The more I know, the more I have yet to know

The more I know, the more I don’t know…

I was invited to speak to a group of teenage students with their parents in a private school the other day and I realized that the more I engage with parents and their children, the more I don’t know and the more I have yet to know.

Before my talk, I decided to ask my teenage kids what they think we parents can do to connect with them more.  Their answer: Listen more, do not judge, spend time to talk about life. I reminded these things to the parents I spoke to and, at the same time, asked their children a follow-up question about what they think would be a good thing that parents can do with them to have quality time together.  Do you know what got the most applause?  It was one kid’s answer: “For my parents to play computer games with me.”

I learned something there with that comment — we parents have much to learn about our children when we engage in the things they enjoy doing.  How many times have we battled with our children against too much computer use?  How many times have we asked them what they found interesting and exciting about time spent using the computer and to share their thoughts with us?  Computer use can’t be all wrong.  There must be something good they see in it that we fail to see.

I went home with this thought: to try to put myself in my children’s shoes so we could connect and engage in healthy discussions rather than have them sit through my list of do’s and don’ts about how to conduct themselves properly in a variety of situations.

At one point, just last night, I was frustrated with one of my children about something I felt should be corrected because she didn’t treat one of her siblings properly.  So I reminded her in my most gentle voice to please reach out to her sibling. When I saw that there was defiance, I was so frustrated and asked my husband why my daughter was so stuck and why she couldn’t just do the right thing by treating her sibling properly. He reminded me that we all are stuck in different areas of our lives, but we must never give up on each other.  He also went on to remind me that there seemed to be an area of my parenting I am stuck with — that is, correcting in public. Yikes! I didn’t realize that though I spoke to my daughter in the most gentle manner, I have offended her by making others know about her personal issue with another member of the family.  So I confessed that, indeed, I was stuck with that but I chose not to stay there. I apologized to my daughter and vowed not to give up trying to help any of my children get unstuck from sticky situations in their lives.

What are you stuck with? I believe the earlier we face the brutal facts about our wrong parenting ways, the earlier we can be set free to parent well. Our children depend on us. Let’s struggle well and thrive!

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Follow author on twitter @mommymaricel.