You might be tempted to ask why we need a separate habit of coming alongside our children, if we’re already working on bringing them alongside us. Isn’t the point just to do things together?
Doing things together is a goal of both habits, but it’s not the only goal. Bringing them alongside you is a means of demonstrating that they’re important enough for you to fold them into your life. It’s an opportunity to show them how an adult shoulders responsibility with a good attitude.
Coming alongside them, on the other hand—while it still yields time together, which is wonderful—is how you show them you care about who they are, and what they love. It’s a way to demonstrate that they’re important to you. It’s a way to learn a thing or two about who your kids really are in the process. To delight in them. To remember how to be a kid again.
And listen, this isn’t just a habit to practice when it looks like your kids are doing something you know how to do. By all means, get out there and lug some 2x4s if you see them dragging materials out of the garage to build a fort. Or try to intercept the football if they’re throwing it around. But also take a turn feeling incompetent as they obliterate you in their favorite video game.
In fact, the less competence we have at whatever they’re doing, the harder we should push ourselves to give it a try. It’s good for them to see how we handle not being good at something, but trying it anyway. Isn’t that basically what we’ve thrown them into, by having them? Isn’t it what we ask of them, every day of their childhoods?
And how often do we do it with impatience, frustration, and judgment? We get blinded to all the little ways we signal to our kids that they’re not good enough. Coming alongside them to do something we’re no good at is a great reminder that most of us could be better teachers.
What’s more, you might be surprised—if you pay close attention to the ways your children teach you how to do something—at how gentle they are. How forgiving and patient. Many of us could learn a lot from our own children about how to parent better.
Another thing to be mindful is that this habit isn’t about you helping them figure out what to do with their time. Don’t swoop in and reorganize their play, or get them started on a project because they look bored. That all counts as bringing them alongside you, and if they’ve been lying around for three hours and you think it’s time to go on a hike, great, go hike.
But this habit is about being where they are, not where you think they should be. That’s important if they’re going to learn the seemingly opposed but equally essential outlooks a lot of adults have yet to master: contentment, and the responsibility for changing oneself.
So if they’re bored, sit with them a little way and shoot the breeze. If they’re happy flicking playing cards at the window blinds, ask them to show you how to become a better flicker. Be with them where they are. Show them that wherever that is, and whatever it entails, you want to be part of it, because they matter.
Additional Resources
The Power of Observation. Leadership coach Kevin Eikenberry offers some simple steps to enhance our ability to see what’s truly going on around us.