Why Love Is Not Enough
Page Four
Several years ago my wife and I sat down to think through our relationships with our children. We loved them very much and wanted the best for them. But Kathy and I also tend to be very active, busy people. We didn't want to wake up twenty years later and say, "What happened? We loved our children and did the best we could. What went wrong?"
To keep this from happening, we sat down and talked through the whole matter of our lifestyle. I would come home tired and not feel like playing with the children. Kathy was often so busy entertaining or leading study groups that she found herself unable to give the children as much of her time as they needed. We evaluated our priorities and came up with a couple of solutions. Kathy decided to cancel a seminar she was about to teach on parenting! She saw that it would be impossible to give our children the time they needed at the same time she was helping other mothers relate to their children! I decided to find some way to relax and unwind at the end of a day and still do some fun things with the children.
About that time some friends told us about Lego blocks. These are a marvelous toy because they are small and indestructible and functional! You can build anything with Lego blocks. If you had enough, you might even be able to build a house and live in it!
 We didn't want to wake up twenty years
later and say, 'What happened?'
Dickie and I went downtown and bought our first batch of Lego blocks and came home and started building. At first we built a basic log cabin kind of house—four walls, a roof and a door. But as our architectural skills improved, we became more daring. We built larger houses. We built a fire station. And we built a battery-powered train that would actually run on a small track! At first I felt a little awkward getting on the floor and playing blocks with my children. After all, I thought, I am a Ph.D. psychologist. I work in a think factory. Isn't this a little beneath my dignity? But I soon realized I was enjoying playing with blocks. In fact, I found I could relax and unwind better at the end of a hard day's work playing blocks with my children than I could watching the six o'clock news or reading the newspaper!
The Fruit of Showing Love
Beginning with that experience, I have learned to really enjoy my children. I must admit that it did not come easily. I grew up on a farm in Arizona where there was not much playtime. My father would get up early to feed the cattle or do other chores before breakfast. Then he would put in ten or twelve more hours of work. After school and in the summers my brother and I were expected to do our share. Although we had plenty of opportunities to play alone or with each other, my brother and I did not share a lot of opportunities to just relax and play with our father. He was tired after a full day's work and didn't feel like throwing around a football, working on a jigsaw puzzle, or playing the latest fad game.
When I became a parent, I began to follow this same style. As I began seeing my children's need for more time with me, I had to work at making time. Only gradually did I learn to cut out extraneous activities or drop some things that I was doing to spend more time with the children. But as I did, I learned some very important lessons. To begin with, I found out that I was a workaholic: one thing I needed most was to learn to relax and enjoy life. I found out that playing with my children enriched my life as well as theirs. And I found that my marriage was strengthened by family fun. When Dickie and Debbie played on local soccer teams, I helped coach (even though I knew absolutely nothing about soccer), so I could be involved in their activities. We also played indoor games together and talked a lot and enjoyed each other's company.
I found out that playing with my children
enriched my life as well as theirs.
The mutual enjoyment a family shares together, however, is only one of the blessings of learning to enjoy each other. When children are enjoying themselves and feeling loved and accepted, they do not have to turn to misbehavior for attention. When we have the real thing, we don't need to look for a substitute! I am firmly convinced that a significant portion of our children's misbehavior could be eradicated if we would only learn to spend more and more time with our children and really communicate our love. Happy children with a true sense of belonging are much less likely to get into difficulty than children whose parents are too busy to spend quality time with them regularly.
Copyright © 2001 by Narramore Christian Foundation
 Return to Page One
Bruce Narramore, Ph.D. is a Licensed Psychologist, a professor at the Rosemead School of Psychology, Biola University, and President of the Narramore Christian Foundation. Dr. Narramore is an author of nine books including Help I'm a Parent and co-author of The Integration of Psychology and Theology: An Introduction. These books can be purchased online at: www.ncfliving.com/store
NOTE: To email this article to a friend, return to page one and click on the "E-mail a Friend" button link at the top right of the page.
|
