Follow the leader

This past weekend, we loaded up in the car and headed to the wedding of a friend. During the car ride, the kids and I got to talking about how Rachel and I used to pass the time as children. It was hard for Addie and Hayden to imagine a world without Plants versus Zombies, Minion Rush, Angry Birds, and Temple Run, but we did our best to explain a world in which we used our imagination and played games on boards and with friends to pass the time. I thought about telling them what it was like to have dinosaurs as pets and the problems we had with our fellow cavemen, but that can wait for another conversation. They are still trying to wrap their minds around an electronic-free childhood.

So what did we do before IPads, IPods, Nintendo, PlayStation, and X-Boxes? Well, it’s been a few years, but if I remember rightly, we ran around outside, played made up games, and generally gave our parents fits. When we could get a friend or two from the neighborhood to join us, we engaged in dangerous spy missions, rode our bikes to new neighborhoods, and lay in the yard looking at the clouds. Every now and again, we would get a large enough crowd and we would have to figure out what to do with everyone. Sometimes we played football, but on my block we all stunk at sports, so for the most part we played Follow the Leader and Simon Says.

Follow the Leader and Simon Says are basically variations on a theme in the gaming universe. Basically, someone gets chosen as a leader. For my block, this usually involved much debating, a good bit of posturing, and a few dares and double-dares, but in the end someone came out on top. The leader then gets to tell everyone else what to do. You can see why there was always a fight for this position. What child doesn’t want to be the boss of every other kid on the block? The games are the same save for one thing: how the leader leads. In Simon Says the key is to lead with your words while in Follow the Leader you lead with your actions. I always lost at Simon Says but it was hard to get me out in Follow the Leader. It never failed that I went out in the first round of Simon Says. All the leader had to do was tell me to pat my head while they rubbed their belly and I would rub my belly right along with them. Then, I would sit down. I don’t know why I even tried. I knew what was going to happen.

Doing what people say is hard. Doing what they do? Piece of cake. I think we get this about life but somehow we think that the rules somehow change when it comes to parenting, at least I seem to think so. Parenting is a lot like leading in Simon Says and Follow the Leader. We want to lead our children to a certain way of life. If we are followers of Christ, we desire to lead them to faith, to orient their lives around God. The question we each have to answer is whether to lead with our words or with our actions. I find that my children struggle, just as I did, in following words. I start talking and their eyes glaze over. However, if I will start acting, my children start following. They find it a whole lot easier to do what I do rather than doing what I say. I don’t even have to ask them to follow. They seem to do it instinctively.

Doing what people say is hard and I know it, but this is often the way I parent. Why is this? I think I parent this way because it is easier. It is easier to talk and talk and talk. Words take very little effort and they place the burden of action on my children, a burden I would rather not bear. I would rather that they pick up their rooms while I retain the freedom to leave a pile of clothes in my own. I would rather remind them that we do not raise our voices while I reserve the right to raise my voice with them. I prefer to educate them in the finer ways of being kind with their words while I maintain the parental authority to use my own in cutting ways. Yes, parenting with my words is much easier, but I am seeing that it is not effective for my children seem to be playing a different game. I am playing Simon Says but they seem to be playing Follow the Leader. They keep doing what I do, much to my chagrin. I have tried to convince them that I get to determine the game but it seems that they are not buying in. All I know is that they see me as the leader. So, I can keep playing Simon Says on my own, or I can join them in a round of Follow the Leader.

A fellow traveler,

Blake

What’s my next step?

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of handing off faith in your family.

Pray with your children:  Faith is nurtured in our children one drop at a time as we instill grace-driven rhythms of a life centered around God. One easy grace-driven rhythm to teach is the rhythm of prayer. In prayer we commune with God, nurturing an abiding relationship with him. You might consider instilling this by taking time each day to pray out loud with your child. This need not be an elaborate prayer but one appropriate for the age and faith journey of each child. Model prayer by praying first and then encouraging them to talk to God in their own words. Seek to establish this as a rhythm, making it an important and necessary part of each day.

We encourage you to consider engaging in the following as a way of deepening your own faith.

Nurture your own faith:  Parenting involves impressing faith upon our children, but we cannot impress what we do not first possess ourselves. Consider your own faith journey and how you are nurturing your relationship with Christ. What rhythms have you established to point you to God? What are some rhythms that you might need to pick up or set down to deepen your relationship with God? Pick one possible rhythm and seek to make it a part of your life this month. Don’t attempt to add anything else until you have established this rhythm, recognizing that faith is nurtured, not forced.