Loving Kids Well

Loving Kids Well

by

Mike Hamilton

I talk about loving others well in my office all the time.  In fact I think helping others learn how to do this for themselves and others trumps any counseling theory out there.  Period.  The odd thing is, most people confuse this concept as an adult to adult issue.  I love my friends well, I love my wife or husband well, I love my parents who hurt me well, I love people in my church well….but it doesn't seem people ever wonder how to love their children well.  And that is the most important thing we can do as parents.  

As I sit and write this blog my two children have come down stairs about 10 times.  It is now 9:55 PM on a Monday.  Yes, I know this is terrible and they should be punished, taught how to obey, we need to get them to sleep so they can grow, so they can learn, so they can repair their brains and so on.  The list goes on and on.  But honestly nipping this in the bud usually comes out being behavior modification more than loving and teaching.  It is rare that my kids come down stairs, much less 10 times….And when it does I embrace it as a way to show them I'm glad to see them, that I enjoy getting to interact with them, that I want every moment with them I can get and if somehow they have gotten to a stage or a day or a week where they need to do this…so be it.  What they experience when they come down those stairs is what matters.  Connectedness, joy, love, acceptance, safety, value.  I could yell and threaten to punish them if they get up again (which at times as I am human this is what I resort to)….but I'm not sure they accomplishes the most important thing we do as parents.  Love them well.  

You see, if you start with children in an environment of raising them in a safe household, where they hold value and worth, where they know they are loved…often these moments of "disobedience" are more about expanding their world in a safe place.  You would likely not see a child brought up in a home full of violence even dare get out of bed to use the bathroom much less just to see if they could "get away with it" with a smile on their face. When they are 19 these few months of a few times a month of getting out of bed is not going to make them a car thief, a drug addict or an unsuccessful person.  When they are 19, if I handle these moments with rage, anger or contempt….that might precisely be what happens.  Drug addictions, brushes with the justice system and adult traumatic environments are linked to childhood trauma, including physical, sexual or emotional abuses, expressions of rage and a demand of obedience with the absence of love or compassion.  And if they don't end up there?  You will see relational dysfunctions with friends and dating partners, spouses etc.  You end up getting children who obey but harden their hearts to want to be seen, known, enjoyed, celebrated, wanted, loved and safe.  They become hardened little adults who are looking to obey until they get enough autonomy to show you that you didn't have the power you thought you had.  

How do I love my kids well?  I find every moment I can to tell them how important they are, how safe they are and how much I love them, I find moments throughout the day to be tender with them.

I do this with words…"I am so glad I get to see you today", "I'm so glad you are my son", "I enjoy getting to play with you".

I do this with actions…hugging them, kissing them, holding them, sitting with them, playing with them, spending time with them, caring for them physically, emotionally, spiritually.

I do this with connection…I look them in the eyes each time I talk with them, any time i hold them I look them in the eyes, we touch noses, we rub cheeks, I touch their face with my hand and I allow them to do the same to me.

I do this by making their world safe…this goes for boundaries for them, both physical and emotional, I provide safety from the world to the extent that I can, I tell them that there could never be one thing they could tell me that would make me want to leave them, to not love them, to feel that they are bad or distasteful, I also set up rules for them to follow.

I do this by telling the truth…no child should wonder what reality is, we are to help them know it, we are not to be manipulative or self preserving in our interactions with them as that creates a necessity to create our own favorable reality.  I tell my kids the truth (to the level that is appropriate for their age) so they are never confused as to where they stand in the world, with me and within our family.

God is a God of Truth, of Safety, of Compassion, of Rules, of Connectedness, of Words, of Tenderness…of Love.  Loving my kids well isn't about waiting for them to screw up so I can show them they need to do better.  Loving my kids well isn't about yelling when they get up 10 times at night.  Loving my kids well isn't about making them behave well or making them be happy kids.  A well behaved happy kid will turn into an adult that sits in my office for 4 years trying to make sense as to why they hurt so bad inside and their life doesn't work so well.  I want to love my kids in a way that tells them how to love others well, love them in a way that makes them thirsty for more good and less bad….so that they might in the future move more towards the good than the bad.  I want them to feel it and know it and never question they are exactly what they are, valuable and worthy humans who deserve to be loved, known, protected, nurtured and enjoyed.  And in turn I hope they learn how to do that back, to give that love they have received back to me, back to their sibling, their mother, their friends, their future spouse and kids.  Loving others well is the one pyramid scheme worth buying into, love them so they will love theirs.

So, if my children come down an 11th time, now that it is 10:30, I will take a different approach, but it will be just as loving as the others.  I'm glad to see you, give me a hug, I want to kiss your head, come sit with me a moment, now go back and do not do this again.  See you soon, proud of you….glad to be your daddy.  Most times this works on the first, if there is even a first….it works most days when toys are more important than brothers, it works when boys are tired, hungry or grumpy.  And the best part is, when I can't do this and I blow it….guess what I get back?  They love me well in return.  Its a vicious cycle this whole love thing…..

Asleep

Asleep

By 

Mike Hamilton

Other than the cross, the Garden of Gethsemane is one of the most pivotal stories in Jesus' story.  And we all know His disciples were asleep.  In fact, Jesus finds them asleep three times during His moments in the garden.  So there they were, power hungry Peter who always fails, and James and John, the two who asked Jesus to let them sit at his right and left hand in Heaven, asleep.  Three of the most highly trained Biblical scholars of all time on the edge of the most incredible event in history and they are asleep.  I find it interesting that Jesus invited these three men into the Garden with Him.  All three of them offering something to us, 2000 years later…and they did it all while sleeping.  

If we look at Peter, John and James we have a picture of three people who spent three years with Jesus and up until His death, they all three had their own agenda.  We are a people who love to appear as though we have a spiritual mind but honestly few of us want to suffer and most of us want to sleep the rest of our lives to avoid any contact with it.  Jesus came to them once and woke them up, came a second time and left and came back a third time and woke them up again.  Each time Jesus went into the garden He entered suffering and each time He came back out He finds His friends asleep, each person living a different reality than Jesus.  

Peter was very clear about his agenda earlier in their time together when Jesus said "I am going to the Cross" and Peter "rebuked Him".  Peter wanted a crown, a Kingdom setup here where he could be a "co-king" with Jesus.  James and John were very clear about their own agenda as well when they asked if they could be at the right and left of Jesus in Heaven.  When Jesus spoke to Peter (after His resurrection) He made it clear that Peter would be lead away and die while suffering.  This is His invitation to all of us, die for others and to suffer...but sadly we are all asleep like the disciples.  We love comfort, we love to choose our own agenda and live that out, we love to be in control of our own hearts and lives, we love to control those close to us….what we do poorly is to be awake enough to want to enter into the reality of suffering with someone we love much less into our own.  

Cancer.  That wakes people up.  Car crashes.  Death of a child.  Financial ruin.  Divorce.  The list is as long as it is deep.  People who come into my office often ask for me to make things better, to make things easier, to relieve pain.  It is natural for a human to seek to sleep and find comfort rather than to enter into their own suffering.  In fact most people don't even want to be around those they care about when they are going through painful things in their lives.  But I'm not sure helping us find relief is what God is calling us all towards.  He promises us Rest and I have seen many people in my office who choose to enter into the suffering of their past or present stories and find radical change and life altering Rest.  People who wake up and walk into their own garden to sit with a cup of suffering in front of them, this is where we will all find Rest, Life, Joy, Freedom, Grace, Mercy, Transformation, Redemption.  Jesus sits in front of the most painful moment of His life which will lead Him to the most Rest after He submits to it.  

My job as a counselor isn't to bring relief…we do that on our own.  The most stressful moment in Jesus' life and his disciples are crashed.  They entered into relief, Jesus into suffering.  The looked away from the suffering, didn't pray, avoided it all, were in denial about what was happening around them.  Clients come in the same way and my job is to help them wake up.  My job is to help them see what has always been true, what they have been running from and to enter into the reality that has always been there.  I have to be encouraging, loving, gentle, but always mindful that relief should never be my goal.  To sit with someone who is hurting and hurt with them, to sit with someone who is full of fear and be safe for them, to become a place where a wounded, shredded person who has been in the garden their whole life can show up and have a person love them there…that is my job.  To the degree that they enter their stories as you see the disciples begin to do AFTER they were asleep in the garden, is the degree of Rest, Life, Joy, Freedom, Grace, Mercy, Transformation and Redemption they will experience in their current lives.  

If your life takes a hard turn remember it is natural (in a fallen sense) to scramble to find relief, to want to ignore it, to make it go away.  But always keep in mind that there is a deeper invitation for you and if you will enter, you will wake up and if you wake up you will never be the same again.  Those who do this, those who take this path often report that it is lonely, that they are surrounded by sleeping people in their families, their churches, their marriages, their jobs….but once on that path it is undeniably a place of Life.