Raising Wholehearted Children
The History Channel offers a great documentary-style series on one of my favorite historical personalities - Theodore Roosevelt. Obviously, I recommend you watch. I have been reading about “TR” since I was a kid and one of the things I always appreciated was the relationship he had with his father. His father gave him great advice and I believe instilled in him a great deal of what Brene Brown would find inspiring in her writing of her book, Daring Greatly - a key phrase in Theodore Roosevelt’s Citizen in a Republic speech at the Sorbonne.
Theodore Sr. would say things like, “Teedie, you have to make your body”, and “bones were made to move”. Similarly, when my dad had his own sayings for things. When he would be doing work on our house, he would give me a piece of scrap wood, so that I could participate in the work. At some point during his observations of my feverish sawing, he would stop me, sometimes holding the back of my elbow, and say, “Paul, let the tool do the work”. He has always taught me patience and has prepared me for life’s challenges.
I have always appreciated Brown’s take on providing appropriate challenges to our kids and balancing it with appropriate support. This might be the most important approach we can take as parents. We have to live it too. We have to be models for our children.
I finally finished reading, “Daring Greatly,” by Brene Brown. I know Paul and I have referenced this book throughout some of our posts. The last chapter is called, “Wholehearted Parenting: Daring to be the Adults We Want our Children to Be.” We are called upon as parents to
Acknowledge that we can’t give our children what we don’t have and so we must let them share in our journey to grow, change and learn
Recognize our own armor and model for our children how to take it off, be vulnerable, show up and let ourselves be seen and heard
Honor our children by continuing on our own journeys toward Wholeheartedness
Parent from a place of “enough” rather than scarcity
Mind the gap and practice the values we want to teach
Dare greatly, possibly more than we’ve ever dared before
As a parent of three beautiful, amazing children, this chapter stood out to me the most. Parenting is one of the most incredible yet challenging adventures in life. If we want our children to love and accept who they are, our job is to love and accept who we are. We need to separate our children from their behaviors. Shame corrodes the part of us that believes we can do and be better. When we shame and label our children, we take away their opportunity to grow and try on new behaviors. This speaks to me as an adult as well and the recent affair trauma that Paul and I have experienced. We must also normalize mistakes and struggles for our children and let them know that they are not alone and that we’ve gone through many of the same situations. Our children need us to model the journey of life for them and we need to teach them how to treat one another, express our feelings and be the best versions of ourselves. During the affair, I did not think about how my atrocious actions would impact my children. Even though they did not know what was going on, I realize that I don’t want my children growing up with a mother who would be a part of such destructive behavior. Some other interesting aspects of this chapter include “lighting up” when your children enter a room, instead of criticizing them or putting them down. It also speaks about supporting other parents and their parenting styles and not making it a contest. And lastly, to reflect Theodore Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” quote, Brene Brown says that “If we’re always following our children into the arena, hushing the critics, and assuring their victory, they’ll never learn that they have the ability to dare greatly on their own.” What a powerful statement that I need to work on as a parent. I want to make sure my children are always safe and protected, but they eventually need to learn how to be independent, interact with others, and learn from their failures and shortcomings. “Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.”
Check out “The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto” from Brene Brown’s website:
