What’s Your Plan?

This is a question I ask as a teacher every day.  I ask my preschoolers to tell me what they are planning to do, how they plan to do it, what they will need in order to do it, and then to let me know if they change their plan so we can talk through their NEW plan.  Why do I do this, you ask?  Because, in my opinion, this is a skill that will be invaluable to them in their lives.  In order to find joy in life, they will need to have a goal and the ability to think through the process to determine what they will need to accomplish that goal.  They will also need to have the ability to make a new plan when things don’t work out the way they thought they would.  And they need to know that is okay.  In fact, they need to know that is more than okay!  They need to know that we all try and fail sometimes.  And when we do, we need to pick ourselves up and make a new plan.

I observed several things this week that made me wonder if this is a skill we could all use some work on.  As we go through life as a parent, do we have a plan?  What do we envision as the goal?  What are our hopes, our dreams, for our children?  And I don’t mean what college we hope they get into, what degree we hope they attain, what profession we hope they enter.  Those should not be our dreams…those dreams are for them.  Our hopes and dreams for our children should focus on WHO they will be.  What qualities do we hope they develop, what values, what traits?  Do we have a plan for that?  Do we know what our goal is?  Do we know what we need to do to get there?  Because if we don’t, then we can’t ever hope to reach that goal.

The good news is we don’t have to come up with the plan all by ourselves.  God laid it all out so clearly for us.  We know WHO God wants us to be, who God wants our children to be.  We read in Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”  There it is.  That is what we want.  We want our children to love (and be loved), to feel joy (and bring joy to others), to feel peace (and be peaceful), to be tolerant (and tolerable), to show kindness (and be shown kindness in return), to do good to others, to be faithful (to their God and to those around them), to be gentle, and to show self-control.  What more is there?  Those qualities are the hallmarks of a full life, and I can’t imagine anything better for my children.  So, how do we get there?  We embody those qualities in our own lives.  We show our children love (and show them how we love others).  We bring joy to others and we find joy in our lives.  Every day.  Because it’s there, I promise!   We live our lives peacefully, not searching for conflict and dissent, but seeking peace for ourselves and those around us.  We exhibit tolerance.  For those who are not like us, for those who are, for strangers, and for those we love.  We choose NOT to judge others.  We are kind.  Just kind.  Every day.  We do good…not just when we feel like it, but ALL the time.  We seek ways to be GOOD to others.  We are faithful followers of God, faithful wives to our husbands, husbands to our wives (and I mean so much more than fidelity…I mean are we FAITHFUL???  Do we put our faith in them?), faithful moms and dads (do we BELIEVE in our children’s potential?  Not their potential to perform, but their potential to BE?), faithful friends, faithful stewards of the gifts we have been given???  We are gentle, always.  And we show self-control.  When we do these things, we will have everything we need to make our plan work right there in our hands.

You see, I believe that parenting isn’t a reactive sport.  We can’t go through our days simply reacting to what is thrown at us.  We can’t make decisions based on the circumstances of the moment.  When we do, our destination is clouded.  It would be like doing a dot-to-dot with no numbers.  The random decisions connect, but the picture at the end looks nothing like we had hoped.  We must be INTENTIONAL in our decisions as parents.  We must keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak, so we know where we are headed and we must make decisions that move us along that path.  Doing that in the moment is daunting.  It can even be overwhelming.  But that is where the plan comes into play.  If we HAVE a plan, we can make our decisions, make our choices, we can PARENT according to that plan, and that takes the burden of having to make those day-to-day decisions away.  We can relax, and just do it.

And sometimes, we will fail.  Sometimes we will get it wrong.  We will mess it up, we will make a bad choice, use words we shouldn’t have used.  But it will be okay.  Because we will pick ourselves up, and we will find a new way to reach our goal.  And we will remember that the choices we make as we parent, the things we say to our kids matter, but they matter so much less than WHO we are.  Whatever else we try to do as parents, our children will be influenced a million times more by who they see us being in our day-to-day lives.  If we are the mean girls, they will be the mean girls.  If we are the bullies, they will be the bullies.  If we are negative and critical, they will be negative and critical.  So the first and most important part of our plan must be to BE who we hope our children will become.  If we get that part right, then the rest is all gravy.  And that is a very, very good thing.