Autopilot Parenting

Just the other night, my friend, Mel and I were talking about autopilot parenting: it seems to be the latest rage griping nation. Albeit, maybe it’s a fad that has been here much longer than I’d like to believe. Now, I’m not claiming to be the Holy Saint of parenting, even when my three miracles who are well-behaved a majority of the time. Sure, they have their meltdowns, tantrums, attitude and the list goes on and on. However, I find when we go out, most of the time we’re getting complimented on how well behaved our kids are instead of dirty looks. So, what’s the secret: truly on my part (my wife just really is a saint) I think it’s because I am a bit lazy. I simply don’t want to put in the work parenting on autopilot takes: fighting your kids for every minute of adulterated peaceful bliss.

I was watching Suppernanny with my wife last night, and let me tell you, she is the awesome. Hands down, that woman is a saint like my wife: she can definitely work miracles. Anyways, she was doing her normal thing, observing a family and it was your more than typical parenting on autopilot. Now I get it, this family was working two jobs: one in the morning, one at night and a schedule like that takes its toll. There was no communication between these parents, no them time, the dad like me was a lazy man and both of them ineffectual in their discipline because they’d only make empty threats and never follow through (one of the biggest no no’s of parenting). All problems, but when you boil it down: the biggest sins in autopilot parenting are as follows: no communication, not following through and the big kahuna (the most unpardonable sin of parenting) not spending time with your kids.

The last shall be first and this is the end all be all if you want your kids to misbehave: don’t spend time with your kids. This is a prime example of what was wrong in the family Jo Frost (suppernanny extraordinaire) was putting on the mend. The dad was a lazy man, he would rather spend every day he had with the kids in his lazyboy just getting through the day, waiting to die. And result, his kids would run a muck, do whatever they wanted. The mom at night spent a minimal amount of time with her kids, but even then it was always more about her and what she wanted to get done. This created an enviroment where the kids would act out just to get their parents attention. The dad would once in a while get off his lazyboy to “deal” with them and that seemed to be the most they could get out of them so sadly it ended there save the occasional begging him to play with them and the answer always being, “you can do it yourself.” Ouch, I know I’m guilty of that one. Then the mom would engage their bad behavior and was up for the confrontation, so of course, that breed more good times with dragging them to time out, yelling at them, making empty threats the kids would just laugh at and their four year old daughter would literally moon mom while in time out. Just horrible right, that was the tip of the iceberg, but take it from the kids perspective and all they know is this is the behavior that gets mom to play with me. If I act up mom will actually stop what she’s doing and she’ll wrestle with me, she’ll give me her undivided attention. Something, believe you me, they were starving for.

The other two areas that always need working on in autopilot parenting are communication and follow through. Once the parents are divided the house will fall. Parents need to be on the same page because this is war people. Ok, it’s not as serious as all that, although it at the same time is a very serious matter. Talk to each other, take time to figure out what your spouse has been going through all day with the kids. Communication breeds understanding and understanding, well, lots of good things. For instance, in my own life, our kids as I’ve said before are very well-behaved, but that doesn’t mean there’s never a meltdown. One of my boys is in the spectrum (look up asperger’s) and transitions can cause major meltdowns for my little man, like the transition of a new house or a new baby or a new schedule… all of which we currently have. My wife and I hate seeing him unhappy and so we dialogue at night as to what caused that days events, how to help Dean to calm down in the midst of a growing meltdown, factors of the cause and effects, and yes even what we did wrong. Parenting is often about learning and adapting. What works today may not work tomorrow, still don’t give up your kids are on the line.

Lastly, and I saved “follow through” for last because like not spending time with your kids this has the most lasting damage on whether or not your kids will be those well-adjusted little angels they can be. Kids like to push their limits, test their boundaries, see how far they can stretch that rubberband before it breaks. It’s what they do. So when you give them 5 warnings instead of one they know you won’t do anything, especially when it’s “throw one more book and I’m going to…”. Going to what, you never say and your kids know you’ll never do. Lack of follow through with your kids will always make them push their boundaries to the limit and past until you find you both jumped off the cliffs of reason and into the abyss.

Sometimes people autoparent because they think there is no alternative with their busy schedules, like the mom in Suppernanny, and sometimes they do it because they can’t be bothered to get off the couch. Either way you are just making more work for yourself with this inane way of caring of your children. It is much harder to fight with your child night after night over every little thing than to just spend time with them and give them some positive attention. Much more taxing to give them warning after warning, wrestle them to their time out spot and yell yourself horse than to take the time after one warning to walk them over to their time out spot, get on their level, tell them why they are there and make them sit for one minute to every year they are old. Sure it may be a fight from time to time to make them sit there. But don’t engage them, we don’t negotiate with terrorist, we simply keep putting them back in time out until they figure out were the ones in charge.

There is one last thing I would say is crucial to parenting at large: spending time with your spouse. You guys are in this together and if your relationship is good all the better for your kids. Often Moms and Dads forget to invest in each other as much as they invest in their kids and that is just as bad as parenting on autopilot because you don’t just want your kids to be well-behaved, let’s shoot for well-adjusted as well. A family is work, no doubt about, but the benefits are miraculous.

Digg it.

Enlarging my borders…

The next step always used to be a great concern for me. It was about two years ago and I was sitting alone in my fortress of solitude long into the wee hours of the morning. Much as was the norm back then, staying up till three, four sometimes past the hours when most people would be arriving to work. I had a job I was ready to leave, an abode though no home and many past great deeds yet no up to date occurrences of which I was extremely proud. Life was at a stand still and I had no idea where I wanted to take it from there: you could say my stagnant pond that was getting smaller with each breath.

Another midnight had come and gone and the nightlights in the sky were already fading into a glorious yet all too bright breaking dawn. The sequence of nocturnal events that occurred that night had been a blur of movies, computerized carnage, random musings and strange forum discussions with a kaleidoscopic of motley misfits. I had to work in a few hours and sleep was merely a nostalgic feeling to see an old friend last since past.

So, stumbling from my computer chair, I went to the kitchen to get some kind of substance and then went to bed. I knew I was past tired and wouldn’t even attempt to sleep so I turned on another movie and lost interest all too soon and so added some music to the mix.

“I really should sleep,” I mumbled to myself wondering why I needed so much noise, leading to other thoughts. Thoughts not all to important nor is the fact that i was talking to myself as I often do when alone and trying to separate, form and coordinate the chaos I consider to be coherent thought. It was several minutes into this internal dialogue when i spied with my little eye a little black book I hadn’t rifled through in quite a while. It certainly contained numbers, but only as a point of reference or well the name of one of its books.

Two of my favorite books in the Bible are Samuel and Kings, well I suppose you could say four, although I already read those countless times and decided to read through Chronicles. And at keys points in my life this always seems to happen, I read through a passage I know I’ve read through a thousand times before and find myself surprised to find something I swear I’d never seen before and at the same time swear I have. Once it was Zephaniah 3:17, but this day it was 2 Chronicles 4:9-10: “Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez,[a] saying, ‘Because I bore him in pain.’ And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, ‘Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!’ So God granted him what he requested.”

I’m not going to go into some “name it and claim it” spiel and if that’s what you take away from those verses, you’re missing the point entirely. And without getting into the theological ramifications that hit me like Jack’s Mack Truck, I realized a simple truth I had already known but never really put into practice. God indeed wants to bless us and He wants us to ask for His blessings in our lives, really, sometimes I think He’s waiting for us to ask. It’s such an astonishing, simple truth hidden in such a boring chapter of scripture.

Jabez is a man I could relate to, especially at that time in my life. now, I’m glad my mom who had reason to name me Jabez with the two hour contraction she had when I was born decided not to go that route and named me Daniel instead (a tremendously wonderful name, i highly recommend it), but seriously, I think this is a man who was simply looking for the next step in his life. He wanted something more, he wanted God’s blessings and he asked God to bless him. You can see from what is said of him prior to his request and with how he made the request that it was not a request made out of greed and scripture never goes further to tell us how God enlarge this man’s borders, just that God granted Jabez’s request.

At that moment, I didn’t get down on my knees and no halo of light surrounded me, however I did ask God to bless me and enlarge my borders. I had no idea how he would grant my request nor even if He would, still I prayed with faith and hoped with the substance of my belief that He would find me worthy of such blessings. Of course i’d like to say that I was ever fervent in my prayers, making supplications known to God day and night for myself and my friends and family. To some point, I suppose I was, I did from time to time remember and in some midnight, early morning random chats with God I would add this request.

Since then, and again not for any saintly determination on my part, He has answered my prayers in some amazing ways. I started working for a library not that long after that night. It’s a job I love going to, so I am thankful for that. Three months later I met my wife and 8 months later married her (of course). We never thought we’d be able to buy a home any time soon since at the time I married Aly my credit was in the low 600’s, however in the last year we acquired a wonderful dog (at least i think he’s wonderful, my wife doesn’t always agree when he has an accident), a new house and had a beautiful baby boy the day we closed escrow. Now I have three amazing boys. I did have to buy a new car after totaling our matrix not too long ago, but it all worked out. I find, life is full of unexpected blessings. God has definitely enlarged my borders in ways, merely two years ago, I’m not sure I could have imagined. I am extremely excited when I consider what He has in store for us next.