Growing Together: The Parent We Want to Be and the Parent We Are

‘Growing Together’ is a parenting series for paid subscribers of this publication. If you are new here, you can upgrade to paid subscription for $6/month or $50/year.

Paid subscribers can listen to the audio version of this post in my voice.

Reading time: 15 minutes

Listening time: 20 minutes

We usually have a destination in mind before embarking on a journey. I definitely think of parenting as a journey and when I think of the destination, a lot comes to mind.

So let’s do a little exercise.

Think about your child. Not the current version who is pushing back on whatever it is they are pushing back on today. Think of the person you’re raising, the one you hope they are becoming.

What characteristics do you want them to have?

Who do you want them to be?

I’ve now done this exercise a few times with different groups of mothers from very diverse backgrounds. Different nationalities, different cultures, but the list that comes out tends to be very similar each time:
Resilient. Honest. Self-disciplined. Curious. Responsible. Respectful.
Critical thinker.
Able to handle disappointment without falling apart.
Kind without being a pushover.
Confident in their own skin.
Trustworthy. Reliable.
You get the idea?

Interestingly, I have never seen anyone put ‘blindly obedient’ on that list. Because when we’re thinking long-term, when we’re envisioning the grown-up version of the child we’re raising, obedience isn’t really up there on the list of characteristics we’d want them to carry.

And yet, if we look at how we discipline, especially in the hard moments, obedience is very much the coveted trait we hope for.

Comply. Stop. Listen. Do what you’re told.

There is a real gap between the destination we have in mind and the turns we take along the journey. As if, the choices we make have nothing to do with where we end up. The Five Criteria for Effective Discipline (that I listed in the previous issue of this series) are essentially a way to check that gap - to ask whether what you’re doing in this moment is actually pointed toward the person you’re trying to raise, or just pointed toward getting through the next ten minutes.

A few weeks into homeschooling my nine-year-old, I had a morning that became a fairly useful test of putting Positive Discipline theory into practice. It was one of those situations that we mothers are all too familiar with - when we do things and say things that we know we’re going to regret later.
When emotional regulation takes a nosedive.
It is therefore a good example to demonstrate that having knowledge doesn’t mean we never make mistakes. It means we are able to reflect and repair better after mistakes.

Let’s get into it.