Thoughts on Parenting & Humility

Following is an excerpt from a post dealing with leadership in the workplace. But I found these few paragraphs useful for self-examination in the area of training up our children. In particular, the author considers how a lack of consistent parenting actually contributes to our children's misbehavior. Usually our intention is to be consistent, but actual day-to-day execution can be difficult. May this be an encouragement for consistency and perseverance! How we view behavior problems has a great deal to do with whether we handle them proactively or whether we feel we're the victim of our children's behavior.

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One of the best opportunities that I've found for being humbled is in my role as a parent. Some people might think I'm referring to the unglamorous work of changing diapers, cleaning up spilled milk and picking up dirty clothes. While those are certainly humbling experiences, I find that the most profound instances of parental humility occur for me when I am disciplining my children. Or more accurately, when I'm criticizing their behavior.

See, when I’m scolding any one of my four sons (it’s not that I’m unwilling to scold my daughters; it’s just that I don’t have any) I often find myself wondering why he acts the way he does. Being an extravert, I usually verbalize my thoughts and say something to the effect of “where did you learn to act like that?” And that’s when, if I’m being honest with myself, I realize that the answer to my semi-rhetorical question is that my son likely learned it from me...

Of course, I don’t really teach my sons to misbehave. It’s not like I sit down and give them instructions on how to provoke their brothers, break the dining room chairs or talk back to their parents. But I must have done something to give them the idea that it would be okay to do those things, or more likely, that the consequence for doing so wouldn’t be significant.

And it’s in that moment of realization that I have a choice: I can either be humble enough to acknowledge that the first person I need to be addressing if I want to change my son’s behavior is me, or I can go on venting about how ornery he is and watch the orneriness continue. 

[from "Humbled by Sins of Omission" by Pat Lencioni]