I've been blogging about a very important triad to me and my family: Help, Teach, and Protect. Today's blog explores how I have tried to teach my sons to protect and how I've striven to protect my sons. Thanks for joining the blog here. Please subscribe using the button at the top of this page, check out other posts, and the podcast. But, for now, let's focus on protecting
Protect our children...
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| Photo by Robert Thiemann on Unsplash |
Protect vs. victimize.
I have consisently taught my sons: You can wrestle and test your strength with your brother, but we’re not going to hit or kick. Point your gun towards the bad guys. Fight against the bad guys with your brother. Don’t shoot your mom, protect her! As my sons played with guns they had around the house, these kinds of quotes helped me to help them. I think it was John Eldredge who mentioned that we tell boys over and over to stop playing with guns to stop being dangerous, but we want those same boys to grow up, become soldiers, and to protect us as a nation. Shouldn’t boys imagine and rehearse ways to protect the family, their mother, the women in their lives, the young… anyone they care for? We can’t have it both ways. They won’t be tame and wild at the same time, will they? When can they be rambunctious? Polite? How will our messaging affect them and prepare them for adolescent and adult life?
Factor in How You Grew Up as You Parent
Growing up, as the son of two middle children, I got quick fixes on the regular. My parents grew up being told to simply deal with it when they complained. So the way that morphed was that I got quick quotes that often dismissed or belittled the feelings I had when I was made fun of, beat up, or angry. The upside was that I didn’t take trouble too seriously--there was always a solution. The downside was some lack of feeling or closeness with my parents that haunts me to this day. I feel like the weirdo among my parents and my siblings, the touchy-feely guy, who takes stuff too seriously. So as I attempt to parent my boys, I need to be aware of where I’m coming from. They aren’t living my childhood, they are living their own life which is, admittedly, influenced by my childhood, and my wife’s. So I try to handle their drama with grace, an even temperament, and some language (like “help, teach, and protect yourself and your friends”) that they can use when they are at school and I’m far away at work.
Dealing with Bullying as Practice Protecting Others
I think this relates directly to bullying, which happens when no one says a thing, and/or we feminize kindness or mock it somehow. I don’t want my sons to be those stunned, voyeuristic bystanders who watch playground victimization happen wordlessly. Even if they just say “stop,” I’m proud of them, but I try to coach them on what to say to protect themselves and others in light of punks like bratty bullies and mean cliques. Boys must learn that part of their role is to protect those they care about, the young, the helpless, and victims of various sins and crimes. If we are made in God’s image, we men and women cannot, for a moment, think that we don’t have an obligation to be like our Father in heaven and protect those we love. Now, before we get too far down this road, I am not proposing that we are entitled to protection. God doesn’t and won’t protect us from all evil, nor will he protect us from pain or suffering. I’m not a “head in the clouds” Christian here. But I do believe God is love, and he can redeem evil, after it is inflicted on us, for good. Our suffering can build empathy for others, and because we are limited, it isn’t possible to protect our loved ones from all evil, pain and suffering. As parents, we need to watch our messaging, so that older siblings don’t feel responsible for every evil that happens to a little brother or sister. We do need to rehearse and give our kids language to deal with bullies, violence, hate speech and sarcasm. We must confront the ugliness of the world, our homes/codependency/bad habits at home, and the ugliness of the playground at school with a balance of reality, creativity, courage, and humor. In other words, we need Jesus to lead our thoughts and words and feelings as we support our boys in dealing with playground bullies, neighborhood brats, and two-faced friends.
Give Your Children Some Great Language to Use: An Example
“Do you want to tell the teacher what you are doing, or do you want me to?”
As Colin shared his victory story, he had swagger. He had finally implemented what I suggested. Some punk on the playground was trying to make other kids feel stupid, and Colin confronted him, saying simply, "Do you want to tell the teacher what you are doing, or do you want me to?" I had offered it to him in a conversation about how bullies mostly just do stuff and say things, they don’t think much about what they do. They love how it sends people reeling. So, if you just insert a question, it will often pull the bully out of their power-hungry world long enough for him or her to stop being so awful. We rehearsed this line several times, along with reminders to walk towards a teacher, so that the bully might think their bacon was about to fry in a pan. Colin could see it but couldn’t apply it. One day the perfect opportunity arose on his suburban playground. The line worked like charm, and as Colin told us the story at dinner that night, he was beaming. No punches were thrown, one bully was conquered, stunned, even, by the wild joyful disruption from my son. “The force is strong with this one.” Ha! A proud day in my fatherhood indeed, and a day Colin remembers with relish. He used his power for good, set a boundary with an entitled little punk, and he has gone on to use that line to protect friends, not just himself. Bullies hate to think there’d be a consequence in elementary school. We'll take the victory!
Let's pause here. Come back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and round out this Help, Teach, Protect series I'll offer more insight/experience in the next blog or two to equip you to better teach your children to protect from attacks... from their own internal world, attacks against thier purposes, their pleasure, and their connections with other people
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