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(00:00:00) - Have you ever been trying to do all the right things with your child? Like you're pouring in all the love that you can muster into trying to get it right. Every ounce of attention you can spare more effort than you do on anything else. And so, so much energy only to start to question if you're even on the right path. Sometimes even our best intentions can steer us off course. I like listening to people talk. I'm a consumer of perspectives audiobooks, podcasts, silly or poignant, social media reels. I just love listening to people talk, and a lot of times I'll have something playing in the background as I'm driving in the car, going for a walk, or even as I'm getting ready in the morning. The other day, I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror trying to apply makeup to my tired skin in an attempt to make it look youthful and glowing. And I was listening to an audiobook that I'm currently reading with a group of other moms called Fearless Parenting by author Sarah Blount. (00:02:32) - When something she said shook me, it was one of those moments where it feels like the world shifts directly underneath you, and for the first time, you see things in an entirely different way than you ever have. For a consumer of perspectives, these are the moments I relish. I pushed pause and I sat there dumbfounded as my mind was trying to play catch up with what I had just heard. Slowly, the words were filtering into my mind and I could almost feel my brain absorbing them. You know what I'm talking about. You know that feeling that you get when you hear something for the first time, and it just makes you see things in a different light? Wait a second. (00:03:20) - What? (00:03:22) - I hit the rewind button, went back two minutes into the audiobook, sat on the edge of the tub and pressed play. Her words echoed through the acoustics of my bathroom. I pushed pause again, pulled up my email, and typed out an email to the group of moms. I'm reading the book with four words don't skip chapter six. (00:03:47) - I'm sure you're wondering what kind of world axis tilting information in chapter six resonated so deeply in me that it warranted that kind of reaction. Well, before I tell you, I want to give you a little bit of backstory. You may already know this, but we have a gang of kids. My husband and I have a blended family. It's what started as a yours, mine and ours situation, but over the years they've morphed into just ours. There are six of them. We were outnumbered from the get go. With each child, we have experienced challenges and joys. We've questioned ourselves as parents many, many times over the last 20 years. We've made plenty of mistakes, which all felt like the right thing at the time, and we've managed to get a few things right a few. Our fifth child is a senior in high school this year. Senior year looked different for each of our children. In fact, senior year looks different for every family that I know. For some families, senior year is college tours and Fafsa paperwork, its scholarship applications, and senior sport nights. (00:05:06) - It's prom pictures with beautiful babies dressed in their very best, boys wearing sunglasses and shoes with no socks. When did that start? And the girls wearing dresses that were reserved for Hollywood stars when I was growing up. Whatever happened to the puffy sleeves and ruffled skirts? Can we please bring those back? And for the rest of us, we believe based on the pictures we see in the world of social media, that this is normal. This is how it's supposed to be. And if it's not this particular brand of the All American Dream Wall, then something is definitely wrong. Our child is off track. Our parenting is off track. Our family is. Well, let's just say not normal. But that's not exactly the case. The images that flash through our Facebook feeds aren't actually the norm. According to statistics, in 2022, only about 39% of all 18 to 24 year olds were enrolled in some form of post-secondary education. Only 36% of teens even play a sport in high school, and attendance at student dances has decreased more than 50% in the last three years. (00:06:39) - But let me give you some statistics that actually closer reflect what most families are truly dealing with. Let me give you a little bit of a glimpse of what normal actually is. 87% of U.S. teens have struggled with some mental health problem on a regular basis. As many as 65% of teens report that they have been in dating relationships where they suffered some form of psychological abuse. 62% of seniors have abused alcohol. 50% have misused a drug at some point. 73% have watched pornography online. 54% of those had first seen it by the age of 13. In February 2023. The CDC found that anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts in girls were the highest the country has seen in over a decade. But you won't see any of that on a social media feed. You'll see football pictures, driver's license pictures, prom pictures. You'll see the college acceptance letters, family vacations, and volunteering at the local soup kitchen or kids camp with a hashtag. So proud. You'll never see all the hidden struggles going on behind those smiles. (00:08:07) - You'll never read the post that highlights every fear that family is facing, or grief that they are trying to overcome when life didn't turn out exactly as they had planned. And if we aren't careful, if we aren't careful, we'll look at the snapshot of moments and label them as perfect without flaws and struggles. We'll label these teens as good and our own as troubled. We'll believe that these parents have it figured out and that we have failed. We certainly put a lot of pressure on ourselves, don't we? If we're working moms, we feel guilty for not being home with our kids. If we're a stay at home mom, we feel embarrassed that we don't have a real career. If our children struggle in school, we must have dropped the ball or in my case, didn't have the patience to truly help them figure it out. We feel guilty for being too strict or too lenient, too hard or too soft, too controlling, or too blasé. Some carry guilt for being a single mom and others about the difference in their spouses parenting style. (00:09:16) - We worry that we expect too much from them, or we worry that we baby them. Our mind shouts he needs to figure this out and immediately whispers, he's just a kid. There's no winning. There is no winning. And yet we must try our best to parent so we, without truly stopping to question it, align ourselves with what we believe is normal. The world's normal. The chase we unconsciously follow in our social media feeds the chase for accolades and recognition, success, security, prestige, appearances, the chase to matter, the chase for our kids to matter in chapter six. Well, that was the chapter that finally opened my eyes to what God has been stirring in my heart for the last year as I have struggled with my boy not fitting into the box. My boy, who has somehow been able to change our outlook as parents from anything less than an A or B is not acceptable to CS. Get degrees man. My boy who has made me confront my own heart. When people ask, where's your son going to college? And for a moment I feel like a parent who has somehow less than because he doesn't know yet what he's doing after high school, but he's pretty damn sure it won't involve spending another day learning about subjects he has zero interest in. (00:10:57) - My boy, who I unconsciously compare to a societal norm that doesn't even exist. And as I listen to the words I'm about to read to you, it reminded me that I need to be careful where I'm looking for validation on if I'm doing this parenting thing right. It reminded me that my boy does not belong to the world. My boy belongs to himself. My boy belongs to God. My boy is not mine and I. I will be a lot better, mama, if I remember that. So here's a small excerpt from chapter six in Sarah Blount's book Fearless Parenting, titled What's Your Target? Some parents aim their children towards a great education. They send them off at an early age to learn their shapes, colours, letters and numbers. They spend hours studying for the spelling bee with them. They reward them for good grades and punish them for bad. They devote much time and energy to making sure their kid has the best class project. Their bull's eye. Seeing their children graduate from college. Some parents aim their children towards sports. (00:12:25) - They sign them up for Little League as soon as they are of age. They spent hours up at the batting cages. They pay for private lessons. Their kids greatness is determined by how he or she performed at the last game. They missed church on weekends for tournaments. The bull's eye for their children is seeing them compete at the college or professional level. Some parents aim their children towards excellent behavior. They teach them to say yes ma'am and no ma'am. They make sure they know how to shake a person's hand and look them in the eye. They make sure they never cut in line or say a bad word. They reward them when they complete all their chores and punish them when they don't. The bull's eye for their children is seeing them become good, responsible people. Some parents aim their children toward financial success. They teach them the value of a dollar. They make their kids earn everything because nothing in life is free. They set an example by working all the time and justify it by saying they are good providers. (00:13:34) - The bull's eye for their children is for their kids to get a job at which they earn lots of money. Some parents aim their children toward nothing. They have no vision for their kids. No bullseye whatsoever. Please hear me. The bull's eye. You're aiming your kids at will determine what they believe their purpose to be. You may never sit them down and tell them the reason they exist is to get a great job or make lots of money. But if that's the direction you're aiming them, that is what they are going to believe. It's heartbreaking to think about the people I went to high school with who were aimed at the wrong targets. I had a friend whose world revolved around sports and who was talented enough to receive an athletic scholarship, only to suffer a career ending injury in college, just like that. His target suddenly vanished, and he was left flying aimlessly through life. He had no idea who he was or why he was here. Sports was filling the God sized hole in his heart, and when sports were no longer an option, he turned to drugs, ended up in rehab, and landed in a casket at 23 years old. (00:14:52) - Yes, you read that right. 23. Don't misunderstand. Getting a good education, participating in sports, exhibiting exemplary behavior, and learning to properly handle money are not bad pursuits. But if they are the primary targets you are aiming your kids at, you have chosen the wrong bullseye. When I say that I felt conviction after reading this. This. Oh my lanta! It was a beautiful feeling. It wasn't guilt or shame, although those feelings did attempt to sneak their way in, did they? For you? But what it felt like was a loving redirection, a sweet and kind course correction. My bottom line is this. Our hearts can be in the right place and can still lead us astray. We can try to do all the right things with our child. We can pour all our love and so much energy into parenting, and still discover that we are on the wrong path. Even our best intentions can steer us off course. I'm so thankful for books like Fearless Parenting, for podcasts and YouTube videos and church messages and long walks with wise friends and book clubs. (00:16:28) - I'm so grateful for community because so often I discover my heart's tendency to deceive me. If you're struggling with something today. And that's something is building walls around your heart. I'm asking you to stop and open your heart to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, your own shift is waiting for you. If that struggle is connected in any way to what others think or may think, if it is a firmly rooted belief that your child needs to be following your path for them. If the struggle is intertwined with fear over accepting, your child will need to make their own mistakes and learn from them. Or if you feel the outcome of that struggle will determine how you feel about yourself as a mom. It's time to do some digging. Healthy roots yield the best fruit. Take some time this week to reflect on your parenting strategies. What's your target? Is it the right one? And how well is what you are doing in this struggle lined up with getting you there? Finally, I want to remind you that if this all feels a little overwhelming, there's strength in numbers. (00:17:57) - There's an African proverb that goes, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. We need people. We need a tribe. We need sisters who can walk beside us and say, I get it. Do you have any idea how powerful those three words are to a mama who is struggling? I get it is a salve to a wounded heart. It's a spring to a dry desert land. I get it is a sanctuary in the chaos. I've been thinking a lot about starting an online support group, a community to connect moms like us who are currently going through the hard with moms who get it. Maybe we have topics we cover, or maybe we just come together for a place to put down the heavy. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, do me a favor and send me an email so I can put you on the list. You can find a link for it in the show notes below. And if we have enough interest generated, then I'll work with those who respond on times and days at work. (00:19:08) - Best. I've done a couple of workshops now and a few in-person groups, and I can't tell you how beautiful it is to build authentic, real connections with women who understand what you're going through. There really is nothing like it. As we wrap up, let's think about how even when we mean well, we might still veer off course. Maybe it's worth taking a moment to dig a little deeper into our hearts, remembering that healthy roots yield the best fruit. So until next time. Take care of yourself and remember to nurture what matters most.