Two Parents + a Good Marriage = Children Who Thrive

During this Mother’s and Father’s Day season, I want to share some reflections on the importance both parents play in raising healthy children who thrive. Mom’s and dad’s marriage is like a garden they nurture over the years as they deepen their love and commitment to each other. In this well tended garden, their children bloom like the beautiful unique flowers each of them is born to be. It takes two parents and a good marriage for children to thrive. Both moms and dads are essential to their children’s well being. The strength of their marriage is the foundation of their kids’ world. When they relate lovingly with one another, their fulfillment nourishes and energizes them to meet their children’s needs and allow their little ones the space they need to develop into the people they are meant to be. If their marriage is troubled their children move into the void between them and become surrogate mates as well as the objects of too many of their battles. Then those little ones – overwhelmed and overstimulated by the emotional pain that surrounds them – act out their parents’ anger and hurt by misbehaving or being too good and perfect to be real, healthy kids. An acting-out child calls attention to the pain in his family and focuses his parents’ attention on dealing with his behavior. By becoming their common problem, he gives them a reason to unite -- to cope with him. He is the target of their concern, their anger, frustration, and hurt which he expresses while they pretend there is nothing amiss in their marriage. A too good child also is in pain. Her more socially acceptable strategy for coping helps mom and dad sustain the illusion that all is well with them. She carries their troubles inside her while pushing herself to achieve, perform, and shine – doing her child’s best to bring happiness to her troubled parents by helping disguise their pain. What needs to happen to keep children from being in these too hurtful places? Here are some guidelines to help you assess both strengths and challenge areas in your parenting equation: 1. Ideally Mom and Dad respect each other as individuals who also are marriage partners. They grow beyond the emotional fusion of their initial fascination with one another into full differentiation as whole people able to connect deeply, share openly and appropriately (without fearing the other’s reaction), play joyfully, and tolerate sustained periods of pleasure in each other’s presence. (One way to accomplish this is through learning to practice the Safe Dialogue Process described in my book, Loving Your Partner Without Losing Your Self which is available through my website, www.MarthaBeveridge.com.) 2. Mom and Dad appreciate the unique gifts each brings to their parenting responsibilities. Mom is her child’s safe haven. She provides the womb space he needs for comfort, unconditional love, understanding, and support. She loves him and is there for him no matter what. Once he is conceived, she has no choice but to fully accept him, growing as he does out of her very being. Her job is to love without reservations and gradually to release him – from the painful first letting go of his physical birth to the gradual releasing of his psychological birthing into the larger world beyond his family. She assists him in leaving home step by step – from preschool to kindergarten, grade school, high school, college, and eventually marriage and a family of his own. Balancing love and limits with forgiveness, grief, and release is mother's great nurturing privilege and responsibility. 3. Where there is little choice about a mother’s relationship with her child, Dad decides to be present to fulfill his role. Because he chooses to relate to his child, he also teaches her how to relate to others - her friends and teachers. He helps her discover that in the larger world there are people who won’t, like her mom, love her and make allowances for her, no matter what. Dad imparts socialization skills and instructs her about the realities of the world beyond their home. He models and teaches responsibility, accountability, love, warmth, and reliability. 4. Dad and Mom set limits and invoke consequences, allowing their children to express and live through their angry, disappointed feelings when they don’t get what they want. Together Mom and Dad stand firm, accepting their children’s feelings without being manipulated by them, giving in to them, or overreacting to them out of fear. They are consistent in teaching their children to experience the consequences of their choices. 5. If they have trouble handling limits and emotions, they seek help as a couple to heal their childhood wounds around these issues and to learn to practice the skills they need so they don’t re-enact their parents’ hurtful ways of relating to feelings and discipline. (Thomas Phelan’s book, 1,2,3 Magic is an excellent resource for parents who need help with effective, loving discipline.) 6. Both Mom and Dad recognize that raising children challenges them to deal with their childhood history. When they have a child who is the age they were when a trauma occurred, they are reminded of their feelings about big changes or painful losses like divorces, deaths, and illnesses as well as hurtful behavior from others. Relating to their child stirs up their suppressed grief, stresses their marriage, and disrupts their parenting. If they are conscious of what is happening within them, they can claim a valuable opportunity to heal their childhood wounds. If not, they may re-enact what they experienced, behaving as their parents did and wounding their children as they were wounded. 7. Mom and Dad recognize that one parent cannot do it all alone. They honor their commitment to each other and to their responsibilities as parents. If their marriage is in trouble, they get help and work together to grow through their difficulties. They realize that changing partners – attractive as it may seem – does not solve their individual growth challenges but merely delays their addressing them. They also accept that one partner alone is not and cannot be totally to blame for what ails their marriage. 8. If ultimately they decide to divorce, they continue to work to improve their communication and their relationship with each other so their children have the best chance possible to continue to relate to both of them. They do not disparage each other in their children’s presence. If they remarry, they teach their children that it is OK to love both their birth parents and their step-parents. They encourage step-parents to be full partners in parenting. 9. Mom and Dad remain clear that their relationship is paramount. They nurture and sustain their marriage year by year so when their children leave home, mom and dad are ready to enjoy being a couple once more. 10. They help their children grow-up and learn to be responsible for themselves so they are ready to leave home when they finish their schooling and move into the working world. They give their children chores, responsibilities, and allowances to help them learn to manage their time, money, and school work. They let go and don’t remind their kids of what they need to do on their own initiative. They allow their children to experience the consequences of the choices they make. They don’t rescue them from those consequences even though they don’t enjoy seeing their kids lose privileges or allowance funds when they don’t make responsible choices. Because as parents they are healthy individuals and marriage partners, they don’t try to cling to their children and keep them dependent upon them to avoid the grief of an eventual empty nest. Successful parents are also good parents for themselves. They nurture themselves so they have the energy and resources they need to parent their children as well. They are aware that they are the most powerful life models their children have. They teach them about life, what they can expect from others, what they should tolerate and not tolerate from themselves and others, what their values are, what fun and joy are, and what to expect from life. Especially in the first six years of a child’s life, successful parents realize they are programming his or her mind – installing the soft ware that will run unconsciously for the rest of the child’s life - until and unless he or she works diligently to delete that soft ware and install new programs that are more functional. It’s an awesome responsibility and privilege parents hold. The rewards are among the greatest life offers us. It isn’t easy. This eighteen plus year journey takes us through difficult territory. As parents we are challenged in all the ways we most need to grow. Not only are we powerful teachers for our children but they also are amazing teachers for us. They know exactly where our buttons are. They don’t mind pushing them. They mirror the best and the most difficult within us. We love and accept them with all our hearts. They call us to love and accept ourselves unconditionally as well.