Parenting is an investment because our investment is likely to have a great future value. John 12:24 says, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” If we apply that verse to our parenting, parenting is dying to lesser concerns and living to greater family needs, we can see something wonderfully creative and life-fulfilling happening before our eyes.
Investment and disinvestment of parenting occurs in stages, depending on the age and ability of the child. Infants require full time care from parents to provide food, clothing, shelter and love. Toddlers add on a need for family rules and discipline as they struggle for autonomy. School age children begin to respect parents as knowledgeable sources of information and education. Adolescents repeat the toddler’s struggle for independence, demanding from parents a balance of freedom, support and limit setting. Young adults leave home wanting parental support and advice by invitation only.
What are the investments we can make on our kids?
Investment of our TIME:
It is important to spend time talking with them and really listening to them. We need to communicate our interest in what they are doing. The amount of time we spend with our family is important, but we also have to ask ourselves if we are giving them good time. Sometimes we give our best hours to our work/profession. By the time we get back home we are exhausted and irritated and we are worn out. So, we need to make time for our children and avoid giving them the leftovers. We have to deliberately choose to give time to our kids, or there won’t be any left for them at all. Some fifty years back parents and kids spent a lot of time talking, playing, doing things together and solving problems together. Now in our space age, in many urban homes, dads get up and leave home before kids are awake and come home after they are asleep. Therefore, such busy parents must exercise great creativity in order to spend time with their kids. Giving time is one of the most important ways to keep saying “ I love you” to a child. If we just say it with words but never spend time with the child, our love will not be perceived. The best gift we can let our children unwrap is the gift of ourselves. And that means spending both quantity and quality time with them.
Investment of RIGHT VALUES:
Much of what they learn comes simply from living with us and observing us. They observe us all day long at our best and at our worst. They try to follow in our footsteps, copying and mimicking us from the beginning of their tender lives. Respect for rules, property, authority and individuals can be taught but it is best learnt by example. Do I treat others in my family with respect? Do I show that I sincerely care about the activities and responsibilities of others by listening to them, encouraging and supporting them? If I do, I am providing an environment where my children can learn respect. Thoughtfulness, sensitivity are some of the things which children learn from observation as parents help people in small tasks or find ways of showing consideration to others. Ruthie a youngster says that she learnt kindness by watching her mother reach out to scores of people less fortunate than her. She says, “My mother never taught me kindness but showed it to me by taking me along as she took food for them, visited them frequently and prayed for them.”
Investment of CONSISTENT LIFESTYLE:
Demonstrating a lifestyle of loving God is more important than the practice of Christian rituals. We may say that forgiveness is important but if we don’t forgive our children or ask their forgiveness
when we are wrong, we are not modeling forgiveness. We are an open Bible that our children read everyday. Consistency is more valuable than perfection. The difference is, consistency has to do with our attitudes while perfection is related to actions. Children learn from our long term example not from one time action.
Disinvestment:
This term refers to the process when the Govt reduces its investment in Public Sector units resulting in the transfer of ownership and management to the private sector. Releasing an offspring is the natural order of both plant and animal worlds. Just as instinctively as young birds stretch new wings to leave their nests, so God has designed children to grow up and start new homes of their own. The job of parents is to prepare children to go out into the world and meet its challenges, to be responsible for their own actions, and to serve the community. Part of that job is letting go so that children may assume that responsibility for themselves. If the process of letting go has been a gradual one, both parent and child are better able to meet the challenge of leaving home when that day arrives. The responsibility has been shifted over from parent to young adult who is married now. He or she will begin doing for himself or herself what mom or dad has done to this point. Household chores such as laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, meal preparation and cleanup, etc. will require time and energy. Financial obligations including monthly rent or house payments, insurance, car payments, fuel, utilities, phone bills, etc. must be assumed by the young adult. Daily decisions, such as when, if, and what to do must be made. All these tasks will be less overwhelming if the young adult has rehearsed ahead of time.
The children are grown and gone. The job as a parent is now finished. Or is it? Adult children still need parenting, but in a different way, under different rules. Children are still children to the parent, but they are now adults. The parenting role is now activated by invitation only. Helping our children grow away from us demands a whole new set of skills. Here are a few things we need to remember.
In order for parents to enjoy an adult relationship with their grown- up children, it is important to remain connected throughout the letting go process. Continued communication, both written and verbal, is vital to staying connected while letting go.
Letting go means not expecting to centre our lives and our future on our kids. Parents can become too dependent on their grown children, seducing them to stay too close so that mom and dad have a reason for living! Unless we are careful, we may end up in a child-centered marriage. Though parenting is an enormously important part of our lives, it is only a part. We need to keep our marriage strong enough to be joyful when there are only two of us. It is essential to make plans for life after the kids leave home.
We need to be conscious of our role change. Just because our children are on their own, it doesn’t mean they no longer have a relationship with us. They still need (and want) our encouragement and affirmation in the decisions they are making. We need to become less their authority and more their counsellor and friend.
We need to let God loose in our children’s lives. What does that mean? When kids are small we set boundaries for them by saying “Don’t do this……..don’t say that…..” But there comes a time when we stop telling our kids what to do. In the same way we must stop telling God what to do with them, for them and to them. We have to let them go on the winds of His Spirit, which may allow them to be carried in directions we would not choose. God may be molding them with a welder’s torch, rather than the delicate artist’s brush we may prefer. When we let God loose in our children’s lives and commit ourselves to prayer in cooperation with Him, He finds ways to work we could not design or dream of. It is never too early or late to release your children to God, determining to trust Him to make of their lives that which He intends. When we let them go into the Lord’s hands, it is then we present to our children the best gift of all — a God and Father whose love and care for them will never end.
Some parents cannot simply bear to lose their offspring. Why don’t parents let go? It is difficult to see them make costly mistakes that may bring them failure, pain and suffering. Some may fear for the safety and future of their children.
There are some who may fear for their own reputation which they have based on the performance of their children. Sometimes, parents possess a consuming need for their children. They possess an abnormal, unhealthy need for them, as opposed to a healthy and unselfish relationship. Releasing is hard for parents whose kids do not turn out as they hoped they would. We are responsible to offer our children a godly heritage and to teach them how to be good stewards of it. But we cannot force them to do the right thing with the inheritance we have given them. Of course, a deep and intense pain is felt by parents whose children have strayed. Though painful, parents need to release their children to live out the consequences of their choices, and perhaps find their way back home. Some parents have never learnt to trust God for their children’s future. The most effective influence of parents on our young adults is through prayer. Prayer cushions us from the jolt of release and frees us from a lot of anxiety about our children. When we commit ourselves to the continuous prayer for our children, we kneel beside our Lord Jesus who intercedes for us faithfully from afar. [Rom: 8 34].
Release continually and not suddenly. Let us look upon release as process rather than as a sudden event. In fact, this process needs to begin as soon as the child is born because God has loaned the precious treasure/ gift to us for just a few years. We are trustees of the treasure not owners.
