Finishing with Wisdom and Strength
My youngest child has a new part-time job. It is a big deal. It includes mowing lawns, landscaping, and taking care of a pool for a vacation house. The job requires competence and skill, it must be done well, and brings in lots of mission money. So what do I do? I remind, nag, and urge responsibility. I stress if conflict comes up or a change to the regular schedule. I am not going to let this child fail—and lose this job! Or should I? Does the fact that this child is my youngest make me hover to much?
“Spoiled baby?” Many may think that the youngest child in the family gets more expensive toys, more restaurant food, more of Mom and Dad’s attention, and more getting their own way. But even if some of that may be the case, is that all there is to it? I would submit that there are extra challenges when parents are raising the baby of the family. Our youngest is a new teenager, and we are facing some dilemmas. Things are different for the baby of the family!
- Pressure. For one, the youngest often feels loads of pressure. Not only are they being compared to all the siblings ahead of them, but also this one sometimes feels they must do EVERYTHING all of his siblings have done. For example, if one older brother or sister got a really great score on the ACT, the youngest can feel pressure to beat it! If one of them made the varsity team or a top chair at Regionals, the youngest feels pressure to do the same or better. If we’re not careful, this child might feel he has to do every sport, every instrument, and every club everyone else has done!
Too High of Expectations for our Caboose? Too much pressure? We must encourage this child’s own unique gifts, and let our youngest be themselves, develop their own gifts, and choose which goals they set.
- Repeating. By the time the youngest has come around, we have had lots of trial and error. We know which potty-training regime was the most effective. We know which of our discipling approaches has worked best. And we’ve developed family rules for driving the car, curfews, and many issues. We are confident that this time it will be no sweat! Wrong! Each child is different. What we have used in the past may not—will likely not—work the same this time around.
Confident that we have this down? Think again. The youngest is a whole new person with a whole new package of needs, wants, love language, and conversation style.
- Warnings. Another thing we found that has come up is that by the time we’ve raised several children, we have had lots of experiences, so know much more of what bad things could happen. So anything that comes up, we parents are ready with a warning and a story to illustrate! This poor child cannot learn anything via consequences if we don’t back off and let our youngest have some breathing room. Of course we want their safety, but we can’t tighten the seat belt too tight.
Determined to avoid all pitfalls this time? Resist micro-managing! We must back off a little and let this one learn from a hard knock or two by their own experience.
- Micro-managing. Some of us feel extra nostalgic about our youngest offspring. We are not anxious to have an empty nest, and we will miss having a family around us. We are determined to shower extra love on this last one. Besides, we have more time now that there’s only one in the home. We may find ourselves making sure this child does everything right! This child may not have a chance to choose right for himself if he never has a choice at all.
My poor baby of the family! I am realizing that I didn’t have time to check whether the older kids made their bed every day. That was way down on my worry list. But now, I monitor closely, with consequences for not doing it! There was no way I could remind each one daily to wear their retainers at night and brush them the next morning. But now I have started to do just that—regularly! Back when, I could barely keep up with remembering who had which chores. The older ones were on their own to follow through! My kids used to of necessity manage their own homework, piano practice, chores, and getting out the door on time. We were there, and we cared, but we were busy with other younger, needier kids, and so they managed themselves. If they wanted hair done a certain way, most of them just learned to do it themselves. If they needed clean PE clothes by a certain day, they washed and dried them. Yes, I occasionally had to run forgotten PE clothes or lunch or homework to the school office, but that was rare.
Fast forward to
now. My poor youngest hasn’t had a
chance to learn to manage himself, I realize!
I’m right there, and since there’s no more tiny kids to care for, I am aware of
the smallest details of his life! Not
only does he not get away with much, he doesn’t have the chance to grow and
mess up and learn by facing consequences.
For example, I have had many of my kids enjoy reading in bed, and on occasion stay up very late reading! I did not know they did this—unless they told me—so the next day, the blurry-eyed, sleepy child paid consequences for his choice, and learned from these to decide whether it was really worth it next time there was a good book they couldn’t put down. But I know exactly when this youngest child makes such a choice. In fact, in the close quarters we live now, I usually know what time they turn off the light! I exhort, and warn, and HOVER! I am realizing that this child deserves to learn some things by paying consequences too! I am not helping him out by hovering and managing his life for him!
My youngest and I had recently had a Pow Wow. I apologized that I had been hovering too much. I gave back the management of their own life—though they still were expected to follow the family rules. For the big project due Tuesday, for example, I promised to quit nagging, but turn it over to them. I also explained that I don’t want to just ignore, however, and so I asked that they come to me when they do need help. This approach came after lots of prayer and pondering. It wouldn’t have worked for another personality. But hopefully, I realized what I was doing in time, before our relationship was spoiled with all my constant nagging reminders.
Tender feelings for our very last baby? Don’t hover! Instead, we ought to use interviews. We have relearned the importance of checking in at an interview once or twice a month. That is the time to ask how they are doing in all areas of their life, and what they would like help with. We try to trust our kids that they can and will learn and keep trying. “Counseling requires courage,” taught Elder Larry R. Lawrence. We must continue “to counsel with them in private interviews. By listening closely, we can discover the desires of their hearts, help them set righteous goals, and also share with them the spiritual impressions that we have received about them (“Courageous Parenting” Ensign, November 2010).
You know, that is how God does it. Rather than monitor each action, He has us recommit once a week on His day to be better and learn from our mistakes. He died so we can make mistakes. He is there when we ask Him to be but lets us live our lives and grow from our mess ups. If left to, this child could hopefully get his own promptings that something is inappropriate, or offends the Spirit. If taught to listen for the Holy Ghost, now the child can practice it, but not if we do it always for them.
- Neglect. Or as the other extreme, there’s the possibility of negligence. “I can always tell who’s at the end of a large family,” one lady told me, “Because their parents are tired and don’t care anymore, and you can tell it in their youngest kids.”
“What?!” I determined that I was going
to make sure we taught the gospel just as well to our youngest as well as we
did to our oldest. The same FHE
approaches we used when they were all little don’t work now, but the gospel
discussions with older kids can be sweet, and when we talk to them like adults,
they listen and even teach us!
As we grow older, sometimes we start to let things slide. Parents still need to be parents, not chums. Our kids need our firm boundaries, more than ever, and we can’t give up on the rules and limits we had with the other kids. Our babies of the family will likely want to know that the older kids had rules to follow and consequences that resulted. We found that occasionally our rules have to be reviewed and discussed, ie. why they are in place. Even when it hard to take a stand, they need to abide by the rules, and though they choose to manage their lives, they must follow family rules or take the consequences.
In addition, we must not let down on the important family patterns, such as family prayer, family scriptures, family dinner, and family activities. We cannot let up on our gospel teaching, and and we mustn’t back down at the end of the family.
Tired Out with this Parenting thing? Finish strong, with love to the end.
Mark was a youngest child—youngest by 9 years. His parents had lots of years to raise just him in their home. They wisely chose a huge project, a run-down, junk-filled cabin in the mountains that needed summer after summer of hard work. Mark worked alongside his mom and dad and learned a ton. It was an enormous blessing to his life and a connection with his parents. Then, halfway through his senior year, he moved with them to a different state because of a job change. Mark went from being a big man on campus to being a nobody, which was a real challenge, but once again a chance for real growth.
Now that my own youngest child is old enough for their very own landscaping job, I have decided to give the management of this job back to them. I will no longer remind and prod and urge calling if they are late, etc. If this child fails in follow-through, what’s the worst-case scenario? Losing this job? Much better to happen now, and learn from it, instead of later when a job might be supporting a family!
May we watch for the extra challenges that our babies of the family face, and may we use wisdom and lots of prayer, for a strong family finish.