Prepare your child for the path

There’s an old saying: Prepare your child for the path, not the path for your child.

The path of life, then, with all its twists and turns, needs to be in our view when we are thinking about how best we can support the next generation.

As we seek to be intentional, we must ask questions about the path that lies ahead of each young person in our care, for example:

• What obstacles may they need to overcome in life?

• What pressures are they likely to have to endure?

• What responsibilities will they shoulder?

If we do not keep the whole of life in view as we raise the young, we’ll be short-sighted and shallow in our approach. It’s a shame to think that young people may spend years in a youth programme having fun, yet walk away with little to help them when in later years they face suffering, start a family, or navigate the stresses of work. Unfortunately, this is too often the case.

We live in an age where a spirit of ‘safetyism’ prevails. Health, comfort and personal happiness are some of our most prized possessions. It is no surprise, then, that the modern teen is more likely to be over-protected from the challenges of life than prepared for them.

We over-protect children and young people …

1. Emotionally: when we shield them from hearing alternative view points for fear that they will be ‘triggered’ or when feelings are never challenged.

2. Socially: when we step in to solve their relational conflicts or make that difficult phone call for them.

3. Physically: when stop them from climbing trees or roaming out of our line of sight.

To be fair, over-protection is a natural instinct. The world can seem like a more dangerous place these days, and in many ways it is.

Over-protection comes from a place of good intention. But, unfortunately good intentions don’t always do the job. In ‘coddling’ the next generation – to use the language of social psychologist Jonathan Haidt – we are in danger of sending young people into a storm without so much as an umbrella.

As Lenore Skenazy, president of Let Grow (a non-profit promoting childhood independence and resilience) puts it:

Or consider this from a piece on ‘The Fragile Generation’ by Haidt and Skenazy:

Boston College psychology professor emeritus Peter Gray was once invited to speak at major university on "the decline in resilience among students".

"We have raised a generation of young people who have not been given the opportunity to … experience failure and realize they can survive it,” said Gray.

Writing in his 2013 book Free to Learn, Gray pointed to the huge importance of something we moderns under-value: unstructured, unsupervised play.

My Take:

Our challenge today is to think more about how we can prepare young people for all of life, not just for university or their first job.

Key to this will be letting go of some control, even taking some risk.

Children, like us, learn best by doing. And that often means without our supervision.

By letting go some of our control, we give our children invaluable opportunities to grow.

By empowering young folk to do hard things and endure difficult situations, we give them the gift of experience. And from such experiences, they will build capability and confidence that will serve them well on Life’s path long after we’re gone.

David, one of my favourite characters of Biblical history, serves as a great illustration.

What would have been lost had he never roamed the hills of Bethlehem as a young shepherd? What if his father had been at hand to fend off every threat? How else would he have been prepared to face both king and giant with such courage?

If you know friends who want to become more intentional in how they support young people, please share this newsletter:

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Until next time,

Stephen