Ears to Hear…Time to Share

Spend time with your children. Speak, yes, but lovingly patiently listen well, so they will also speak to you.

Some of you may know that I am a mom. I have five kids: three grown with families of their own, one in heaven, and one at home who is still young and growing. I wasn’t able to be in the lives of the three oldest ones much because they are my stepchildren and were raised in a different home, but I have strived to be a present parent for them as much as possible, and a present available parent for my youngest. It’s not always easy but it is well worth the effort.

Through it all, I’ve tried to make a point of taking the time to just talk. Not just me talk to them, but allowing and encouraging each precious gift to talk and share what’s happening on the inside as well as the outside.

Sometimes it takes flexing bedtime to allow for openness and sharing. Sometimes it’s in putting down the device and turning off the tv so our children know they are the focus. (It’s amazing how they will open up when they know we are really listening!)

Sometimes it takes being open and sharing to get it started. Sometimes it takes a probing caring question to get the ball rolling. Sometimes it just takes quietness and listening, and sometimes cuddle time is all the communication needed for that moment.

When children feel important enough to have the world stop just for them, their God-given incredible value is re-established and affirmed.

I watch the world around me and it often breaks my heart. I see so many children trying to figure out the craziness, trying desperately to be “ok”, to not be afraid, to be “grown up” and “handle” things because their parents are too busy to steer, guide, and just be there for them…be their strength…because they can’t “adult”. They are children. Yet they are expected to “man-up” or “step-up”.

Please don’t misunderstand. There are times when a parent truly wants to be home with their child, but they have no income unless they work. It’s a single parent household with no other means of financial support. Or it’s two parents but the only jobs that can be found are unbelievably low wage and so both must work.

I understand those things happen, at least temporarily, and in those times we’ve got to do the best we can with what we have by praying for guidance, and doing our best to choose someone to watch our children whom we KNOW will not harm them. I emphasize that because so many of us entrust the children who have been entrusted to OUR care to be raised by complete strangers. Even family members cannot always be trusted. When our children spend more of their waking hours with someone else, they are being infused with the ideas and beliefs, and behaviors, of that someone else. Will those seeds that are being planted in our children grow a crop in our child that will benefit and not harm them, now or in the future?

I know many leave the raising of their children to grandparents, yet even the most wonderful and loving grandparents can never replace parents.

Yes, kids are resilient, but they are not as indestructible as society wants us to believe. So many times far too much is expected of them. While they often spring back from even the most shocking experiences, scars and damage don’t always go away easily, or perhaps they never do.

I know of a boy who had a nervous breakdown when his parents divorced and eventually was institutionalized. Although this is an extreme case, children do feel deeply and are impacted deeply, even if they don’t completely understand what’s happening.

Children often won’t voluntarily tell us they are hurting or suffering damage because they often don’t understand what’s happening inside themselves, let alone know how to put it into grown-up words. It’s up to us as parents to be attentive, and to do that we must be present and available.

A child’s perception of their value is established primarily by their parents.

Kids need their parents to be present as much as possible, and to always be nurturing.

Nurturing doesn’t mean to make them weak or unable to cope. On the contrary. It means to give them what they need when they need it so that they can develop a strength and structure and self-worth that will sustain them once they “leave the nest”.

If we work, do we really HAVE TO work?

People often convince themselves that they are working hard and never home “for the family”. But to what price? Needlessly sacrificing the family FOR the family? The family needs us more than they need that boat or expensive car, the extra gadgets or $100 makeup, the $200 Starbucks allowance. Are there corners that can be cut that would enable our family to be whole?

If we have to work to pay rent, food, utilities, gas, etc., do we have to work away from our children?

Although this whole “pandemic” COVID thing has been crazy, it has caused many people to think differently about their lives and work. Some have decided to homeschool their kids. Some work at home while they homeschool their kids.

Be creative.

Let’s put our thinking caps on and be creative about how to be there for our children.

Even with attentive parents, there are often things that our children won’t open up about until months later. However, if we are there for them, lovingly listening to them, providing times for them to breathe and not feel rushed, knowing we’re not going anywhere, the communication will be better and we, as parents, will be more “in the know” about the lives of our precious gifts.

The bottom line is…

…no matter the reason (or sometimes excuse)…Kids need us, their parents. God breathed life into them and entrusted them to be cared for by those to whom He entrusted them…their parents.

What are we doing with that awesome privilege?