Stepping Back

My youngest daughter got checked in hockey practice the other night. For those of you who are not hockey fans, a check is when one person uses their body to smash the other person into the boards. The kid was about 6 inches taller than her and outweighed her by at least 20 pounds. And there's no checking at her age level.

My daughter never cries at hockey. She's one of two girls this year out of 50 kids. She knows that crying won't help her case in being accepted. But she cried that night. She even asked to be taken off the ice to sit on the bench for a while.

When she skated over to the bench and asked to come off, it was all I could do to sit on my hands and let the coach deal with it. I wanted to run over to the bench and check her out myself. And as my momma bear claws came out, I also wanted to have a conversation with the kid who hit her.

My daughter never asks to come off the ice. Her coach sat her down, took a look at what hurt, gave her some time to get herself together and put her back on the ice. My daughter and her coach handled the situation and really didn't need my help. I checked her out when we got home and she was fine. I was glad I had sat on my hands. My going over to the bench would have done nothing to help the situation.

I read an article the other day that talked about how we're becoming a nation of hovering parents. The article pointed out that kids who go to the playground with their parents get less physical activity because their parents are so worried about them getting hurt. By the time these kids get to college, they have never made decisions for themselves or suffered the consequences of a poor decision. They fail at college because they don't know how to manage life on their own.

Our job as parents is not to protect our kids from every imaginable hurt or consequence. Our job is to get our kids ready to live life on their own -- a life that lets God's light shine through. I'm not saying let your kids run out in the street and get hit by a car, but it's OK to let them fall down and skin their knee.

Proverbs 22:6 says "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." This means if we are constantly rescuing our children or stepping in and dealing with difficult situations for them, they will never learn to deal with those situations themselves. On the flip side, it also means if we teach them to make decisions and reap the consequences of those decisions on their own, they'll be prepared when they leave home.

As our kids grow, we need to let loose of the reins and allow them to start dealing with things on their own. We need to be there for support and advice, and there are times when a situation gets so out of control that we need to step in. But we should let our kids have the first crack at solving their problems.

My oldest heads off to middle school next year. I have stopped being responsible for her getting her homework done. She knows what our schedule looks like for the week, so she is responsible for mapping out her time and getting it done. I'll help if she has a problem and check it if she asks me to, but I don't set her homework schedule anymore.

As your kids get older start turning over decisions and responsibilities to them:

• Let your kids deal with their teachers. If your child is having trouble with another child bothering them or the teacher marked something wrong on their paper that was right, let your child have first dibs on talking with the teacher. Talk with your child at home about a respectful way to approach the situation, then let your child have the conversation with his teacher.
• Start young. If there are decisions your child can make or responsibilities around the house they can do, put them in charge. My kids have been in charge of clearing their place at the table since they could walk and carry a plate. Now, they have chores they are expected to do. I don't nag, but if I have to do their chores, I leave them a bill.
• Teach your kids to work out their disagreements. Don't immediately step in when your kids are arguing with a sibling or friend. Give them a chance to work it out. Sure, things may get said that could hurt another's feelings, but it teaches them about the importance of considering each other's feelings and point of view. If they have to apologize for their speech, they'll think twice about saying those things the next time.
• Teach them to pray first. When your kids are stuck in a tough spot, and they don't know how to deal with a situation, encourage them to seek out the Source of wisdom. Show them how to ask God for help in dealing with the situation.

It's hard to watch our kids get hurt and make mistakes, but it's much easier for our kids to learn these lessons now than it is for them to learn them as adults. Start giving your kids the tools to handle their own problems and conflicts, so they get plenty of practice while you're still around to back them up. They will thank you for it when they are older.

Memory Monday: Tackling 9/11 (John 16:33)

Unless you live in a cave, this week is going to be filled with stories and remembrances about 9/11. Unless you have very small children, you're going to find yourself answering questions this week about that horrible day 10 years ago.

I don't know about you, but it's difficult for me, even 10 years later, to process exactly what type of people would celebrate killing so many innocents. Watching those towers fall qualifies as the single most horrifying experience of my life. I've never felt so helpless, angry, sad and overwhelmed. It seemed as if in that one day, the world had gone crazy.

My kids don't remember that day. My oldest was three months old. They have no memories of the horror and the tears. They don't remember watching New Yorkers stream across the George Washington and Brooklyn bridges on foot, their shocked faces covered in ash. They don't know what it was like to see two buildings that we knew were full of people simply disappear in an instant. To them, 9/11 is something they hear about every now and then. It's still incomprehensible, but it's not a personal experience.

Unless you have older teenagers, our kids don't remember a time that they didn't have to take off their shoes to go through airport security. They don't remember a New York skyline that included twin skyscrapers. The word terrorism has always been a part of their vocabulary. Our kids are products of a post-9/11 world, and as we remember the tragedy of 10 years ago we have to keep that in mind.

When we talk with our kids about the events of that day, we have to remember that their lens is different from our own. They need us to be able to share with them both the tragedy and the heroism of that day. They need to know that God did not forget us in the face of evil on that day. They need to hear our stories, so they can begin to process that event and understand how it affected their world.

It's natural to want to shy away from talking about 9/11. Even 10 years later, the horror of that day is still fresh. It changed all of our lives, and our kids need to know that. All this week, the blog is going to look at ways we can talk with our kids about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001. It's important for our kids to hear our stories and our perspective on that day to help them process through it. If we let media coverage and teachers be the lead communicators on this, then we miss an opportunity to help our children sort through the issues of bad things happening even though God is good.

Start today by learning John 16:33 together. In these verses, Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Talk with your kids about what this verse means. Explain that even though bad things happen because there is sin in the world, Jesus defeated sin when he died on the cross. That doesn't mean that He always keeps bad things from happening. We all get to choose what we do, and there are consequences for our actions. 9/11 happened because a group of people chose to do a horrible thing. We all felt the consequences of those actions. But that doesn't mean that God wasn't there. That doesn't mean that in the end, God doesn't triumph.

Bad things happen, but God is always there. He offers comfort. He offers courage. He brings light out of the darkness and good out of evil. God is always there.

The events of 9/11 are nearly incomprehensible. Boiling it down so our kids can grasp what happened is a tough task, especially when we are still trying to process it ourselves. But God offers us wisdom as well as comfort. Lean on Him this week as you talk with your kids. He will provide the words to help your kids understand.