1) You Are Doing a Good Job as a Parent 2) And, How to Talk with Your Kids about Sad Stuff

Driving my kids to and from various camps in rural Missouri the past couple of weeks, I've been grateful for two advances in technology - Google Maps and deodorant.  I think about both of those things frequently on these camp drives, and it brings me a sense of peace.

One thing I'm not grateful for is the proliferation of advice on parenting that just seems to snowball in the years since I've been writing this blog.  With every parenting question, you can find 50 different articles with nuances of advice and so much of it just makes parents more afraid, walking on eggshells, insecure that they have totally f****ed up their child/ren already.  Today, I am writing with anti-advice 'thoughts' (for lack of a better word) and I'm hopeful that if you follow my blog, you will forgive me as I am being kind of hypocritical because I just complained about parenting advice online.  Oh well.

The reason I'm thinking of it more intently right now, is that personally, I've been confronted with a few sad, worrisome, and even tragic situations in my community in the past couple of weeks - children and adults I know who are directly dealing with death, disease, grief and violence.  I've been asked by several parents - "how do I/we talk to our kids about this?"

Here is what I've come to believe about 'saying it right' to our children:

1) If you are worried about saying it right, you are probably not going to say anything to your kids that is damaging.  You are already consciously, intentionally putting the emotional needs of your child/ren as a high priority.  Please don't be so anxious about yourself.  You are a loving parent and you're going to do a good job.  No matter what 'advice' I give after this...(you might ignore the rest, in fact)...this is what I want you to know - if you are worried about doing the right thing and consciously trying to do well by your kids during a crisis, you are a good parent.

2) Kids do not understand the broad implications of words like Cancer or Divorce or Hospital.  They don't have the range of life experience to instantly know that Divorce can mean living with new people like stepparents and stepsiblings and divided Christmas holidays.  They don't know that Cancer can mean dad getting treatments that make him nauseated or lose his hair or that he might not be able to coach baseball.  They don't have the thunderous realization that any change means months of uncertainty and change of routine.  They don't know what it means to have to make a 'new normal.' This general understanding creates great fear in adults, but our kids can be more in the moment (the way we know we are supposed to be, if we listen to our yoga teacher).

It's ok to answer questions that we know the answers to and it's also ok to say "I don't know yet."  Or "when I know the answer, I will tell you" or "I am not ready to talk about that yet."

3)  Kids will remember feelings we convey more than exact words.  When my ex and I first separated, my youngest was in first grade.  The very night she learned of it, she cried at the dinner table and asked me, "Are you and Dad going to get divorced?"  "I don't know," I answered. "But I do know that no matter what happens, we are going to be ok."  When I think about my lowest, most frightened moments, what I've longed for is someone to tell me "it's all going to be ok."   I try to honestly convey that tension to my kids - "hey - I don't know all the answers, but I do know that hard times enter all our lives and hard times also pass."

4)  It's ok to show your sad and scared and angry feelings to your kids, but don't lay them on your kids to fix.   You can say, "I am sad today.  I'm so glad I have grandma to talk to."  Or, "I am worried today, but I know tomorrow will be a better day."  You can cry in front of your kids,

5)  You can make mistakes and then give your kids the great gift of modeling to them that you own up to it.   All you have to say is, "I've been thinking about it and I don't think I said, x, y, or z in the way I wanted to."  Or, "I just want to check in with you about when we talked about X - I wondered if I wasn't a good listener. I am sorry."

Our culture seems to have idealized childhood somehow - to be imparting to us parents that we are supposed to keep our kids in an idealized bubble of childhood that is all and always baseball and apple pie and playdates where everyone gets along.  Yet, we are doomed to fail if this is the unconscious standard we hold ourselves to.  Even if bad things don't 'happen' from the outside, our kids deal with inside struggles too - ADHD, anxiety, not making a team, being left out.

In my work, I ponder with people about 'why do bad things happen?'  I notice, in particular this can be a disheartening question for people who believe in a loving God - how and why could a loving God allow bad things to happen?

I believe in God (as I've said, I don't care if people call God God or Nature or Love or Energy...or whatever...to me, it's not important).  I know and believe there is a great, loving Mystery that is way beyond my human understanding.  One thing I can understand about that Mystery is what it is to be a loving parent.  To me, a Loving Parent embodies some part of that Mystery.

In one way, as loving parents, we wish we could prevent our children from ever having to know or feel any pain in life - anything bad or scary or cruel.  But, then we would protect our children from Life itself.  It would be no good.  We would control our children and they would not ever be truly free; they would never truly live.

We are parents and we can't protect our children from everything.  We shouldn't.  We can be there - imperfectly.  Not saying it 'right', but doing it right... because we do what we do with love.