A gift from my younger self
Working through discord, part 3: On reconnecting with my values and intentions as a parent
Earlier this year, when my kids were at the height of their bickering, and I felt exhausted and out of constructive ideas for responding, I pulled a book from my shelf: Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids, by Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson.1
I’d first read the book eight years before, around the time our second child was born.
At that time, I was raising my voice around the house a lot, as I struggled to respond to the growing independence of our older kiddo, who was then two-and-a-half years old. I was tired and harried, and I felt alienated from my own values and aspirations for the kind of father I’d wanted to be.
My wife suggested I check out a parent group at our Unitarian Universalist church, which was about to commence a series of meetings devoted to applying the practice of non-violent communication to parenting and family life. Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids was to be the guidebook for those explorations.
Snap back to the present.
I remembered the parent group and the book fondly as having helped me bring my parenting into closer alignment with my values. Perhaps the book might help me again?
I opened the book, and a folded piece of paper slipped out.
I unfolded it.
It was a worksheet from one of the parent-group sessions. There, in green ink, younger-me had inscribed responses to several questions about the values I’d wanted to guide my parenting.
Suddenly, I remembered having inserted the worksheet into the book eight years earlier, in the hope that I’d find it again if I ever needed it.
I began to read.
Drawing from Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids, the worksheet asked, “What qualities do I want to see in my children when they are adults?”
I answered:
Resilient, determined, kind.
Have tools to step back from and evaluate their own emotions, rather than be merely reactive—which is how I am when I’m tired.
Next, the worksheet asked, “What kind of relationship do I want to have with my children, not only now but in the long term?”
I answered:
Open to surprise.
Be a good example of someone muddling through with purpose, trying their best, not ashamed to re-tool and change.
Learn from my kids.
An additional reflection lay inscribed beside these three hopes, with clear emphasis:
Focusing on compliance doesn’t get me there.
Finally, the worksheet asked, “What do I notice when I sit with these questions and answers?”
I answered:
Calmer.
Need to do this more regularly—my writing can be a tool for this, so long as I take care in discussing the children.
I put down the worksheet, feeling a bit startled but mostly just grateful for younger-me’s wisdom in saving these reflections for current-me to rediscover.
Through these bits of saved wisdom, I could see my current self more kindly, more compassionately. Here I was, the same guy with the same basic hopes, eight years later, navigating another period of adjustment in the ongoing development of my family. I’d come through such a period before and learned new tools for acting on my values—and I would do so again.
I’d come to the right place.
Next time, we’ll explore what it means to approach conflict as an invitation to understand and meet the needs of others and ourselves more fully—and build deeper trust and connection in the process—as articulated by Hart and Hodson and others in the non-violent communication tradition.
Sura Hart and Victoria Kindle Hodson, Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids, Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press, 2006.