Parenting and Setting Limits; Forget the Kool Aid-- Pass the Lemonade
It's all about setting limits... right? Forget the Kool Aid-- Pass the Lemonade I love a good author chat that stirs or inspires me. There’s just something magical about hearing the backstory to a book, live and in person. I attended one such chat this week with James Vollbracht, the author of Stopping at Every Lemonade Stand: How to Create a Culture that Cares for Kids. What I enjoyed so much about the nearly two hours James spoke with us was that his message was so simple, yet so powerful. My takeaway from the night was that it all really boils down to the fact that if we want to raise kids who will become successful and fulfilled, we simply need to act with more attention and intention in what we are already doing. We don’t need to add more activities to our full calendars, or find more money to throw at our children’s perceived inadequacies during this tight-to-the-point-of-asphyxiating economy. I have to admit I was a little nervous when he started off by telling us stories about his childhood and asked us to reflect on our own, and then consider how we are raising our kids today. I feared the juxtaposition would lead to a one-way ticket to Panicville (Population: all parents), but it wasn’t. After all, when you consider that many of us spent our youth running carefree until dark, jumping rock-to-rock along creeks in the great outdoors of suburbia or beyond, and the way we now raise our kids to jump from school to structured hobby to homework to latest hot tech gadget, our gut tells us there will be consequences greater than skinned knees. And there surely are. But rather than focus on all that could and does go wrong, James reframed it all to focus on the strengths of this new generation. In addition to their amazing capabilities with technology that are likely to lead to even more innovation, he highlighted the fact that these kids are the most service-minded youth in our nation’s history. Our challenge is really to make sure that these globally connected youth see the value in making face-to-face connections in their own neighborhood. In addition to the list of reminders such as focusing, as parents, on doing more listening and less talking; giving our children chores so they feel like they play an important role in the family dynamic; asking kids for advice whenever possible so they feel empowered; and holding family meetings to talk about what’s going right before sneaking in a few areas of improvement, the biggest thing I will remember about James Vollbracht's presentation are the three questions he said we need to ask ourselves as we go through life: Did I live? Did I love? Did I make a difference? Let’s all work on making the answer to all three questions a resounding YES for our kids, and ourselves... Yes?
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