Good vs. Great

Many of us as parents want to help our kids be "good" people and have "good" jobs and have "good" families and really just be "good" people. So how do we do that? How do we help our kids be "good?"

I think that is the wrong question entirely. I think we should be asking the question how can we help our kids be GREAT? Don't you want your child to be great and not just good? I think most parents want greatness from their kids but have fallen for the myth that only a few people in the world can be great. Yes, I said that is a myth. 

There are many myths when it comes to raising our kids and helping them through life. I think the good or great myth is a huge myth. Most of us don't even realize that it is a myth we believe, but we do. We think "if I can just help them become a good person then I will have succeeded," but what we are really saying to ourselves is "I know they probably won't be great, so I will just settle for good." You see, we look at famous people and think "Man, I wish my son or daughter would be like that one day." but in reality they may be but they may just not be famous for it. 

We have begun to equate fame and greatness in our culture and they are not the same things. Just because someone is famous doesn't make them great, and just because someone is great doesn't mean they will be famous. The idea that our kids will not be great has led us to the place where parenting is in the US today. It is a little thing I like to call "friendship parenting." 

Friendship parenting defined - Friendship parenting is when we as parents want to be liked by our kids so much that we will forgo anything that might hurt their feelings so they won't be mad at us. (i.e. Johnny I know I said you couldn't have your phone back for two weeks and it has only been three days but you can have it back.)

When we begin to go down the path of friendship parenting it leads us to live out the "good myth." When we live in a state where we are just trying to make our kids happy, we no longer have the ability to influence their lives. I was talking with a parent the other day and as we were talking she said she wasn't happy with things her child was purchasing on their phone. I was shocked by that because I'm pretty sure this 12 or 13-year-old doesn't have a credit card to be able to make mobile purchases. My thought was "why are you giving her the ability to do that?" But I knew the answer. She, like many parents wants her child to like her. 

I talked to another parent recently that said her child was out past curfew and didn't let her know where he was. "Their phone was dead," this parent said. "I should have checked their phone but I didn't think of it at the time." Then she said something that was profound for parents in our culture right now. She said she was going to be dropping him off at the prom the next weekend because she couldn't trust he was going to do what he was suppose to. I wanted to put her picture on a billboard and shout from the roof tops because this parent gets it. They understand the danger of "friendship parenting." 

We have to move beyond the point where we are more concerned with whether or not our kids like us and become focused on whether or not they are going to be great or just good. I want my kids to be great, and like it or not, that is going to take work. We are going to have to work hard to help our kids learn what it means to be great. 

We have to help them learn what media to take in, what friends to have, who to date, what to say and how to act. We have to help our kids learn how to make the right choices in life and sometimes that means we have to upset them because of the consequences we give them based on their actions. There is another myth that sometimes leads us to friendship parenting and it says this - "Labor ends when the baby is born." In other words, the work is only starting when the baby is born and from that point we have to continue to work to help make our kids great. Don't lose heart, they can be great, but they need our help and friendship too, but the friendship should never outweigh the parenting. 

We may hurt their feelings and make them mad, but in the end, our kids can be great if we will be the parents they need us to be. 

Quality vs. Quantity

As we think about spending time with our kids, there are two schools of thought. One says we have to spend "quality" time with our kids, and the other says that we have to spend "quantity" time with our kids. In other words, one group says make it good, meaningful time and the other says just make it a lot of time and it doesn't really matter what you are doing. As I look at kids and families, I don't see that there is any difference between the two. In fact, I think without one you cannot have the other. What do I mean?

To quote one of my favorite movies, "let me 'splain, no we don't have time, let me sum up." (Inigo Montoya, Princess Bride) 


What is quality time anyway? What does it mean to spend quality time with someone? Well, I wasn't sure so I looked it up. Where you ask? Only on the most reliable source on planet earth...Wikipedia. And according to the all knowing Wiki quality time is "time spent with a loved one that is in some way important, special, productive or profitable." So I have to ask, what makes something one of those things? I am not sure I know the answer. Is it possible to know what is going to be special to your kids before you do it? Is it possible to plan what things are going to leave great memories? 


For instance, one day I decided to go for a walk in the woods with my kids and my camera. They could play and I could take pics. I thought it would really just be a normal day where nothing important or special or productive took place. But it turned out to be a great memory with my boys that I hadn't planned. Not that you can't plan great things but sometimes those special moments are spontaneous and happen when we least expect them. So, I think to have quality time with our families we have to have quantity time as well. When we are there for a large portion of their life, things that we didn't expect to happen can become quality moments with our kids. 


So there is no way to have quality time without quantity time. If you only have time for your kids when you plan it out to be a great memory, then you will miss out on the little moments that make all the difference. Those small things may seem small but in reality they are huge. I was planting flowers the other day and noticed that some of the seeds were about the size of a grain of sand and yet I knew that when that plant grew and a flower bloomed from it, it will make a huge impact in my yard. If you want to have a huge impact on your kids, don't limit yourself to "quality" time. Instead, let's begin to spend quantity time with our kids and see what the impact will be.

Music in...what comes out?

With iTunes, Pandora Radio, I Heart Radio, Spotify and any number of other mobile and Facebook apps that students use to listen to music on the go, music is truly in your student's ear all day long. (They even make hoodies that have earbuds in the drawstrings) Unlike many of their parents, teenagers can listen to music, play a video game and watch a movie all at the same time. With all that media flowing into their brain, what comes out in their life is a question many parents ask. How can we help students make the right choices with the media they take in?

There are so many choices for music and other media, many times it's as if parents are looking through a dirty windshield when it comes to figuring out if the media their students are taking in is acceptable. So how can you find out what they are listening to? There are several ways to accomplish the task of learning your students' music and other media. (When we talk about media I think music is the most influential on students' lives because unlike movies and TV shows they listen to it over and over again, and therefore it becomes a part of who they are. So I think music is the most important part of media to have a handle on as a parent.) So what are some of those ways? I'd like to look at two ways today and then maybe in the future we can look at some others. 

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#1 Listen to their music with them - I know it's loud and not very good in your opinion, but that is what your parents said about your music. So find some time to sit down with your student and listen to their music with a lyric sheet in hand. (you can find the lyrics on this cool new thing called google) With the lyrics in hand, you (and your student for that matter) can understand all the words. There is no need to listen to all of a song but get the point of what the song is trying to say. Then talk through the song with your student and have them determine if it is a song that is in line with the moral code that your family is striving to uphold. When you do this, you need to be prepared to have your child ask you about your music. So it would be a good idea to be ready to go through a few of the songs you listen to with them as well. And if it doesn't live up to the same code you want their music to live up to you, need to be ready to get rid of it. This is by far the best way to help your students see what their music is saying and whether or not it is the right thing. Many times they will say "I don't listen to the words." When they say that, the one thing you need to point out to them is that they can sing along to the songs - which means whether or not they like it, the words are in their head. And when we have stuff in our head it affects the way we act and think.

#2 Help them find positive music - It is important for students to have music they can listen to because it is part of who they are in their culture. So how do you help them find music that they like but comes from a perspective that you are ok with? For the most part, you probably don't listen to the type of music your students like to listen to and so I'm here to help you find music that they may like and yet has a positive perspective. Click here for a music comparison chart to the right. This chart will help you see the bands they listen to and ones that are coming from a more God-focused perspective. So check it out and find some bands that you will not have to worry about your student listening to. 

I hope these are helpful to you as you navigate the crazy waters of modern media. Stay tuned for more ways to impact your students.