Liberty Begins At Home

Growth is hard. And, as a parent, watching your kids grow can break your heart.

Trying sets you up to knock you down. Again and again.

And there’s no guarantee the next try will turn out any better.

What else is hard? Sitting still.

Letting your kids try may be one of the most rewarding and necessary things you can do. After all, their future depends on it.

Planting a forest

Yes, we have a natural inclination to rush in to protect our kids. Since the dawn of time, there are plenty of hazards a toddler can walk himself into without knowing it.

But the best way to overcome a problem in the future is to learn better ways around it through experience. So long as that child comes to her own understanding, she can figure a way around the problem.

And become a better person for it. Just like you did.

Think of a seed. It has to burn all its nutrients working its way through the soil before it can take in sunlight.

What a huge risk that is! That seed relies fully on the suitability of its surroundings in order to grow.

That exposes it to any number of calamities: soil that’s too shallow, too many other plants that prevent it from getting sunlight, animals and insects that would consume it before it could sprout.

On its own, the seed can’t uproot and move to someplace more ideal for a long term home. It can’t go back to being a seed once it’s sprouted. It has to rely on the circumstances it’s given and make the best of it.

But that seed has written in its code how to establish itself on this planet.

Think of how much more versatile and resilient your kids are. What good does constant worry about one misstep screwing up your kids’ entire lives?

That just injects an unhealthy normalcy of fear.

Understandings change, situations change, and maturity changes. And your kids are going to work their way through those.

Bang your head until you break through

So ask yourself: what legacy do you want to leave with your children?

The legacy passed to me valued thinking big and doing big things. I set my focus to learn farther out. Of course I would succeed at a big enough scale!

So I went to the Navy to be part of something bigger. Then I left because I felt like I was riding on the larger economy instead of participating.

I thought politics were the answer. So I made my way to state delegate in Texas. Then realized how much effort it took to make a change in a big pool rather than what I could accomplish immediately around me.

I got an MBA from Notre Dame and ended up cash negative for a year after graduation. Then at the good-paying job I landed afterward I ended up with health problems trying to keep my boss happy.

I thought I could leap from corporate to freelancing with a mentor program behind me. Then settled for a job paying 20%+ below market rates as my grocery bills shot through the roof.

Every side hustle client or startup I worked with changed scope drastically to where I wasn’t needed and couldn’t harvest the value I needed to support my family.

But, it ended up that focusing on improving myself and finding a place that valued my skill set would take care of all those results that ended up short.

Who walks through after you?

Now I have kids of my own. That gives me a new challenge: how do I teach that grit to my kids without crushing them? Or letting them get too complacent with success?

I could try to push them into being engineers like their dad, or maybe even just professionals. But wouldn’t I end up as frustrated as my parents were watching me?

The truth is, my kids have other talents I likely haven’t seen yet. Things that will only efface through time and experience.

While it is a shame to see crafts and trades not being passed down through families as they used to, it’s a time when anything is possible. Those bases of understanding can be used to grow into something else. Just like my parents’ professional backgrounds set a stage from which I could launch into other related fields.

I have kids who are athletes, entrepreneurs, entertainers, and overall serious balls of energy. They have and will continue to struggle with limitations placed on them in a world designed around scarcity. But the most important thing is for them to not give up.

Even if there’s no room for them in one field, they can adapt what they’ve learned and apply it to something else they’re interested in. And may find success there instead.

Walking the talk

So what does that mean for you parents wondering how to guide your kids? Here are some guideposts I’ve used. Provided I can still see after banging my head through the wall.

Be a good example

Model the behaviors you want your kids to pick up on. They pick up on even the tiniest inflections you think mean nothing. Show them you make mistakes and how you pick yourself back up from them.

Continue to have standards for behavior

Opening up your aperture doesn’t mean accepting things that are harmful. Things still need to get done and kids need to learn how to do them. Reflect on the difference.

Also, don’t be afraid to discipline. Pruning makes room to grow. Build your understanding of when to push, when to rein in, and when to guide.

See what your kids are interested in

Yes, make recommendations. But don’t extrapolate their participation in an activity to life success. See what lights them up and gets them to try harder.

Pour your love down on them like sunshine

Something that gives them the energy they need with the resources they have to grow into the best they can. It hurts when they’re uprooted. But after a certain point, that’s not entirely in our hands. It’s up to them whether they want to set their roots back down.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m still learning. Leaving things open for your kids to try and fail does take a lot of resources up front. But the reward is resilient children standing like a tall forest.

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Did you miss the other posts in this series on raising kids? Catch up today!

• How to grow as a person while teaching your kids
• Want more liberty? Have kids