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| Dr. Tim Jordan |
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Family life can be so busy these days. Parents often feel like they are rushing through life, making decisions on the fly, charging forward, and just trying to fit all the obligations of family life into a typical week before, well, doing it all over again.
If parents find themselves yearning for a more tranquil family life or just more time to build solid connections with their kids, it’s time to take a break, step back, and set priorities.
“It’s true of any relationship, but especially between parents and kids that you must sit down and set your priorities as a family and then let those priorities guide your decision making,” says Dr. Tim Jordan, a St. Louis developmental pediatrician.
Jordan is an author and national speaker on family issues, and doesn’t mince words when it comes to the costs to families of letting outside influences determine their life choices.
Too many parents are buying into the new “rat race,” he says, and kids often suffer from overscheduling, feeling disconnected from their families and feeling pressured, even at surprisingly young ages, to meet other’s expectations.
Just as families in the 1950s began what has commonly become known as the “rat race,” designated as striving for materials things in order to “keep up with the Joneses,” today’s race is focused not on keeping up, but on competing.
Parents fear that if their kids aren’t involved in multiple sports or other activities, or aren’t excelling in the “right” schools or school subjects, their kids will be surpassed by their peers and the parents will have failed to give them every advantage in life.
Is this an unfortunate side effect of affluence? It goes beyond that, says Jordan, to a very real fear parents have of their kids not measuring up to the societal expectation of the high-achieving child.
“Moms and dads need to sit down and decide what are our values, what do we want the result of our parenting to be?” Jordan says.
If your priorities include spending time together as a family, then why do your kids play select soccer or other intense sports that require family members to spend large amounts of time apart or away from the home?
If your priority is allowing your kids time to take part in household chores to learn responsibility, spend time with grandparents or simply have some down time to think and take part in creative play, why are they involved in activities that require them to be away from home four nights a week and all day on Saturday?
Questions like these often take parents by surprise, Jordan says. “Nobody likes it when it’s pointed out to them, but it’s the parents responsibility to set limits and not make decisions based out of fear, but because of what we want to achieve. That means you sometimes say no.”
To help families set priorities together, hold regular family meetings to discuss what is important to you, Jordan advises. Help kids understand that setting limits and acting on principle is not always easy, and you’ll need their help and cooperation to reach your mutual goals.
Not everyone will be happy with every decision, Jordan explains, but the result will be a more rewarding family life and kids who are better equiped to make choices themselves.
You’ll be modeling to your kids how to resist outside pressures when making decisions and showing them every day that they, and your combined family life, are truly your first priority.
Let Your Priorities Be Your Guide
1. Create a “goodwill” account with your kids. This means investing time to make sure your kids feel respected, loved and heard as part of the family unit. It’s the foundation for cooperation, Jordan says, and you can’t shortchange that. If your goodwill account is low, there is often tension in the household. Nagging, yelling, and overpowering replaces cooperation, and kids feel disconnected.
2. Imagine the future. When parents are asked to imagine what qualities they’d like their kids to have as adults, they rarely answer “rich, famous, or went to Harvard,” yet, Jordan says, what are we doing to encourage the qualities we most often say we’d like our children to have, such as kindness, generosity, empathy, or true satisfaction with their lives?
3. Seek fulfillment, not wealth. We all want our kids to have a good education and satisfying career. But teach your kids that wealth and materials things are not in and of themselves something to strive for. They are byproducts of finding what you are good at and pursuing a goal. A successful life is a fulfilling one.
4. Check your motivation. When you feel outside pressures creeping into your decision-making, resist the urge to continue charging forward. Revisit your priorities by calling a family meeting. Make sure kids are part of the process and they’ll be more likely to be happy with the decisions that follow.
Dr. Tim Jordan is the author of several books and frequently speaks to local and national audiences about parenting and family issues. He and his wife, Anne Jordan, are the founders of Children & Families Inc., of Chesterfield and Camp Weloki. To find out more, call (636) 530-1883 or www.weloki.com.
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