My youngest son, Patrick, the 4^th of our 4 boys, will turn 12 tomorrow.  Soon, he we will be a full-fledged teenager and well on his way to launch, to moving out of our home and into his life and his adventure.  It seems imminent, to me.  My third youngest son, John Robert, who will be 16 in March, is a sophomore and pushing 6 feet tall.  On Friday, he wants to get his learner’s permit.  Ah, it will happen, for sure.  And my second son, Matthew, now 18 and a senior in high school, chose life abroad on a student exchange in Italy over all the milestones he could experience here during his final year of high school.  My stepson, Dan, 27 and married, is a graduate student, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford, living just far enough away and so consumed by his studies and work that it is difficult to see him, in person, very often.  We are grateful for new technologies and applications like Skype that help us to connect, “face-to-face.”  Time is flying by and I feel it.

As the mother of four boys, I’m hopeful that the old saying, “A daughter is a daughter for the rest of her life.  A son is a son until he takes a wife (or equivalent),” will not fully be our truth.  I will miss them, no matter their quirks, or mine, our issues or challenges.  They made our house a home.

Contemplating their departure brings me to tears, some days.  And on others, all I feel is joy and pride and relief, enjoying the space that’s being created for me, and for my husband and me, and for the life we’ve begun to imagine together after all of our kids have “launched.”

That imagining includes World Class Parenting.  Why?  Because World Class Parenting is as much about building powerful, conscious partnerships, as it is about building purposeful, conscious parents. It keeps me honest and present and it reminds to stay in choice, to actively nurture my relationships with my self and my husband, to keep all of my relationships “up-to-date,” and to be a finisher as it regards actively parenting my boys.  Why?  Because no matter how independent, tall, far away, old, young, playful, assertive, different, contrarian, difficult, or challenging they are, our children need us to love and accept and believe in them, period.

It is the number one thing our World Class Parenting coaching and course participants learn how to do – to begin in love and assume the best; to KNOW that they (the parents) matter and are THE most important source of belief, love, resilience and support for their children, especially during their formative years and throughout adolescence.

While I may not be the first one my children will share their secrets and heart’s desires with over time, I know it matters to them that I was there for them when I was the one they wanted to turn to and that I’m there for them now, still creating the safe container, still ready to listen, always holding them big and with compassion, serving as a resource.  As a World Class Parent, I will not assume that they always know or remember this.  I will forever be here to remind them that they are loved and that they matter, both in word and deed, physically and energetically.

Call to Action: Think about what you can do and how you can be, consciously, to remind your children that they matter and that they are loved.  HINT: You could just tell them this!  NOTE: Avoid apologies, caveats, explanations and the “big hairy but’s” that negate the wonderful things you say/do.  REMEMBER: It’s really that easy.  Just take a deep breath, look them in the eyes, tell them like you mean it, and pause…let the silence work its magic!  You can do it and it matters that you do!

Love,

Dori

WHAT WOULD A WORLD CLASS PARENT DO?

Dear Dori and Frank:

I’ve always thought that someday my kids will reach an age when I could count on them to share in the chores at home.  If nothing else, I thought I could count on them to take care of their own things and their own space.  It seems that it is always a struggle and I constantly have to remind them to do so.  What would a World Class Parent do?

Aaron in Seattle
Dear Aaron:

This is a great subject and goes to the heart of a World Class Parent’s role as a steward to their children.  The subjects of being responsible and taking accountability for those tasks that are assigned to you begin at a very early age.  It starts with using the words and modeling the actions.

World Class Parents understand that kids are very literal in their thinking so they begin as early as they can to teach and model the act of responsibility by having their children assist in picking up after their activities and acknowledging them for “acting responsibly.”  The key is to hold them accountable for their assignments, to name what you are doing, and to avoid the temptation of doing the tasks for them.

The mindset is that it might take longer to accomplish the task now, but it will pay dividends later when it counts.

World Class Parents are always the model for what they want to teach and understand how important it is to be the example for their children first by explaining the action, “We’re off to the grocery store because it’s my responsibility to get the food,” followed by, “Thanks for helping me fulfill my responsibility.” “Now you be responsible and pick up your toys and straighten your room before dinner.”  Get used to using the words “responsibility” and “accountability” a lot.  You will feel like a broken record.  Do it anyway.

When a parent decides to use this language it’s important to sit down with your older children, one at a time, and explain how people who meet their responsibilities are appreciated for their contributions and make a positive difference.  Similarly, people who don’t meet their responsibilities often weaken a group or a situation and are looked upon as being unreliable or untrustworthy.  It can be just as powerful to point out when you, as the parent, fail at this as when you succeed.  Discuss the impact in each situation.  Both are instructive and help our children to know that we all take turns doing well and not so well at honoring our responsibilities and being accountable, and each has consequences.

When we are responsible and accountable, we get to celebrate and when we’re not, it helps to acknowledge this too, learn from it, own our impact, and then self-correct.  It helps to name each time this happens.  Again, you may feel like a broken record.  Do it anyway.  If your children are older and not following through as you’d hoped, ask yourself, “Do I have an explicit agreement with them about this?”  If not, that’s a good place to begin.  If so, then ask, “Are the consequences clear and am I following through?”

Consider your own behavior.  Are you modeling the process and the accountability you want from them?  Activate your observer and pay attention.  If you’re not, please refrain from beating yourself or them up (figuratively or literally) and pause to consider how you want things to work from this moment forward.  That’s the conversation that needs to take place and it’s an important one for you and for them.

As adults, we learn that if we don’t fulfill our responsibilities we generally face the consequences of our actions.  Our kids will be well served if they learn this early in life, ideally, at home where the stakes aren’t as high as they could be outside of the home and later in life.  Being accountable is a learned trait and someone is going to teach it either at home or away, destructively or constructively.  Which would you prefer?

Stewardship is taught in the first of the five World Class Parenting modules.  You can read more about this and other subjects in our new e-Book, “Stepping Into the World Class Parenting Mindset: How to be Proactive, Purposeful and Fundamentally Prepared for ANY Parenting Challenge You May Face,” which you can find at www.worldclassparenting.com.

In Service,

Frank