Best Things Fathers Do

Ideas and Advice from Real World Dads

by Will Glennon (more about this book and author)

Chapter 5: Modeling
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This fathering business is just not as simple as we all wish it were. Our guts tell us that, if we truly love our children, everything else will sort itself out. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way. Loving our children is undeniably the essential starting point, but we can’t just sit back comfortably, knowing how much we love them, and expect everything to turn out all right. Our love for our children may be the fiber from which our relationship is woven, but we still must show it. And it must shine through in bold, vibrant colors.

 

Father with respect and honesty

One important thread in this tapestry is what we live and teach about respect. For many men, the word itself is very charged. It is often used and misused in anger, but the concept plays a central role in a well-lived life. One reason it is so difficult to
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become completely comfortable with the concept of respect is that embedded within it are two distinctly different components that exist in a state of constant tension. For respect is a word of both connection and disconnection.

On the one hand, respect is the ultimate expression of our connection to one another in its most basic form—the regard we hold for all living things, simply because they are a part of the miracle of life. In that way, respect is given like the love we hold for our children, without conditions.

But respect also connotes distinctions between people, the fundamental measuring stick we use to separate the people we admire from those we don’t. That kind of respect is conditional, based on the development of and adherence to a strong, individual moral code. From this place, we make judgments of others’ behavior.

It is from the first, broader aspect of respect that most of our fathering must flow. We must respect the individuality of our children, their unlimited potential, and, always, their feelings. But it is the second kind of respect about which we must teach them, and through much more than just our words. It is our responsibility to teach our children the more complicated lessons of respect—about exercising moral judgment and making difficult choices—by our own example. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

When we become fathers, we are not asked to place an order for the kind of child we want. They may be athletic or total klutzes, intellectual or academic underachievers, charming and outgoing or contemplative and shy, tall, short, gifted, or handicapped. Whatever unique combination we are given, they are our children; if we cannot respect them for who they are instead
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of who we may want them to be, it is our great failing, but our children will pay the price.

Respect is the acceptance and honoring of who the other person truly is. One way we can demonstrate that respect for our children is to remember the power of fathering, and to walk softly when we are in their world. At work, we are often rewarded for having firm and definitive opinions, but in their arena, we need to remember that our opinions carry the weight of gods, and that can be very difficult for our children to bear gracefully. We may think their choice of TV programs or music or books is boring and uninteresting, but that does not give us the right to announce it or, worse still, denounce them.

One of the time-honored roles of fathers is to be windows to the world for our children. In fulfilling that role, we need to expose them to a broad range of interests and not restrict them by the boundaries we’ve chosen for ourselves. In that task, we are certainly aided by the rapid development of entertainment and communications media, but we are challenged at the same time. Our children are not growing up in the same world we grew up in. For better and for worse, they are exposed to a much broader and, in some ways, a much harsher array of influences than we were at their age. We need to accept, appreciate, and work with the scope of that exposure and, at the same time, make sure that it does not become a substitute for our participation.

Bad television is an invitation to good discussion. News of war, natural disasters, or the ranting of posturing politicians is an opportunity for meaningful dialog. Invite your children to participate in “serious” adult conversations whenever and in whatever manner seems appropriate. Ask their thoughts and opinions about the issues that arise, and treat their opinions with respect, even if
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you disagree. Respecting their opinions means it is alright to question gently why they hold a particular view, and you can certainly offer your own thoughts in as provisional a manner as possible. But it is not alright to say, “I completely disagree.” Coming from Dad, that is tantamount to telling them they are stupid.

Transitions are always tough. When our children are very young, we make all the rules and enforce them because it is necessary and because they need to know that we are there, setting boundaries and limits. Eventually, the time comes for that authority to be handed over. It is no longer necessary or appropriate for us to make their rules, no longer our job to impose our boundaries and our limits. We can no longer protect them from themselves. Our (hopefully fully prepared) children must begin assuming command and control over their own destinies.

In the process of making this awkward and poignant transition with our children, we are forced to grapple with the second kind of respect, the conditional respect we hold for those we believe live their lives honestly, responsibly, and with integrity. We will always love and respect our children because they are our children. As they assume more and more control over their lives, they learn that, as adults, respect is conditional, that it must be earned.

Ironically, one of the notions about fathering that has gotten badly twisted as it was handed down through the generations is that we deserve respect because we are fathers. Nothing could be further from the truth. We deserve respect as fathers only if we earn it—by demonstrating that we are good fathers. We are the adults, and we are responsible and accountable for our actions.

We can’t expect to teach our children lessons by which we refuse to live. “Do as I say and not as I do” won’t cut it.
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We can’t smoke, overeat, drink too much, ignore our health, and work too much and under too stressful conditions, and then expect our children to refrain from self-destructive behavior. They may choose different drugs or behaviors, but we will have been the model, and any objection on our part will be seen by them as the height of hypocrisy.

At the heart of this issue is the fundamental importance of always being honest with our children. Depending on the issue being discussed and the age of the children, that may involve a more-or-less complete answer. It may even involve a straightforward but honest refusal to discuss issues that you believe, for one reason or another, are not appropriate (like details of your sex life). What’s important is that they know that what you do say to them can be trusted.

The importance of establishing that trusting bond of honesty cannot be overestimated. Without it, our children are set adrift without moorings. If you can’t trust your own parents, who in the world can you trust? Being scrupulously honest with our children lets them know that we trust them with the truth. It also inoculates them against one of life’s most vicious scourges: people who bend or twist the truth in order to manipulate others.

Our children are very good at knowing when we are telling the truth. Remember, we have been godlike creatures with seemingly awesome powers for most of their lives, and they have put some of that time to use, studying our moves and trying to understand and anticipate our thoughts and actions. We forget that, as well as we know our children, in many respects they know us even better. They may not have an adult understanding of who we are, but they are meticulous students of what we do.
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It is our actions more than our words that set into stone the patterns that most dramatically influence our children’s lives. If we break our promises, even about what may seem to us to be small things, such as showing up at baseball practice or a school play, we show them that they are not very important and that broken promises are an acceptable part of life.

Nowhere is this more true than in our relationship to their mothers. If you are still living with their mother, you are modeling how a man and woman should be together. The nature and quality of that relationship will be the model toward which your children will gravitate when they are ready to marry.

At the same time, we can’t engage in constant verbal battles with our wives without expecting our children to think that this is what marriage will be like. We cannot treat our wives disrespectfully without expecting our sons to model our behavior in their own marriages and our daughters to expect it from their husbands. We cannot silently suffer an unhappy marriage without expecting to pass on our legacy of misery to our children.

If you are separated or divorced, the way you interact with your children’s mother will be the microscope under which what you say about honesty and respect will be examined. What you cannot control does not matter—whether the divorce was amiable or contentious, whether your ex-wife is the most cooperative soul or the most vindictive, mean-spirited person in the world. What you can control, and therefore the only thing that truly matters, is how you act and what you say.

Our children possess a remarkable trait—they are able to recognize and gravitate toward that which resonates as most sincere and true. If we act respectfully and responsibly, if we behave toward our ex-wives with dignity, integrity, and compassion, ultimately that will
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be the lesson our children incorporate into their lives. Sometimes it is difficult, particularly if your ex-wife is actively trying to undermine or obstruct your relationship with your children. Sometimes it feels hopeless, especially if the children get dragged into an ex-wife’s divisive manipulations. But if we want to be good fathers, it is not optional behavior. The legacy of respect we pass on to our children has more to do with who we are and how we act than what we say.

 

Balance challenge and acceptance

Good fathering is not simple. You can’t just follow a script or a set of rules, and much of what you must do seems to involve constant tension from opposite directions. One place where that tension can surface on a daily basis is in our role as teachers or coaches. It is our job to encourage our children to take risks, to expand their world, to expose themselves to new experiences; yet, at the same time, it is our sacred duty to support them simply for who they are. Though it’s easy to err in either direction, men often find themselves more in the pushing-and-prodding dimension than women do. We may have experienced this with our own fathers and should struggle to avoid doing the same to our kids, particularly our sons.

In reality, there is less tension between support and challenge than it may seem at times, because this base of unconditional support is what makes it possible for us to effectively and lovingly challenge our children to take risks. If we remember and express our love, if we follow our hearts, we will know what to do in a given circumstance—whether to push or hold back.

Our children need to know that we love them simply because they are our children. They can make mistakes, be scared
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and cry, lose every spelling bee or race, strike out in the bottom of the ninth with the winning runs on base, disobey, think bad thoughts, or spill their milkshake all over the backseat of the new car—and Dad will still love them.

That unmovable, unshakable, unconditional love must be as solid as a mountain of granite and as reliable as the sun rising every morning. With that foundation, our children are free to attempt the daunting array of seemingly daredevil feats that make up the daily challenge of growing up—free to take risks, to explore their world and their interests, to dream of running like the wind or soaring like an eagle; free to daydream, to collect pebbles or bugs, to wonder what they will do when they grow up; free to invent games and change the rules, and to make up imaginary worlds and populate them with imaginary friends; free to dream themselves into lofty positions of power and respect; free to change dreams as often as they change T-shirts.

If our love is conditional, our children will feel as though their very lives are built on shifting sands. All of their energy will be focused outward, on trying to solve the mystery of what they must do to be loved by Dad. Instead of spending their time exploring and experimenting with the raw material of their own personality, they become obsessed with studying our every move and mood shift, the better to anticipate what they must do to please us.

If we fail them here, by not providing a solid foundation of unconditional love, they grow up so outwardly focused that they lose track of their own desires. They forget their dreams or, worse still, forget how to dream. They never discover who they are and what they need in order to be happy. They lose or never find the unique trajectory of their lives, becoming instead like satellites, always captured in the gravitational pull of some other body.
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In this most basic function, it is not enough that we love our children unconditionally—we must let them know it over and over again. One way we do that is to clearly separate their endeavors and achievements from their being. Encourage them and support them in the things they do, but love them for the beautiful little people they are. For many of us, trained as we were in the male world of achievement, this is more difficult than it seems. We are very comfortable commending effort or celebrating a job well done, but aren’t always that practiced at just weaving a strong, soft web of love.

When we become fathers, we assume a position of natural authority that will last for nearly two decades. We are bigger, stronger, and wiser than our children. We have the knowledge and experience of countless life lessons, and much of their whirlwind of energy is dedicated to soaking up as much of that precious information as possible. What our children need from us is access to our years of experience. What they do not need is a live-in know-it-all. Difficult as this may be sometimes, we need to become comfortable with our role as the elder statesman—without ego involvement and without needing to supply all the answers. We don’t know everything; as a matter of fact, if they had a clue as to how little we do know, they wouldn’t be angry, they’d be terrified.

We must learn how to provide our children with the information that’s necessary and the information that is asked for, without interfering with their sense of wonder and experimentation and without encouraging their natural inclination to believe that we know more than we actually do. We can help them understand, we can coach them in ways to approach problems, we can encourage them to take risks, and we can pass on what wisdom we have gained from our experiences—but it must be
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an offering, not a demand. Our children don’t need us to have answers for every question; they don’t need us to be infallible superheroes. They may at times imagine us in this light, but what they really need from us is the benefit of our experience, buttressed by our unconditional love, untainted honesty, unfailing support, and unswerving encouragement.

The best lessons are those we learn by ourselves. We know this, god how we know this—and yet it is so easy to fall prey to the temptation of always supplying answers. Sometimes, it is our own childish need to show that we know the answer: Our child asks a question, and we suddenly feel ourselves back in school, our hand waving frantically in the air: I know! I know the answer! At other times, it is just an overwhelming desire to fix the problem.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), life must be lived, and we cannot hand down our wisdom and experience as a complete package. There are ways, however, to use our knowledge efficiently to lead, nudge, entice, and prod our children to their own experiences. By knowing our children very well, by paying close attention to their rapidly changing concerns, we can become reliable and effective coaches. We can encourage them in directions we believe will enrich their lives; we can anticipate and identify issues that they will need to ponder; we can help them analyze situations that seem confusing and articulate their feelings; and we can show them how understanding those feelings is the compass that will lead them to seeing more clearly.

We can do all this without supplying the answers and without taking over. In the process, we will add to, instead of detract from, the self-confidence our children need to meet life’s challenges.

When our children run into roadblocks, what they need most from us is understanding and empathy. Because we are so
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used to solving problems in our working environment, it is very easy for us just to jump to the solution quickly and efficiently. Unfortunately, that approach can undermine instead of help. What’s worse, it means losing a golden opportunity to support and connect with our children at the deepest level. If we are to be good coaches for our children, we need to know when to be supportive, when to prod and encourage, when to advise and analyze, and when to simply offer understanding.

At any given moment, there will always be a specific “problem,” but in a larger and much more important sense, the real issue with which our children are grappling is how to analyze and come up with their own solutions. The specific issues will always sort themselves out—with or without our help; it is the skill and confidence to sort out their own problems that our children really need, and it is there that our energy should be focused.

Not surprisingly, at the heart of good coaching is feeling. We need to understand and empathize with our children’s feelings. Often, that is all they need from us. Growing up can be very frustrating. Our children must feel as if they are navigating through treacherous and mystifying waters without any of the tools or resources they need to succeed. What they require more than anything is for us to provide the emotional safety net that will give them the strength and courage to persevere. They need to be able to rely upon us to support them without judgment when they falter, to encourage and assure them when they grow timid or confused, and to assist and advise them when they ask for it.
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Who you are and what you do matter

Mahatma Gandhi said it best: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” His words speak powerfully to parents concerned about raising healthy children. In order for our children to have a strong sense of self, we must have one ourselves—and model it for them.

This is not an area where you can do for your children what you couldn’t do for yourself. Just as they will dismiss your lectures on the evils of smoking if they see you puffing through two packs a day, so anything positive you say will be drowned out by your negative example. After all, if their own parents couldn’t stand up for themselves, couldn’t find the strength or courage to live their lives fully and courageously, then how can they possibly imagine that they could succeed?

If, for example, we, consciously or unconsciously, behave in ways that demonstrate a lack of respect for a woman’s capacity to take charge of her own life, how can we expect our own children to overcome the weight of that prejudice? It is one of the great, and certainly one of the most difficult, gifts of parenting that, to do the best by our children, we must first stretch and grow to bring out the best in ourselves.

 

Take care of yourself

If you want the your children to grow up strong and fearless, ready to take on life with confidence and passion, then you must show them that it can be done. In the ongoing struggle to balance your personal life and your roles as spouse and parent, it is surprisingly easy to sacrifice your own needs until there is little
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left but taking care of others. From afar, it may seem a noble undertaking, but the message that gets passed on to our children is that it is a good thing to ignore your own needs to serve others.

As you master the art of nourishing your children’s self-esteem, you will undoubtedly become aware of some of your own, or your spouse’s, unmet needs. Today, far too many women are well-trained caregivers, giving their best to their family and work, yet all too frequently ignoring their own needs. In the process of championing our children, we feel that it’s imperative to do all that we can to foster their sense of self-worth. Yet it is often rare that we do the same for ourselves.

Our children learn by example, so don’t expect your children to do for themselves what you won’t do for yourself. If you want them to take care of themselves, feel good about themselves, and passionately pursue their interests, they must see you being fully engaged in your own life.

Whether it is regular exercise, reading books, starting your own business, being politically active, treating yourself regularly to some self-nurturing activities, or just carving out time for self-reflection, daily meditation, or journal keeping, by your example, you model the value of self-nurturing for your children.

 

Live fearlessly

Fear is both an essential human emotion and a crippling disease. Without fear, it is highly unlikely we would have made it this far as a species, but in many ways, it was a lot simpler back in the days of “fight or flight.” In the incredibly complex world we live in today, we are reminded on an almost constant
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basis that we are not in control. Tragedy unfolds every evening on the nightly news; the media convince us that we are surrounded by senseless violence. We can see with our own eyes the poverty and suffering in the world. Even purely accidental occurrences can strike at us from nowhere. Planes and automobiles crash, loved ones get sick and die. Hurtful things happen, and there is no way for us to protect against them.

It is small wonder, then, that so many people, at different times in their lives, become almost paralyzed by fear. However, when that happens, we cease being ourselves. We lose the strength and courage to live our lives the way we want to and our very selves begin to shrink. Ironically, we begin to inflict upon ourselves the very pain from which we are ineffectively trying to protect ourselves.

We cannot expect our children to have the courage to face their own fears and the strength of character to rise above them if we cannot lead the way. Fear will always be with us; we fear failing, and we sometimes even fear succeeding. We may be afraid that people won’t like us or, worse, that our loved ones will stop loving us. Fear we cannot avoid, but we can make a concerted effort to keep it from controlling our behavior.

It’s OK for our children to see us being afraid, if they also see us being willing to move through that fear to embrace what we truly want in the world. In that way, they learn that the way through life is through, or, as Susan Jeffers says in her best-selling book, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

 

Celebrate your successes

Raising children is one of the most difficult things anyone can possibly undertake. Not just because it is so time consuming, or even
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because it is so energetically intense. What makes it such a continuously difficult job is that, by the very nature of the undertaking, the rules are never the same. Being a parent is like being on a rapidly moving conveyor belt and trying to keep track of and properly respond to a collection of movies being projected all around you.

When we begin, we are relatively young (for the most part), wholly inexperienced, and absorbed in the helpless squirming of our baby. Then, in a frighteningly short period of time, we are older and, we hope, wiser and watching our young adult move into life. Between those two milestones, the landmarks change daily and sometimes hourly; we must constantly reassess how much reassurance and protection our children need, how much challenge and discipline, how much responsibility they are ready for, how deep a truth they can hear.

At every moment, we must evaluate and try to respond in a way that fits their needs at that moment, that reassures them at the same time it stretches them. We must remind them of the things they need to remember, while at the same time honoring them for the strength and initiative they have assumed. We must open them to the world in a way that allows them to experience their own power and competence without setting them up to fail. Being a parent requires the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job, and the dexterity of a professional juggler, and we will fall short more often than we will ever want to admit.

So when it does work, when you can see, feel, and experience the powerful resonance of a moment well handled, when the connection between you and your children has that almost tangible throb, take the time to relish your success, to appreciate the artistry in that moment, the delicate balancing act that you have pulled off with such elegance.
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We must remember not only that we are learning and that we can do this well, but that doing so presents an image to our children of flawed, but still competent and confident, adults. And because that image is so true, it gives them the permission they need to make mistakes and still be proud of their accomplishments. By tracking our successes (and those of our children), we construct or repair a healthy sense of self-esteem.

 

Own up to your mistakes

Self-esteem isn’t some quality we’re born with, or that we have to develop before we’re out of preschool or it’s too late. Strong self-esteem is like a good bank account that is built up over time, and can always be bolstered. If, like most of us, you’ve made your share of mistakes with your children, don’t panic—just start now to make up for the past. And this applies to your own self-esteem too. Knowing that you may not have done all that you could have for your child is a blow to your self-esteem. You can begin to turn that around immediately by acknowledging the times you’ve made mistakes with your child. It takes a strong sense of self-esteem to admit a mistake; adults with low self-esteem avoid it because they can’t stand the sense of inadequacy it creates.

Showing your children that you have the sensitivity and wisdom to recognize that you were wrong, and the strength of self to apologize for it, is not only a powerful example. It also dramatically illustrates just how important they are. After all, from their perspective, an adult apologizing to a kid is downright earthshaking.

At the same time, it is a wonderful object lesson in how people should treat each other. To our children, it often seems
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as if they spend half their time grudgingly apologizing for what really amounts to the everyday excesses of growing up. So to hear a sincere apology from an adult puts the entire exercise on a whole different level. It’s no longer just “I did something wrong and had to say I was sorry”; it suddenly becomes clear that everyone should be held to certain standards of behavior and that adults are not the only members of the species who are deserving of respect.

Asking for their help, as in “If I ever make you feel bad like that again, please tell me,” reinforces the message that they deserve to be treated respectfully and that they are capable enough to help you do it right. But be sure to back up your promises; nothing undermines a child’s confidence quite as much as an erratic and unreliable parent. By modeling the art of apologizing, you teach them a real skill. Admitting mistakes takes courage, and your children will be profoundly moved by your efforts.

 

Live deeply, no matter what you do

It’s easy to get caught up in the hurried flow of life, but when we do, we run the risk of skimming over the more meaningful moments and opportunities that could allow us to experience our lives in their complete richness and fullness. After all, at the end of our lives, it will not be how much we got done, how many “to do” lists we got through, or how much money we accumulated that will matter. What will be important is the depth to which we lived our own lives and the extent to which we positively impacted the lives of others.

Begin early by sharing with your children the traditions and rituals of your childhood, and then deepen them by tailoring them to what seems to fit your own family. They’ll remember these special occasions for the rest of their lives. They will become part of
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your family folklore, the story of your family, and they will recreate it for their own kids. By feeling part of a long family tradition and taking part in the flow of that continuum, you give your children a great blessing. To become a part of such a ritualized tradition gives them a feeling of connectedness that will continue to nourish them their whole lives and will expand their sense of belonging.

Don’t forget the food! Preparing meals is such a powerfully symbolic connection. It is how we nurture one another, how we surprise and please, how we survive, how we give the gift of life each and every day. Welcome your children into the kitchen, that magical place of love and history. When the special foods are prepared for the celebratory feasts your family may make at Thanksgiving, Passover, or Chinese New Year, invite them into the kitchen, and introduce them into a kind of ancient “mystery.” Involve them in each stage, from the planning, preparing, decorating, cooking, and serving to the feasting itself. It will make them a part of the great circle of giving and receiving that makes a family strong.

 

Practice kindness

When we talk about self-esteem, we think immediately of things like strength, empowerment, confidence, having the courage of our convictions—big powerful words that paint a picture of our children as having the resources to go out into the world and meet whatever challenges may come. We don’t immediately think of kindness, partly because kindness has a softer, sweeter feel to it. It’s almost as if kindness were a nice thing, but not something we think of as powerful. We couldn’t be more wrong.

Going out of your way to make other people comfortable and feel good about themselves actually has a double impact on young
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children. First, they get to see firsthand, through your example, just how easy it is to be a positive force in the world. In and of itself, this can be an invaluable lesson, simply because, in the much smaller world they inhabit, young children can easily find themselves feeling powerless and ineffectual. Just seeing the adults in their lives bringing smiles and satisfaction to others is a constant reminder of the depth of power we all carry with us every day of our lives.

At the same time, it can be a direct benefit when we turn our praise on our children. Not only will they directly hear the compliments, but they will be more inclined to take them to heart, because it is in character; they realize “This is the way Dad is,” instead of thinking “Oh Dad’s just saying that to try to make me feel good.” Sincere praise helps build self-esteem because it is an articulated acknowledgment of their value and importance. But our children are nobody’s fools, and if they are the only ones getting the praise, it won’t take them long to figure out that there is something insincere about our efforts.

Practicing kindness is also a way to encourage our children by example to be positive about other people, and not to be shy about expressing enthusiasm. They will experience the power of positively affecting another person, and that power will come back to them many-fold, since everybody loves to be around people who make them feel good about themselves.

 

Don’t be a hypocrite

It’s almost inevitable that children will experiment to some degree with smoking, drugs, or alcohol, and the extent and the seriousness of that experimentation will be influenced significantly by your own behavior. This is a scary area for parents, because we
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don’t even want to think about our children getting caught up in that quagmire, but it doesn’t help if we try to avoid thinking or talking about it.

The first and most important issue we must all address is our own relationship to the instruments of addiction: alcohol, drugs (and that includes “prescription” drugs), and tobacco. Like anything else, what we do will have a much more profound effect than what we say—particularly if the two are in conflict. Certainly, if we are telling our children to avoid alcohol while we are regularly drinking to excess in their presence, both the message and the messenger are discredited. If we try to talk to them about being reasonable and responsible for their health by avoiding cigarettes while smoking two packs a day, our words will become the measure of our own hypocrisy.

At the same time, we can overdo the warnings to the point of losing all credibility. Alcohol in moderation plays an important role in our social and cultural tradition. Trying to characterize it as evil incarnate will likely end up convincing our children we have gone round the bend, and they’d rather go have a beer with some friends. Lumping all drug use together in one extremely dangerous and evil category can easily backfire. Drugs aren’t equally dangerous. If you skip over that point, someone else will inform them of that fact, and everything you’ve said can be washed away in a moment. Children who are well informed in advance about the real effects and consequences of drugs and who have strong self-esteem are most effective in resisting the peer pressure involved with using drugs. But it won’t help if the information is incorrect, or our behavior is inconsistent.

Smoking is an unmitigated health hazard from which any sane person will run. At the same time, it is deeply embedded in
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our society. As an ex-smoker (who can freely admit that I love the taste of a good cigarette), I know well how hard it is to reconcile the fact that smoking has no redeeming social value with the millions of people who are completely hooked. If you smoke and care about your children, stop. If you don’t smoke, resist being overly harsh in your judgment, but at the same time be open and clear about the truth of any of your addictions.

 

Give them mentors and role models

This used to be a lot easier. Until very recently, children were not as isolated as they are today. Instead, they grew up surrounded by grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends from the neighborhood. But as we have become more affluent, families have become more isolated. The only adults to whom children are routinely exposed are their parents. That both puts inordinate pressure on us as parents and deprives our children of the broad spectrum of resources that they need to blossom.

When we live in small, insular nuclear families, we deprive our children of contact with the wide variety of humanity with which the world is graced, and their options for becoming are narrowed. But when we expose them to a wide variety of adult friends and relatives, they see many options for themselves: Oh, maybe I’ll be a deep-sea diver like Uncle Jacques, or the head of a fashion studio like my mom’s friend Stephanie. Self-image is created from a wide variety of sources, including role models. By providing them with actual role models (as opposed to images on TV), you give them a more accurate picture of adulthood.
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Every adult in a child’s life models behavior for them and teaches them in some way how to be in the world. A positive “presence” by any adult boosts a child’s self-esteem, showing them they are important. As the African saying goes, it really does “take a village to raise a child.” It’s up to you to help find your child’s village!

 

Support; don’t direct

Children are such energetic and eager learning machines that it is very easy for us to get dragged into believing that we are somehow in charge of directing their growth and development—somehow “molding” them. We aren’t and we shouldn’t be. Yes, we need to provide guidance, establish limits, and encourage their sampling of a wide range of interests. But we should always remain attuned to their lives, their needs, and their interests, not our own.

Ultimately, what our children need from us most is to be acknowledged and loved for who they are. This is a sacred undertaking. If we do it well, we provide them with lasting comfort. We send them into the world knowing they are not alone, with confidence and a sense of self-worth that allows them to live their lives fully and joyfully. If we do it poorly, we send them out into the world lacking the confidence and self-esteem to identify and pursue what is necessary and important to them.

One of our deepest human needs is to be truly known and truly loved. That’s why dedicating ourselves to learning who our children are and loving them for their own uniqueness is our most basic duty to them. If we fail, we send a message, intended or not, that they are not worthy: if your own father could not
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or would not take the time to really get to know you, then surely there must be nothing of value to know. It is a sacred duty, but it is also one of life’s greatest pleasures—children are like an endless Christmas present.

Beginning on their day of birth and continuing throughout our lives, we are privileged to be an intimate part of the never-ending unfolding of a human being. To do it right, we need to remember that we are a part of a very complicated and intense learning process. Our children start by learning how to control their bodies—how to grasp, how to crawl, how to walk. They quickly progress to learning sophisticated human skills, from talking, abstract thinking, and identifying and expressing emotions to the intricate human dance of interaction. The more skilled they get, the better able they are to understand and clearly articulate who they are and what particular combination of desires, passions, dreams, and needs makes them unique.

We are given the great honor of participating in this blossoming and, if we do our part well, we can be an invaluable resource in helping, encouraging, supporting, and guiding them. But from our very adult perspective, we must remember that, at the heart of this adventure, is their learning, their discovering, their coming to full, vibrant consciousness of who they are.

On this journey, we do not and cannot have the answers. However, by watching our children with fascination as their answers emerge, by eagerly questioning them about how they feel, what they think, what interests them, we show them that their journey of discovery is tremendously important to us. Through our avid interest, we communicate to our children that truly, deeply knowing them is a source of great joy in our lives.
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Use the power of words

The old saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a big lie. Words can wound—terminally. By the time we become adults, we have usually long forgotten the extraordinary power of words. We live in a world so crammed full of words that we are only reminded of their impact when someone important to us carelessly says something hurtful.

But from the moment of birth, our children are soaking up messages from the world around them. From their still-new and fresh exposure to the magic of language, the impact and effect of words, especially those from their parents and other caregivers, are profoundly deep.

Children very quickly learn to judge themselves through the words, attitudes, and treatment of others. They develop their self-images through what they are told about themselves, and they learn self-worth from what others say to them or about them in their presence. Self-esteem can be strongly bolstered or torn into tatters simply by the verbal responses they receive to the things that they do. That’s why one of the most important things you can do for the children in your life is to remember that you are a polished and penetrating mirror. Everything you say and do is reflected back to them, from infancy on, with laser-like intensity.

Babies must be provided with an enjoyable, warm, responsive environment of close bonding, including the innate language of “parentese.” From the time they are born, start telling your children that you love them, and don’t ever stop. A toddler depends solely on family and caregivers for the words that will either build or destroy confidence and esteem. A child who is building an understanding of language is also developing a new way of understanding itself. And always, the words spoken to them must match the true feelings
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of the speaker, just as actions must match attitudes, so that the child learns to trust what is said to them. Telling a child that it is important and that you love them while you are preoccupied with three other tasks doesn’t do that little soul justice.

What we say and how we say it have the power to do good or harm. To love them well, to be an example for them, we must choose and use our words very carefully.

 

Share your emotions

When my daughter was very young, I used to tell her lots of stories about when I was a child. What I learned very quickly was that the stories she loved most always involved me screwing up, getting into trouble, or emotionally imploding. Every time we got around to storytelling, my daughter would scream out, “Tell the one about how you cried when you didn’t get a horse for Christmas!” or “Tell the one where you threw up on Grandpa’s best suit!”

Growing up is a very emotional process, and our children are frequently caught up in the powerful riptides of these emotions in a way that is difficult and often impossible for them to control. While we can look down from our seasoned perspectives and be very understanding, from the children’s point of view, it can appear that they are failing simply because they can’t control the flood of feelings.

Children look out at the world and see adults moving relatively effortlessly through life, all things under control, and definitely not buffeted by their emotions. Of course this is very far from a true picture, but we adults often consciously try to shield our children from our own emotional issues. From their vantage point, it looks as if adults are always in control.
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Our children haven’t yet learned fully how to manage the roiling white-water adventure of their emotions. Because it appears for all the world as if adults don’t have this problem, it makes perfect sense for them to conclude that there is something wrong with them, that they are in some way inadequate. To counteract this tragic misconception, we need to report in regularly about our own feelings, so our children will see that having strong feelings is not a weakness, and that dealing with them appropriately is an ongoing part of life.

In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman revealed the importance of this previously neglected “kind of smart,” which has a great deal to do with self-esteem and success in school and in life. One aspect of emotional intelligence is being aware of differing emotions and the ability to label them. When you share your feelings with a child, you teach them, not only that strong emotions are OK, but that they can be brought to consciousness, labeled, and dealt with. When we show our children our vulnerable true selves, it is easier for them to accept those parts of themselves and to open up and bare their souls.

 

Don’t impose your feelings on them

Being open with our emotions around our children is important, but it is equally important to be very careful about which feelings we expose them to. We want to raise children who are comfortable in the world of emotions, who have learned the basic skills for navigating through their feelings. This means raising them in an environment where what we feel is as important and as regular a part of conversation as what we think. However, we can never lose track of the fact that, just as there
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are subjects that are not appropriate to discuss with children, there are emotions that are inappropriate to share as well.

Sometimes this is difficult to remember in the moment, particularly when we are going through an extended period of our own difficulties. Certainly, most emotional issues between spouses should not be shared with children. Not only are the emotions usually about issues that our children are far too young to understand, but they also put the children in a position of either directly or indirectly “taking sides,” and that is something that no child should ever be asked to do. Additionally, serious emotional issues that are more appropriate for the ears of a therapist obviously should not be discussed in anything other than general terms. It is enough to explain that there is a problem and that it is being addressed responsibly.

Part of raising children with a healthy sense of self-esteem is making sure that, as adults, we keep the focus on who they are and what they need, not what we need from them. Far too many children are raised to be their parents’ therapists and have the burden of coping with adult concerns before their own egos have fully developed.

 

Be aware of their fears and anxieties

Why does a five-year-old worry about his parents being seriously injured or killed? Why is a twelve-year-old suddenly obsessed by appearance? Why is a fourteen-year-old refusing to take part in gym class?

Being aware of the fears that children normally have at different developmental stages can help you cope much better with them yourself, as well as give you a leg up on helping to dispel those fears. It’s natural for kids of kindergarten age to fear losing
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their parents, just as it’s normal for sixth-graders to be very concerned with how they look, and eighth-graders to be self-conscious about changing clothes in front of others before gym class. Having fears is natural and healthy, but dealing with them appropriately is a skill children need to learn. If left to themselves, their fears can grow and become distorted out of all proportion, consuming time and energy that children should be putting toward learning and growing, making friends, and building up their own self-esteem.

One of the best ways to help children deal with their fears is to talk to them honestly and quietly. Fear is one of the few things that grow well in the dark, and by shining light on those fears, they can be shrunk down to a manageable size. This is relatively easy to accomplish when our children volunteer their fears, but our society has placed such a deep stigma on fearfulness that children get the message very early on that there is something “bad” or “weak” about being afraid. As a result, often the fears take root and grow in silence, and we need to pay careful attention to the nonverbal cues so that we can expose them to the light of language.

 

Make a loving public display

Why is it that the best things we say about our children we tend to say to others and in private? We brag about how great they did in the school play, we gush to confidantes about how well they are doing in school or sports, and then we go back and correct their English, and nag them about cleaning their rooms, getting to bed on time, and using proper table manners. We get so focused on our “job” of nudging, correcting, teaching,
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disciplining, and guiding that we forget to climb to the mountaintop and sing their praises as often and loudly as we can.

Sincere, heartfelt compliments and praise are always great confidence-boosters, and all the more so when they are publicly proclaimed. Sitting at the dinner table when friends or family are there, and hearing Mom or Dad telling everyone what a fabulous job a child did on a science project or how a child pulled off a major-league slide going into third base can be a powerful and deeply engraved event. Children know intuitively that, as the number of people present at a gathering increases, the relative importance of any one person there decreases. Therefore, when children are singled out and raised up to the crowd for approval, it can go a long way toward convincing them that they are indeed incredibly and uniquely special.

Of course, like anything else, this can be overdone. If you constantly point out your children’s achievements to one and all, they may get the sense that they are only valued for what they can do, for their ability to give you “bragging rights” among parents. And don’t forget to honor their privacy as well. Chances are there are some things they don’t want to hear proclaimed publicly. Be sensitive to the content as well as the context of your praise!

 

Give them roots

Much of your child’s sense of identity comes from you, and much of that depends on how good a job you do in giving them a strong foundation of family and ethnic pride. Much of that pride comes directly from the stories you tell.

We are a storytelling species. In a very important way, this is the crucial difference that separates us from the rest of the animal
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kingdom—we can remember, distill, and pass on information to the next generation, and the way we do it is through stories. Give your children a richly textured picture of where they come from—both personally and as part of an ethnic group. Connect them with your words to the places and people that preceded them. Help them see the ways that their heritage, their family history, and their cultural background can impact their lives.

When we give our children this kind of historical context, they develop a sense of roots, a sense that something solid, an irrefutable and indestructible beginning, is holding them up. This is important in the diverse society in which we live, where so many kids feel “less than,” “ugly,” or otherwise unacceptable because they do not fit the stereotype of the white middle class. Family and ethnic pride helps counteract those forces that demand that our children all look as if they came from the same cookie cutter. Such an exposure also helps them appreciate the ethnic roots of their friends and classmates, and helps break the destructive cycle of racism and self-hatred.

So tell them stories about their grandparents, their great-great-uncle, your own childhood; intersperse those with stories about what they were like when they were babies. Realize that they listen intently to what you say, whether they show you this or not, so invest your stories with as much pride and texture as you can. Not only will they love to hear these stories, the stories will help strengthen their sense of security and confidence in their own ability to forge connections in the world. They’ll learn about the continuity of things, and they’ll see their own future as part of that long line.
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Accentuate the positive

When so much of raising a child is about teaching and challenging and setting boundaries, it is easy to get stuck in a mode of constant criticism. We notice all the mistakes, all the things not done that should have been done, all the irritating sloppy little “habits” our darlings have developed, and we almost can’t stop ourselves from nagging, complaining, correcting, demanding, and snapping. It’s a rare parent or teacher who never loses patience with the children under his or her wing. Most of us, try as we may, find ourselves short-tempered more often than we care to admit. If you feel your patience thinning and find that everything coming out of your mouth is negative, stop! It isn’t going to help them, and it surely doesn’t feel good to be reduced to being a constant complainer.

The truth is, the human brain is actually wired to track what works and to discard all else. Think of how babies learn to walk—they don’t yell at themselves for falling down. They note what worked in the attempt and try again. Scientists label it “positive reinforcement.” Whatever we call it, the more we can focus on what our children are doing right, the more we go with the natural patterns of the mind and help them notice what’s right about themselves as well. Which, besides boosting esteem, goes a long way toward helping them adopt positive behaviors and drop negative ones.

 

Know when to be silent

Our children need to hear our words. They need to hear the delight in our voices when we are with them; they need to hear our pride and satisfaction when we talk about their accomplishments;
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they need to hear the love, tenderness, and joy they bring out in us expressed in words. They need our empathy when they are hurting.

But, at the same time, our words must be sincere, consistent, and carefully used; they must ring with truth in order to be effective. And we need to remember that, sometimes, silence is golden.

If we hand out praise carelessly, we diminish its worth, and they will be the first to know. If we congratulate them on a job well done when they feel strongly that their effort was less than wonderful, we not only are ineffective in our attempt to make them feel better, we can do long-term damage by undermining our own credibility. If we gush on and on about something they feel is no big deal, we may undermine their sense of self-esteem by inferring that we don’t think they are able to handle the hurt.

Words are powerful, and it is tempting, in our desire to strengthen our children’s self-esteem, to lean heavily on the power of words to bolster and cement their sense of worth, importance, and competence. But we need to be very aware of the delicate balance between clearly articulating our love and pleasure in them, and sliding overboard into the dangerous territory where our words begin to have the opposite effect. Immoderate or insincere praise can not only undermine their self-esteem, but reduce us to bystanders whose words cannot be trusted.

 

Avoid sarcasm and teasing

Ah, teasing. I am an inveterate teaser. It’s a way for me to show, in an indirect way, my feelings of love and connection to the person I’m teasing. But I have learned over the years from the girls and
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women in my life that my teasing is rarely received in the spirit in which it is offered. Perhaps it is a gender issue; in my experience, many more men are comfortable with teasing and sarcasm than women. Over and over, women tell me of the terrible wounds to their self-esteem they suffered as young girls from the teasing of, most often, their fathers and brothers. One woman I know goes as far as to claim that all teasing is a hostile act.

The problem with teasing, as I’ve come to see, is that the words meant in jest have nonetheless been spoken and, in some almost alchemical way, become real, even if they are meant to be harmless. A statement like, “You don’t know anything about that, now do you?” is either a tease or a truth depending on tone of voice. But the words themselves are wounding, and often the tone is irrelevant to the listener. Also, because so many people have learned to hide their truth in teasing, teasers often do actually mean what they say, and therefore their words are intentionally hurtful.

Because teasing and sarcasm can so easily be misconstrued, if we are concerned with bolstering the self-esteem of the children in our care, it’s probably best to avoid these modes altogether. If you find that difficult (as I do), at least be sensitive to the areas where children should never be teased—their looks (too loaded in this culture) and their competency (it’s far too easy to reinforce insecurity). If it appears that you have hurt a child by your teasing, be sure to apologize and, if asked to stop, respect that boundary, rather than teasing the child about lacking a sense of humor.

 

Demonstrate respect

We can love them, we can lead by example, we can use the power of our words to bolster their confidence and encourage their
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efforts, but we must also show our children through our day-today actions that our love is not removed and our words are not hollow. Each day they are in our care, the actions we take or do not take demonstrate to the children in our lives that we have respect for them—or that we don’t. Through careless actions, through putting down their choice of friends, of wardrobe, of books, or whatever, we send a strong message that we don’t trust them to make wise choices, and that we don’t respect the choices they make. This does immeasurable damage to self-esteem.

Our job as caretakers is to help our children learn to make good choices, and to affirm our belief in their ability to make wise choices. We do that, in part, by respecting, as much as possible, the choices they do make, and by demonstrating our deep respect for who they are as human beings. We show them through our patience and our willingness to tackle difficult issues like sexual harassment and abuse, which are violations of respect. We show them by listening deeply to what they have to say, even when it is not necessarily clearly articulated. We show them by trying mightily to understand the world as they experience it, even though we will always come up short. We show them by being willing to bend our schedules to make them our priority in the day-to-day unfolding of life. And we show them by walking the incredibly fine line between providing the safety and security they need to become fearless, and challenging them to stretch, grow, and think for themselves as often as possible.

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