

"The more effective we are at TEACHING our children, the easier it is to CORRECT them when we have to."  "Far from seeing our children as irritations, or as disloyal and ungrateful burdens who require correction, we will be seeing them instead as children who have not yet learned.  The emotional character of our correction will be loving and helpful rather than impatient and angry."

Here's Brayden learning to practice sharing with Mommy!  Sorry I haven't captured the many moments of him chucking food across the room or grabbing toys from baby sister :)  Oh this principle of prepping our children before they enter situations and instilling in them our values is such a great reminder for me!  So, it would probably be helpful if I explain what is expected right before we play with other kids on the playground or go into the grocery store...

• What is the quality of my RELATIONSHIP with my CHILDREN?  

"No matter how much time we spend teaching our children, however, they are unlikely to learn much from us if they don't like us." If your corrections and teachings are still not working, take some time to focus on improving your relationship with your children.  Laugh more, play more, listen more!  I totally believe that the relationship we build with our little ones now can have an important impact in the values and decisions they choose as teenagers.  Relationship is KEY now and in the future.   

• What is the quality of my RELATIONSHIP with my SPOUSE?

"The marital relationship is the central relationship in the family; in significant ways it colors all the others.  This is why someone once said that 'a woman happy with her husband is better for her children than a hundred books on child welfare.' And it is why another was able to tell fathers: ' The most important thing you will ever do for your children is to love their mother.'"  In a period of marital tension and frustration, your ability to be loving and attentive with your children is greatly affected.  So, here's 50 ways to show your husband you love him and also date night ideas.  

• How pure is my WAY OF BEING?

     "At the bottom of it all is our fundamental way of being - who we are as people. Who we are is a function of our deepest attitudes and sensibilities towards others.  It is the very way we see and experience the people in our world.  It is our way of being in the world with them.  This means that they key to my relationship with my [spouse] is my personal "way of being" - my fundamental way of regarding [him/her].... Do I appreciate and honor [him/her] as a person - with hopes, dreams, fears, and wants?  Am I selfless in our relationship... or selfish?  Am I self-forgetfull... or self-preoccupied?  No questions are more important for marriage, for what [you and your spouse] enjoy in [your] relationship depends directly on the way of being each of [you] brings to [your] relationship."  
     So, our personal way of being is the current quality of our heart and mind...  Are you inwardly blaming your spouse, thinking only of yourself, seeing your children as irritants, feeling hoping mad and impatient...?!  Or, are you choosing in that moment to put aside your own needs and desire to be understood and instead seeing your spouses needs?  Or in a moment when your child is misbehaving or choosing the wrong, are you seeing that child as someone who needs to be loved and taught?  For me, my way of being depends on the light of Christ and the fruits of the Spirit within me.... love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness... which is NOT always easy to have!  We desperately need forgiveness and grace continually from our Savior and our spouses.  And I believe that through turning to the word of God and prayer, that our omnipotent and omniscient Creator can begin to TEACH and CHANGE US little by little just as we are in the midst of trying to teach our children :)

So "whenever drastic correction is called for with a child we should begin working on the three deepest levels of the pyramid immediately and simultaneously."  And in whatever marital struggles you are currently facing, remember that your own personal way of being is the first thing you should address.  Really, it is the only thing you have complete control over and is a fundamental factor in your effectiveness and happiness in your relationships.