the endgame

I have always adhered to a bit of a backwards parenting style; I am sure there is an academic name for it, but it looks a little like this: imagine standing with your child, now an adult - maybe taller than you, all signs of baby fat and teenage acne gone - who do you want that person to be, and how do you help him or her get there?

I bet many of us would share similar aspirations for our grown children - empathetic, productive, happy, congenial, resilient, kind.

The harder question is, though, how do we help our children get there?

When I consider my children from this vantage point, looking back from some arbitrary point in the future, I find I worry less about the everyday ups and downs and think more about how the wins and losses can help bring about those “endgame” characteristics.

I worry less about a bad test score and consider the lesson in hard work. I worry less about a school rejection and focus on the resilience that is developing. And I worry less about the amount of play time on the field (we’ve all been there) and more about learning the importance of being a good team member.

And although I try and keep my head in the “endgame”, I fall short. We all want our children to be happy, now. We want them to succeed, now. And sometimes their accomplishments make us feel better, about who we are and what kind of parent we must be - OUCH.

But often I find that our children’s victories now do not correlate with future gains. They are nice, certainly, and welcome always. But it is usually when our children navigate the losses, the failures, and the missteps that we see real character emerge, and real character is the holy grail.

I am not advocating disappointment and failure. I am recognizing that there is often a whole lot of good that can come out of those everyday incidences that just don’t go our children’s way.

Later this week, we are going to share a story about a young man who persevered through tough circumstances and came out on the other end a remarkable person who embodies the kind of attributes that we would all include on our “endgame” list.