The VOID

The VOID

There seems to be this void, an empty space that occurs between parent and kid. Typically this void appears somewhere around the kids fourteenth birthday. Just about the time you are tired of telling them to pick up their room. This is the point of transition between controlling and leading children.

My wife and I started parenting the same as other clueless parents, we controlled everything.

Controlling is a management style often used by low level managers too insure that simple repetitive tasks are completed according to instructions. 

Tell me that doesn't sound like parenting!

This is required our children will master certain jobs like brushing their teeth, bathing, changing their dirty clothes and putting those  dirty clothes in the laundry, feeding themselves, talking on the phone, completing chores; you get the idea, the list is endless. If we didn't do this our children would be dirty toothless naked beggars. Yes. I have met a few dirty, toothless, naked beggars. I partially responsible for three of them. Parenting is extreme management.

Management styles are characteristic ways of making decisions and relating to those you’re in charge of; our kids. Management styles come in two contrasting flavors, autocratic and permissive.

On the far end of the management yardstick is the autocrat. This is the bossy, dominating, high-and-mighty, magisterial. This person is gonna call the shots. If you listen carefully to the  murmuring you'll hear, "If you want something done right ..." Just a real fun person to be around. 

On the other end there is the permissive. This person is not going to call the shot, even when you beg them to "Just please make up your mind." Permissive is indulgent, lenient, lax, . They too are fun people to be around for the opposite reason.

These two flavors come with two options,  those are paternalistic, and democratic. With paternal, imagine a father dealing benevolently and often intrusively with his children. My daughter recalls the latter, not so much the benevolence. The other is of course the principle of social equality. Democracy in the family, maybe in principle. The movie Yours, Mind and Ours pokes fun at these two.

I am a paternalistic autocrat (PA), and yes, I am a fungi.

If you are wondering how you are doing on the parenting front, don't despair, your kids will let you know someday.

Our seventeen-year-old volunteered that my wife and I are soft on her younger siblings. I would have to agree with her. We have become more permissive with age. This is not a case of mellowing with age but exhaustion. Parenting requires sincere thought and attention, there is no casual in parenting. Unfortunately, we live in a world that values casual.

The secret to being an effective PA is love. Benevolence is a true desire to do well to others, including your spouse. No one is an effective parent if they are not an effective spouse, but that’s a blog for another day.

I am in the middle of a struggle with my 14-year-old son who is ready to bridge the gap between control and lead. As a PA, I trained my son for this day.

It was my job to teach him the function of certain tasks and the importance of these tasks. I showed how he did them, when he did them, and explain why he did them the way he did. You guessed it, he is tired of being instructed on when, where and why. 

It seems that he is on the edge of this void between control and lead. He wants to be in the lead and I truly want him to take the lead, but there is this void that we both can feel.

Three years ago my daughter began the trek across the void to the other side. It was my wife who felt the anxiety as she let my daughter take more of a lead.

So there it is; a void, a space between the child who is taught and the young adult who is ready to lead.

This is what terrifies me: Will they stick to the path or be distracted? Will they adapt when the journey is tough? Will they persevere?

This is the metaphor of parenting.

When I let go: Will they stick to the path? Will they pedal harder uphill? Will they persevere?

NO EXPEXTATION

Consider this, you have no expectations. As a 

therapist in private practice for the last 10 years I've 

come to embrace the peace of low expectations.

It is my job to sell seeds. I am not the gardener.

When a client comes to me, they often do not know 

what it is their looking for.  I say this because they 

know what they want but not what they need.


In family therapy, rarely is the client’s solution  my solution.  

Parents come in to "fix" their child and nothing else. 

What that means is "get him to act the way we want 


but don’t change the way we do things". So, If  dad 


plops down to eat dinner in front of the TV  while the 


kids sit at the table and Junior pitches a fit because he 


wants to watch TV, my job is to “fix” Junior so that he 

obediently eats his squash and ignores the television.

It does not work that way. Junior’s behavior is WNL (Within Normal Limits).

Dad’s behavior is ONL because, in American culture, it is still 

normal to eat dinner at the dinner table.

In my experience, as an out-patient therapist, eighty 

percent of child behavior is attributed to parenting. My 

job is to explain to mom and dad that within the 

current environment Junior’s behavior is rational, what 

they want is irrational. It is importance for them to 

model the behavior they want him to exhibit. For this I 

have no expectations.

I will sell the required seed along with specific 

instructions to give clients to plant the garden they 

desire but that is the extent of my role. I am not the 

Gardner.

In grad school a professor of mine explained the rule 

of thirds to an eager class of want-to-be therapist. 

He explained that one third of our future clients do not need us, 

they will do just fine on their own. From time to time these capable people 

will seek out counsel to improve their skills. Then there 

are a third of people that are 50/50. That is, they have 

the skills of the first group and can be a first third if 

they work at it.

This defines the majority of us. We go through life 

acquiring skills. After high school we get our first clue. 

In college we learn there is a lot to learn and  we 

have to work for what we want. Somewhere in the 

20's comes the real job. This is when we put on our 

big boy (girl) underwear. This is when choice has real 

life consequence for the future. One of those skills we 

learn is commitment. Commitment to our job 

(Accountability),commitment to our creditors 

(responsibility), commitment in relationship 

(monogamy),

and of course God, 

country, apple pie, Chevrolet, and baseball.

There of course is a third group, this group appears to

be in perpetual neutral at best and a slow reverses at 

worst. This is where the drama queens live, both men

and women. They seem to enjoy perpetual crisis. I 

say this because despite their endless reasons, they 

always appear to return to the scene of the crime. I 

use the word appear because what I've observed is 

that they continually make the same choice not out of 

a desire for crisis but rather from a lack of learning. 

So it appears they are making a choice when in reality 

they have not learned their lesson.

Wisdom is gained through experience, some good 

some bad. That experience is transformed into 

knowledge. That knowledge takes the form of lessons 

learned which is then stored in our collective 

conscience as wisdom. If there is a break in that cycle 

from experience to wisdom then we are stuck in 

perpetual neutral or a slow reverse.

Getting back to selling seeds, I sell to three types of 

people:  the “I got it”, the “50-50” and the “perpetual 

neutral”. With this in mind, our professor went on to 

explain to the class of eager do-gooders that the best 

they would achieve is 66%.  A "D"! 

So now you understand what I mean by the low 

expectations.

I will continue to sell my seeds with no expectation. 

To some, I will admire the garden they build and think 

"good seeds". To others, I patiently wait for the 

garden. To the minority, I pray for God to grant you 

wisdom.