Our Parenting Journey: Child Centered? Us?

If you haven’t read my disclaimer for this series please do so.

Joe and I had always had the conviction that Jesus was the center of our home, the marriage was the priority and the children would be lovingly drawn into that relationship (as Mark Driscoll so eloquently put it in his Peasant Princess message “The Little Foxes“).  But although that was our conviction after reading “The New Six Point Plan for Raising Happy, Healthy Children” we realized that we were not working out those convictions in our every day lives.  Abby had clearly become the center of the family.  Because of her struggles, we were giving her too much attention and making her the central focus of our family.  How did we do that?  Here were a few of the ways:

1. We allowed her to interrupt us at any time. No matter if we were talking to one another or just taking time to ourselves, we would drop everything and place our full attention on her at any time of the day.  We rationalized this by saying what a hard time she was having and that extra attention would be the key to fixing it.

2. Our down time centered around her. Joe and I got away from having our own time together when Abby was awake and could see us.  Instead, we allowed her to dominate the free time in our home.

3. We almost never said “no” to Abby when we were doing something else.  There were no clear boundaries set as to what time was for her and what time was for other things.

So here were some changes we began to make, that made a huge difference.

1. Abby was given more specific guidelines to know when it was “her time”.  We set aside special times to play with her throughout the day, but also kept other times to ourselves.  She was told when I was going to do school work, or when Joe was going to read, or when the two of us were going to sit on the couch and talk with one another.  Although at first she looked at us like we had two heads each, she quickly adjusted to going and doing things on her own.  I think this is when her creativity really began to soar to where she is one of the most creative people I have ever met today.

2. Inappropriate interruptions were no longer allowed.  At the dinner table, the conversation no longer focused around her, nor was she given free reign to interrupt.  Joe and I talked first and then she was given the opportunity.  If Joe and I were hugging or sitting together on the couch, she wasn’t allowed to run up and try to push her way in between us.  We communicated that this was a moment for us and that when we were done, we would love to have her join us.

3. We did not hide doing things without her.  We used to try to get her to bed and then sneak out for a date or turn on a movie.  But this was a huge hindrance to her.  Instead of helping her, it aided into her thinking that our day ended when hers did because she was the most important person in our home.  We started letting her know when we would be doing things together.  We explained that our marriage was the priority and that we spent time together away from her.

I think it is very easy to become child-centered in our culture.  It is almost the norm these days.  Rosemond writes in his book that at seminars he will ask the question to a group of women, “How many of you would say your children are the most important priority in your life?”  He said almost every hand in the room goes up as the women look around at each other proudly and nobly.  In other words, he was saying it is an admirable characteristic in our day to put your children above all else.  He mentions as well that a woman who works in the home today is called a “stay at home MOM”, while 60 years ago she was called a “house WIFE”.  Last week I was even reading a book on the family that I was truly enjoying, but had to cringe when the author called children “bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh” (Genesis 2:23), which is a verse that is in reference to marriage.  It is not odd anymore to hear that our “children are our world” and the most important day in our lives was the day our children were born, instead of the day we were married.

As Rosemond notes in his book, the goal of our parenting should be to raise children who independently go out in the world.  But often what we are doing is raising children who are dependent on us (usually the mom) to the detriment of the child and our marriages.  As both he and Mark Driscoll have noted, children holding the wrong place in our families is one of the biggest problems we face today, as well as a cause for a large majority of divorce.

Our home is truly a different place today because we are constantly on the lookout to guard ourselves from being child-centered.  We have in no way arrived, but our children are so much more secure and happy in knowing that Joe and I love one another more than them.  It sounds crazy, but their security increases more in knowing their parents marriage is secure than in being the center of our worlds.