I feel old.
The reason: My son received his driver’s license. Seems like just last week I made truck and fire engine noises to make him laugh during diaper changes. Seems like just yesterday I ran beside him for miles as he mastered his bike sans training wheels. “Wake up and smell the Pike roast, my friend,” a colleague said, “he’s taller than you.”
For some reason, I struggle to believe that I’m old enough to have a young man who can legally drive away from my house, in my wheels, without me.
Seriously; my problem is that his driver’s license documents his 16 years, and that means I’m … much older than I want to admit. I’m not nervous about his actual driving, though, because he’s good. And you need not take my word for it.
In Michigan, a young person must pass a road test to receive a driver’s license. A mandatory element of the road test: a parent rides along. After Scott completed the cone course, the three of us (him, the test official, and me) took a 45-minute spin around the area. At the conclusion, the official told Scott that he’s an excellent driver.
I expected nothing less. More importantly, Scott had confidence too. As a parent, I want to make sure that my child believes in himself—a critical step towards achieving anything. A big part of making that happen is what we share with our children.
Here’s where I’m headed: The message “I believe in you” can serve as needed affirmation today and an investment in a more confident tomorrow.
One of my favorite illustrations of this principle comes from Ben Zander, conductor of Boston Philharmonic Orchestra and a professor at the New England Conservatory of Music. He believes grand potential is released when belief replaces the reasons for self-doubt, which is why he gives all his students the grade of “A” at the beginning of the course. Their first assignment is to write him a letter, dated at the end of the term, which explains the story of what the student will have done to earn this high mark. His philosophy: “This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.”
Give your child an A and watch him or her live into the possibilities you’ve inspired.
Well-known Nobel Prize winning author Toni Morrison says, “Long before I was a success, my parents made me feel like I could be one.”
Her observation is powerful, and can be put to use with kids of all ages.
It came up three years ago over lunch with my friend and mentor, Dick. I asked him what advice he had for me about raising a teenager. My son’s thirteenth birthday was quickly approaching and I’ve heard that parenting challenges change when the teen years arrive. “Expect the best from him, and tell him that you do,” Dick said. “Then watch him chase it to make it happen.”
Then Dick got more specific. “For instance, many parents joke about how awful they expect their children to be as drivers. Your son as a driver might seem a long way off, but it’s not. So instead of making light of him, take any opportunity you have to tell your son that you believe he’ll make an excellent driver some day, and give him a reason or two why. Take that same logic about predicting his success and apply it to as many situations as you can.”
I took Dick’s advice and spent the past three years telling my son and everyone else that I knew he would be a great driver for a few specific reasons. Surprisingly, those words stunned many parents. They even qualified as counter-cultural, according to two teens with a hot-selling book.
In Do Hard Things, brothers and authors Alex and Brett Harris write, “The problem we have is with the modern understanding of adolescence that allows, encourages, and even trains young people to remain childish for much longer than necessary. It holds us back from what we could do, from what God made us to do, and even form what we would want to do if we got out from under society’s low expectations.”
Every time you express confidence in what your child can or will do someday, you set an expectation. Same works for joking about what he or she can’t or won’t do.
Scott and I spent many hours together with him behind the wheel. Now, he’s still there and I’m not.
But I’m not worried.
I just feel old.
A portion of this column is an excerpt from Words Kids Need to Hear (Zondervan, 2008) by David Staal.
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David Staal, senior editor of Today’s Children’s Ministry, serves as the president of Kids Hope USA, a national non-profit organization that partners local churches with elementary schools to provide mentors for at-risk students. Prior to this assignment, David led Promiseland, the children’s ministry at Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois. David is the author of Words Kids Need to Hear (2008) and lives in Grand Haven, MI, with his wife Becky, son Scott, and daughter Erin. Interested in David speaking at your event? Click here
©2009, David Staal
