Leading Your Children

I love David Chiem's parenting session I attended on Tuesday. It was awesome. Kudos to Pastor Yock Kiang for inviting him to speak during leader's meeting night so that more leaders can attend. Leaders need to know their cell group members like parents know their children. Haha!

One thing I learnt from Mr Chiem was the need to communicate and pay attention to the children. I shall just talk about 2 things that really impacted me - all paraphrased (emphasis mine):

"I was having drinks with the regional head of an MNC who told me that his teenage child would not listen to him. 'I told him that if this year he does badly for his O-levels, all HELL will break loose!'

'You know, David, I worked hard and I reached a position where I lead 3000 men every day, but I cannot even get my own son to listen to me.'

'Sir, how many years have you been at the job to reach a position to lead 3000 men?'

'Ah! I have worked 30 years with my company, 6 days a week, 14-16 hours a day, sometimes even 20 hours.'

'That should add up to about at least a hundred thousand hours? Yes?'

'Yes.'

'Now tell me how many hours you have spent working on leading your son?'

It became quite evident that few people spend time trying to lead their children. If a child listens because your title is 'dad', you are going to have a very dysfunctional family. You have to earn his respect and the right to lead him. Leading him means offering the control that he cannot.

David shared that all of our brains (I told you psychology is important - for investing and in life; now add study of the human brain structure) are made up of 3 parts: the reptilian part, which deals with the instinct i.e. the part that causes you to dodge when I throw a hammer at you; the limbic system that controls the emotions (yes, Loh Wei, this is the part that causes people to respond to fear and greed) which dogs have as the highest developed part of the brain and lastly the frontal cortex, which deals with reason and thought. Only humans have the frontal cortex. Therefore it is sad when people say we evolved out of an amoeba.

Children do not have as developed a frontal cortex as the adult. They respond mainly out of the limbic system, which explains why they yell at adults when they are annoyed. They don't think logically nor have the capacity to do so in as developed a way as adults. Your brain structure is still growing from 12 through 21 (so those of you who are not 21 yet, please spend more time reading and thinking to develop your frontal cortex and get those nerve passages growing). It is therefore unreasonable to expect that a child can think at the same level as an adult, which many adults take for granted.

Therefore, as the adult, as the parent, you ought to control the situation by not letting your emotions get too involved and if it does, just move up to the frontal cortex consciously instead of entering into a tit for tat with your child's limbic system.

"Dad comes home. Sees child watching TV in school uniform. 'How many times must I tell that kid to bathe and study when I get home?!' Dad thinks in his mind. A sudden rage builds up on the inside of him.

Dad walks to the TV, switches it off and shouts, 'How many times must I tell you to bathe and study when I get home!!'

The kid is enjoying the show. Not having seen dad for 12 hours, the first thing he got is a thundering and angry expression.

Kid responds out of his limbic system, and obviously would say something rude like, 'Dad, you are @#$%^&*()(*&^% (no specific swear word in mind)!"

Dad plants a might slap on his son's cheek, 'Go to your room! How dare you!'"

The father has reacted out of his limbic system like the boy. Mr Chiem suggests that as parents, when this happens, it is okay to get upset, but if you are, immediately enter your frontal cortex by braking (stop, freeze and just think) and forcing yourself to smile physicallly (you can try it now - just raise the corners of your mouth into a forced smile and raise your eyebrows and try to shout something really nasty - it comes out more funny than angry). The human body is amazing in that this completely emotionally detached physiological action helps to control what you are going to say or think although you might be seething with anger. It's a really helpful technique I've learnt during the class, which I would employ when talking to cell group members from now on (haha, okay lah Charles and Serene who are reading this, I'm just kidding. You guys are great members).

I also learnt that as adults, we must keep learning to speak the children's language. In 15 years, a child's thinking will expand 10^3. An adult, maybe 2^3. That is a differential of 1000 to 8 or 500 to 4 in thinking gap. Therefore, there is no such thing as a generational gap. Parents are not the place of first resort when children get into trouble because they do not learn as fast as the kids whose primary reason for not going to the parents in the first place is, "They will never understand." So, we must keep learning. What I love about Sheryl is that she wants to learn more and more and explore new ideas. I have met both men and women who say, "I hate to read," or "I've returned everything to the teacher." Then make an effort! If you stop learning, you are going to face some major problems.

That's more than 2 points but lastly, Mr Chiem says, "The 1 hour of quality time you have after 12 hours of work and not seeing your child is too important to be saddled up with him/her meeting academic requirement. Talk to them and create moments."

The whole idea of not getting saddled up with Academic requirement is something that is new to me and something I must say is very important. Yeah, what message are you sending the kid if the moment you get home, you are getting frustrated because he cannot solve a math problem? Mr Chiem suggests talking to the teacher about his problem and getting a tutor to solve the problem instead of attacking the problem when you and your child only have that limited window to share your time and let it spill into frustration and anger.

Creating moments is extremely important to a child. Think about the times that you remember as a child. Perhaps it's just some trivial thing like some small thing that your dad did, or your mother said, that they have completely forgotten. But you did not because everytime you think about those incidents, it defines your childhood, it defines what your relationship with your mother and father meant to you. It could be completely trivial. I remember one Saturday morning, my mother bought me a toy and an ice cream and I was just sitting there with her right beside me and thinking how thankful I am to my mother. The toy and the ice cream are gone - maybe the ice cream has become an immovable part of my brain but for argument sake, let's say it's out and is instead part of the earth's biomass. Material things that parents buy for children hardly last. But the moments do. So take every opportunity to create moments. It might be trivial to you, but children remember, because that's all they have to go by when they think about what Mom and Dad means to them.