athomewithourfaith
©ImageBase
When the apple falls far
from the tree
Our kids don’t always turn out to be just like us, but sometimes
our differences can bring us closer together.
F
rancis, father of four, has little in common with his youngest daughter,
who is 11. A quiet, reserved man, Francis approaches life in a deliberate,
conscientious, thoughtful way. “Sometimes decision-making is difficult for
me, because I like to research all my options,” he says. “My daughter Claire,
on the other hand, is impulsive and outgoing. She can be demanding when
she wants something, because she wants it right now! It can be exhausting. It’s
difficult to relate to her personality because it is so different than my own.”
Parenting is always tricky, but it’s often easier
when the parent can see him or herself reflected
in the child. In Francis’ case, his oldest son has his
quiet personality. “Parenting Stefan is so much less
stressful because I understand him more—I see a
younger version of myself. Parenting Claire is unfamiliar territory.”
Appreciating differences
Tawnya, mother of four, is president of a company
that does cultural consulting. She spends her days
training professionals who are preparing to move
to another country due to a new assignment or
who are soon embarking on a shorter-term, crosscultural business venture. Tawnya sees a connection between training people in the practices and
nuances of another culture and parenting children
who approach life differently than their parents.
“I think we all naturally assume that if everyone was more like ourselves, everything would be
better,” she says. “But what I’ve learned through my
work, and even more through my parenting, is that
By Annemarie Scobey, a contributing editor at
U.S. Catholic.
October 2015 uscatholic.org 43
athomewithourfaith
“Taking just 10
minutes to pray
before the girls
get up helps
me to keep my
perspective.”
God reveals himself in other people in so many
more ways than he’s revealed himself in me and in
my life.”
Francis feels that through the years, he has
made a conscious effort to work with Claire in
situations where her natural impulsivity is a positive. “Claire is the one I invite to join me if I have
any furniture to put together or a project like that.
She makes everything quicker. I’ll be sitting there
reading the directions and she’ll dive in and put
together half the bookshelf before I look up again.
Finding situations like this where I know she’ll be
successful helps me see her gifts more easily.”
Emma, mother of three, says that she and her
husband Sam are not athletes, but their son Henry
is. “It’s been so cool for us two theater geeks to
have a jock for a son. He has expanded our world
and has helped us learn so much from his fearless
love of sports.”
Strategies
O
ne strategy that can help to
build relationships and common ground between parents and
children is for the parent to help
their child feel understood.
Learn about their interests: If
you’re a sports guy with a dancing daughter, ask her about the
steps, the moves, the vocabulary of dance. More background
knowledge builds appreciation.
Accommodate the differences: Beware of trying to force a child
into your approach. An introverted child with an extroverted parent needs the parent to build some quiet time into each day.
Be prepared to sacrifice: Don’t expect your child to work to
understand you the way you are working to understand him or her.
Most children are not developmentally capable of the introspection necessary to intentionally build up a relationship. The work
falls to the parent.
44 U.S. Catholic October 2015
Pieces of a puzzle
Parents who do best navigating a relationship
with a child who is very different than they are
see goodness in both themselves and their child.
Just as it’s erroneous to think that the parents’
way is the only way, parents need to make sure
that they don’t allow their children’s approach
to eclipse their own wisdom. Successful parents
recognize that family life can be like a complex
jigsaw puzzle: it may not be obvious at first where
pieces fit together. But searching and finding a
connection—where parent and child complement
each other—is satisfying, and absolutely worth
the effort.
Amy’s son Jack was a talented high school
basketball player and a very good student. When
it came time to make a decision for college, Jack
was considering a tiny college because he knew
he wouldn’t be able to make the team at a larger
school. Amy saw he was approaching college
through the lens of basketball, rather than as an
important life stage with many dimensions and a
holistic impact.
“I sat down with him and explained that while
I never had the experience of giving 10 years of
my life to a sport, as he had, he needed to evaluate
his dream of playing college ball from a few different perspectives,” she says. “I asked him if he got
injured and couldn’t play, would that college still
be the place that he wanted to go?” Jack eventually chose a larger university where he wouldn’t
be able to make the team, but which was a significantly better fit for him academically.
For Elizabeth, prayer is key. The mother of two
adopted girls who have both been through trauma
in their early life, Elizabeth finds that daily prayer
keeps her grounded. “Some of my daughters’
behaviors are very difficult and are not in line
with my husband’s and my values. Even though
we know the genesis of these behaviors is a place
of brokenness and abandonment, we still need to
deal with defiance, lying, and manipulation on a
daily basis. Taking just 10 minutes to pray before
the girls get up helps me to keep my perspective. I
can better see God healing them and live my own
role in that healing process—slow as it may seem
to be.” USC
©iStock/Good Life Studios
athomewithourfaith
Should he stay or should he go?
When kids want to quit an activity, parents shouldn’t give up their
role in guiding their children to the right decision.
W
hen Jamie and Carol’s daughter, Anna, was 5, they enrolled her in a
dance class. She hated it. “She cried through the first two sessions.
After giving it some thought, we let her quit since we didn’t think dance was
something she would need for a life skill,” Carol remembers. Later, when their
son, J.P., discovered he didn’t like his traveling basketball team, Carol and
Jamie required him to stay with the team anyway. “He did not love the weekend tournaments; he would rather have been at home playing. We made him
finish the season since he was part of a team, but we also respected his opinion. Despite his talent in basketball, we did not sign him up the next season.”
When it comes to children and commitments,
there is no easy one-size-fits-all approach. When
is it appropriate to require a child to stay with an
activity because we need to teach loyalty or perseverance? When is it better to allow a child to step out of
a commitment—to admit that the activity is not in
line with his or her interests and move on?
Look at talents and abilities
For Mike and Maurita, all parenting decisions come
from a place of faith. They see an important part of
their parenting role as helping their daughters utilize
God’s gifts to them. “We try to make our daughters
understand that if God blessed them with certain gifts,
he intended for those to be used; we look for opportunities for them to develop their gifts through sports,
music, and other activities. When Fabi wanted to quit
soccer, we explained to her all the reasons she could
not quit an activity midseason, not the least of which
was that it would be squandering a gift from God.”
Maurita says that because of this Fabi continued
and now, three years later, she has truly fallen in love
with the game. “She gets confidence and self-worth
from it; she is passionate about it; and she cannot find
By Annemarie Scobey, a contributing editor at
U.S. Catholic.
November 2015 uscatholic.org 43
athomewithourfaith
God gives us
more talents
and interests
than we can
possibly use
in a lifetime.
enough opportunities to play. We see her play with
all her heart. For me, watching from the sidelines,
it’s a form of gratitude and prayer. To see your child
using gifts that God has so generously bestowed on
her is a profound experience. And Fabi has shown
gratitude to us for guiding her to hang in there, and
to God for blessing her with a strong, athletic body
and the ability to play with intensity and joy.”
Walk through discernment
Shondra and Malik’s daughter, Jasmine, now 14,
started gymnastics at age 4. Over the years, she
quickly moved up the ranks, placing high in statewide competitions and thriving academically
despite three-hour daily practices. Malik says the
intense time commitment caused his wife and he to
develop a love/hate relationship with it.
“We felt like we were bowing to the ‘gymnastics god,’” Malik says. “But as she continued on,
we saw all the qualities it fostered: self-confidence,
grit, knowing how to pick yourself up and refocus
when you fail.”
In the last two years of grade school, Jasmine
became aware that if she wished to move to the
next level, she would need to spend her high school
years focusing on gymnastics to the exclusion of
everything else. Jasmine found that she had two
choices—either commit fully to elite gymnastics, or
walk away. Malik explains that initially he felt that
it was up to him to figure out what would be best
for Jasmine. “I had to be hit over the head with the
Elements of decision making
C
ommunicate: Often, the
decision to stay with or leave
an activity is less important than
the child feeling understood in
terms of how he or she feels
about that activity. Before allowing a child to quit or forcing
him or her to stay, have a talk
about how the child feels about
the practices, games, or performances. Listen well. Focus not on
the decision to stay or go, but on
the feelings. Leave the decision
for a different conversation.
Take a long view: God gives
us more talents and interests
than we can possibly use in a
lifetime, and families open to
the workings of the Holy Spirit
often are delightfully surprised
at where God eventually takes
them. This moment in time may
not be as pivotal as you believe.
Being medium is fun, too:
Amid the pressure to create an
exceptional child, some parents
lose sight of the joy children
can find in activities even when
they’re not a star. Avoid suggesting a child should quit an activity
they enjoy because there’s “no
future” in it for them.
44 U.S. Catholic November 2015
fact that it was her decision, not mine. Our job as
parents was to help her, but not rush what was truly
a discernment process. I talked about inviting God
into her decision-making process—God, the voice
that whispers in her heart.”
Jasmine decided to leave gymnastics before
the start of high school to try other activities. “She
thought through the options; once she made her
decision, she was at peace.”
When a child doesn’t want to go
Perhaps the most difficult commitment for a parent to help a child navigate is going to church or
religious education classes. As with all decisions,
this one is best handled when a parent is steeped
in prayer himself or herself. “I find that when I am
genuine regarding my own desire to go to Mass or
to pray, my children can sense that,” Elizabeth says.
“I’m better able to field their questions because the
Holy Spirit is within me as I’m answering.”
When Andrea’s son Jeremiah found that his
high school religious education classes leaned harshly
judgmental in the name of Jesus, he felt uncomfortable going. “The class he was enrolled in was not in
keeping with the Christianity we taught at home: act
justly, love tenderly, walk humbly with God, and love
your neighbor as yourself,” Andrea says.
One evening, the class was studying morality.
Some of Jeremiah’s classmates said that all gay people would go to hell; Jeremiah spoke up. “He tried to
stand up for a kinder, more just view of the people
his classmates were condemning—and he was put
down for it publicly in class.” As Jeremiah became
more frustrated, eventually Andrea and her husband allowed Jeremiah to withdraw from the class;
together they searched for a different church more
closely aligned with the examples set by Jesus.
Maureen, mother of five, says her scientifically
minded son, Caleb, declared at age 15 he was not
convinced God is real. Maureen says shortly thereafter Caleb began resisting the family trek to Mass
each Sunday. “After initial alarm, I said to Caleb, ‘It
is good to ask questions about your faith. Keep asking and you will find the truth.’ Though we encouraged open dialogue, we ultimately required Caleb
to continue attending Mass with our family. We
hoped he would gain special graces for attending
Mass despite his reticence.” Once Caleb understood
that his parents accepted and welcomed his questioning, he was able to accept their requirement to
attend Mass as a family. With this, the subject was
no longer a point of contention. USC
athomewithourfaith
©iStockphoto/lenanet
Moral support
Even if your child’s conscience needs a nudge in the right direction,
the little voice in their head often knows just what to do.
A
few months after Hurricane Katrina, Andrea and Greg told their
son, Jeremiah, then 10, that the family was thinking of buying a
vacation cabin a few hours from the family’s home. “Jeremiah had one
question,” Andrea remembers. “He asked if all the survivors of Katrina
now had homes. When I told him they did not, he said he thought our
family should give the money we would have spent on our cabin to a family from New Orleans who didn’t have a home.” Andrea and Greg, moved
by their son’s concern, canceled their trip to the cabin and made a significant donation to the Katrina relief effort.
Children’s development of a conscience differs
by the individual. Just as some children may hit
puberty at 10 and others not until 15, so it is with
moral development. Some children seem to have
a fully developed conscience by middle school,
while others struggle with basic honesty late into
high school. And some children, like Jeremiah,
have precocious moral development—wisdom and
compassion for others that belie their years.
guide for parents who may worry that their child
has no sense of right or wrong. Kohlberg asserts
our morality continues to develop throughout
our lives, with most children operating in the first
three stages until adolescence—initially being
good simply to avoid punishment, then moving
on to behaving well for rewards, and finally making good decisions because they want to be known
as a good boy or girl. Teens and adults usually
operate in the fourth stage: working within conventions of what society has deemed ethically
right and wrong. Many teens and adults steadily
move to the fifth and sixth stages, which center
around human rights and justice; for Christians,
these levels also have a strong connection with
gospel values.
Parents who want to help their child develop
a moral compass can first identify the stage in
which their child usually operates and then
gently ask questions or make observations to help
them move to the next stage.
Stages of moral development
Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s famous Six
Stages of Moral Development can be a helpful
42 U.S. Catholic December 2015
By Annemarie Scobey, a contributing editor at
U.S. Catholic.
athomewithourfaith
Talk about behavior and
connect it to feelings
“My 10-year-old is pretty self-absorbed,” Carrie,
mother of three, says. “His conscience doesn’t seem
to be very loud, or he is just choosing to ignore it.”
Carrie says it bothers her when she sees her son
intentionally leaving others out. “I end up wondering what kind of child I’m raising.” But when she
talks to her son about his actions, he shows embarrassment for not acting differently. In moral development, remorse is a good sign because it paves the
way for growth. Carrie is correct to call her son on
shaky moral behavior. The mistake some parents
make is in dismissing incidents of dishonesty or
unkindness, choosing to hope the behaviors will
disappear on their own. Instead of denial, parents
need to have the strength to discuss (without lecturing) the incident and its consequences in terms
of how it made others feel.
Jesus’ example in the gospel about the men
ready to stone the adulterous woman is an apt guide
for parents. Jesus didn’t tell the men not to throw
the stones. He made an observation: “Let you who
is without sin throw the first stone,” and allowed the
men listen to the voices inside themselves.
Acknowledge it’s not easy
If you’re a parent operating in stage five or six of
Kohlberg’s scale, you’re concerned for the poor,
making good choices for the environment, behaving ethically when no one is watching—and it can
be devastating to have a child who struggles with
making sound moral choices. “I just learned my
high school daughter has a reputation of cheating
on tests,” says a father who asked not to be named.
“I was stunned. I had seen some dishonest behavior
at home, but I did not know it went that far. Now
we need to figure out what to do.”
Moral development, like intellectual development, is a process. While you can definitely give
children excellent examples through your behavior, as well as good discussions and nudges in the
right direction, ultimately they will need to learn
to listen to their own conscience—that voice inside
themselves. Jamie Lynn, mother of two, says that
when her daughter makes a poor choice, she helps
her identify “side-by-side” feelings. “Even though
she may have gotten a ‘high’ from her poor choice,
I help her to see that part of her still did not feel at
ease. I plant this seed of awareness and then ask if
she noticed her quiet inner voice that did not feel
okay. We then identify that voice as God, love, the
heart, or the true self.”
Celebrate the growth
Amy’s daughter, Colleen, 14, was in class with her
cousin. She attended a party where her friends gossiped about him and she didn’t say anything in his
defense. “When I picked her up, she started crying
and said how hard it was and how bad she felt that
she didn’t do anything,” Amy says. “So we had a long
conversation. She felt so guilty.” With Amy’s guidance and some practicing at home, Colleen was able
to confront her friends the next time it happened.
“Some of the girls apologized. They stopped talking
about her cousin—at least in front of Colleen.” USC
Key
Orange
Pre-conventional morality
(younger
children)
Blue
Conventional
morality (older
children,
adolescents,
most adults)
Green
Post-conventional morality
(some older
children and
adolescents,
many adults)
No difference between doing the right thing and avoiding punishment.
(It’s fine to take the candy if I’m not caught.)
Effort is made to secure greatest benefit for self.
(I’m doing my homework to get a good grade.)
Effort is made to secure good relationships; “Good boy/girl” stage.
(I’m telling the truth to my mom because I care what she thinks of me.)
The person is in relationship with greater society. (I won’t steal the bracelet
because I understand what would happen if everyone stole.)
Understanding that morally right and legally right are not always the same.
(I don’t believe in capital punishment, even though it’s legal.)
Morality is based on ethical principles that transcend rules. (I will sit at this
lunch counter for whites, even though I’m black, in order to challenge the law.)
December 2015 uscatholic.org 43