Parenting

“A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things.” Matthew 12:35

It is nearly impossible to be a good parent when we are frazzled. Some years ago, Nancy and I received a call from an overwhelmed mom. She told us to come to her house immediately because she was extremely upset with her daughter and feared she might do something she would regret. We went immediately. When we arrived, we found a tired and overwrought mom and a frightened child. We sat with that mom and inquired about her dealings with her 4-year-old daughter. Mom had been pushed to the edge by life and over the edge by her daughter’s tiny infractions and normal childishness. What was clear to us was that Mom needed a break. We volunteered to take the daughter for as long as Mom needed to get feeling peaceful. We expected to have the little girl for a few hours; we had her for several weeks as Mom sorted out her struggles.

We have all seen the effect that stress and exhaustion can have on our parenting. We overreact. We are harsh. We fail to use good sense. We lose sight of the child’s motives and needs. When we’re not happy and balanced, our parenting worsens and our children suffer. I believe that being a healthy person is the beginning of good parenting.

One of the many ironies of parenting is that the blessed arrival of children comes with such burdens. It’s almost as if God wanted to jerk us out of the center of our concerns and teach us to focus on the well-being of others. It’s almost as if God knew that we would become whole as we serve.

Thus, parenting is terribly inconvenient. The demands are relentless and sometimes overwhelming. One of the biggest problems in parenting is our parental perception that children are encroaching on our lives. The reality is that children invite us to a greater maturity and goodness—which only come as we surrender our independence, our otherness, our self-serving, our order and convenience. Effective parenting mandates that we surrender much of our concern for ourselves and become more like God: dedicated to the well-being of others.

Life (and parenting in particular) pushes us towards stress, exhaustion, and self-concern. God invites us towards Him and His loving, tender, and selfless way of being. Being a healthy, balanced, compassionate, unselfish, flourishing person is fundamental to good parenting. Though it is fundamental, it is not easy for any of us!

Models of Well-Being

There are two major models of well-being, one secular and the other spiritual. Each helps us see the path to flourishing. The table below summarizes the secular model as described by Martin Seligman (2002), a psychologist who has studied the factors that contribute to what he calls “authentic happiness.” To the table, I will add a few scriptures that confirm that these processes are indeed rooted in eternal truth. After this brief summary, I will discuss a spiritual model of flourishing at greater length.

Let’s briefly consider each of these three processes. The pleasant life is the result of savoring the good things all around us. We appreciate sight, the ability to breathe, the beauties of nature, the richness of friends, the joys of gospel truth. Savoring is the attitude of gratitude.

Savoring can have three time orientations. Obviously, we can savor the present moments. But we can also savor our past: What are the good things from the past that enrich our lives now? This may include everything from faithful ancestors to enriching childhood experiences. The past can provide a rich foundation of well-being—if we choose to find and cherish the gems in our histories.

We can also savor the future. With the eyes of faith, we can look to a future filled with goodness and growth. Knowing that God presides in our lives, we are stubbornly optimistic. We know that even the bad things that happen will be turned to our blessing by a gracious God (Romans 8:28).

The next level of authentic happiness is attained by using our talents, gifts, or strengths. It is not enough to have pleasurable lives; we yearn to be productive. As we discover our unique strengths, we can design our lives to use them regularly. Maybe your career allows you to use your creativity. Maybe your church service employs your compassion. When we take on challenging tasks that fit our God-given gifts, our lives become radiant.

The third level of authentic happiness is reached only as we serve. That is the conclusion of solid science! Service is essential to flourishing. Of course, parenting is packed with service opportunities from walking the floor with a fussy child to serving as a scout leader. Yet there is more. When we find ways to make the world around us better, we become better. And there are many times when we can draw our children into serving with us! That will help them along the path of authentic happiness.

The very best of psychology teaches us to be grateful for what we have, to actively use our talents, and to find ways to serve. As we do these things, we are more likely to be healthy people who can function better as parents. All of this is in agreement with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet this perspective can be enriched and enlarged by adding fundamental and powerful principles from heaven’s perspective.

The Spiritual Perspective

We all do things that make our children crazy. We all do. In some parent-child relationships, this crazy-making is obvious; the conflict and distance are constant. Other parent-child relationships may seem easier, more natural. Yet in every relationship we are failing our children in some important way. That is a part of being mortal parents in a fallen world. That is the curse of humanness. In our quiet moments, we know that we’re not fully ready to properly care for God’s children.

There is really only one solution: for us to be changed. When our natures are changed, when we have the mind of Christ, when we have had a mighty change of heart, when we draw our inspiration from heaven, then we can be fit parents.

Dang! This can be profoundly discouraging. We must be godly to be good parents? But we simply aren’t godly. We are weak, fallen, and “because of the fall, our natures have become evil continually” (Ether 3:2). We’re a mess!

While our fallenness weighs heavily on us, it is not the only truth about our nature. We are also children of Divinity. We are heirs of godliness. We have the divine within us. We have glory awaiting us.

The cherished Restoration adds a vital and hopeful doctrine to our understanding of our nature. We are not mere creations of God that can be adopted into His family if we are faithful. We are His seed, His offspring, His dearly beloved children with whom He is in covenant for rescue. We may depart from the covenant but He never will—because we are everlastingly His.

Let me say it again. We are not simply shop projects to be discarded if we do not hold up well. We are His children. He Himself is woven into our natures. He will move heaven and earth to rescue us. Thank God for that encouraging truth!

With great truths come great caveats. We must not, like spoiled children in wealthy families, feel entitled. We must not think that we can coast to ease and goodness. We might remember that Satan himself is spirit offspring of God just as much as we are. He is supremely talented. But he was and is rebellious. He will not submit to God’s plan but insists on creating His own.

We are guilty of a related sin when we refuse to “receive all things with thankfulness.” When we protest that the challenges of life are not as they should be, we are suggesting that our plan for our lives is better than God’s.

Of course, there is one big difference between our sin and Satan’s. Satan stood toe-to-toe with God, heard the plan from God’s mouth, and still contended that his plan was better than God’s. In contrast, much of our resistance is due to the veil that leaves us wondering whether the messy realities of our lives are random and pointless. We commit our sins in partial ignorance. As the spark of faith grows into flames, we suspect that even our aches and pains can minister to our growth. Every challenge of our lives can be a blessing to us.

There is a vital lesson to be learned by setting our resistance side-by-side with Satan’s. We may recognize that rebellion and resistance send us into bitter tailspins. They send us to the lonely hell of self-direction. In contrast, submission is the key to power. We can, like our perfect example, declare: “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19).

Ah! The irony! The most talented person in the world is also most submissive. The One who might depend most upon His own abilities depends instead and entirely on Father. This life is not some random test of submissiveness. Submission is the key to power! “Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel” (Jeremiah 18:6). “Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?” (Isaiah 10:15, 2 Nephi 20:15).

God Submits

Another great latter-day truth is that God Himself is submissive. Three times in the Book of Mormon we are taught that God would cease to be God if He stopped submitting to law (Alma 42: 13, 22, 25). If He must submit, how important that we do the same!

So, submission is not some random and senseless test of obedience. It is the process for obtaining power. It is through surrendering that we conquer. God is demanding submission of us because it is the key to becoming like Him.

You may ask how submission relates to the command to “be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of [our] own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness” (D&C 58:27).

I think this relates to a two-stage process of submission. In the first stage, we learn to see His hand and accept His will. This is the kind of stuff we normally think of as submission including faith, repentance, and making of covenants. As we become more aware of and tune to His will, we are ready for the second stage where we become active agents of His will. We are indeed anxiously engaged—but in doing His will, not ours. This is a relatively advanced stage of submission. Jesus exemplified it. We aspire to it.

Submission is the indispensable and essential condition, or ingredient of growth.

What Does Submission Have to Do with Parenting?

It may not be obvious how submission helps us to be better parents. Let’s turn to Amulek for the answer. The oft-quoted (and regularly misunderstood) invitation of Alma 34 to pray at all times and in all places neglects the vital context:

Therefore may God grant unto you, my brethren, that ye may begin to exercise your faith unto repentance, that ye begin to call upon his holy name, that he would have mercy upon you;

Note the phrase “faith unto repentance” which is unique to Amulek—appearing four times in three verses (Alma 34:15-17) and nowhere else in all of scripture. It is a very powerful phrase. It suggests that, when we have enough faith, we will bring our tattered, weak lives to Jesus. We trust Him enough to run to Him rather than away from Him. Faith unto repentance is the heart of submission. Returning to Amulek’s words: “Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save” (Alma 34:17-18).

I don’t believe that God is merely asking us to pray 24/7 in Alma 34. No. He is asking that we recognize our dependence on Him for help with our fields, flocks, responding to our enemies (including the devil), and our crops. We must cry out for mercy in all things. “Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you” (Alma 34:27). In order to be godly parents, we need to submit to God on a regular basis. We must recognize our desperate need and cry out for divine help.

When angry, pray for mercy.

When exhausted, pray for mercy.

When resentful, pray for mercy.

When lonely, pray for mercy.

We pray for mercy in all situations because, as Amulek observed, He is mighty to save. His might extends to parenting. We cannot be the parents we should be unless we are filled with Him.

We regularly try to turn parenting into a test of our skills. We’re often wondering how to out-maneuver the child or cure this behavior or discourage that tendency. Skills matter. Even more, our understanding of children matters. But no amount of skill or understanding can balance a heart that is trying to operate independent of God and divine goodness.

When our hearts are right, the right attitude and actions flow naturally. “How can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34).

“Getting our hearts right” may seem like a black box with mysterious contents and magical effects. How do I get my heart right? How can I subdue that natural man within me who gets cranky and contrary? How do I draw the spiritual power into my life that will change my nature? I believe that the answer is to do all the things to build a relationship with God that we would do if we wanted to build a relationship with a respected human. Listen. Spend time together. Learn about Him. Show your interest and commitment. As we do these things, the bond will grow.

Every time an awareness of God’s power and goodness combines with my own sense of inadequacy, I can have the good sense to cry out for mercy.  When I do, God soothes and fills my soul.  I find I am better prepared to be a more godly parent and grandparent.

The process of changing our hearts is a gradual one. We get better and better as we more regularly and gladly call on the God we love. Along the way, we can still parent with love and good sense. We can regularly and steadily pray for an infusion of godliness.

Reflection and Application

Do you have a process for cultivating gratitude in your life? Do you write down at least two things that went well every day? What can you do to be more mindful of God’s daily gifts to you?

What are your greatest personal strengths? You might be interested in taking the VIA Survey of Character Strengths at https://www.viacharacter.org/  It will tell you which of the 24 strengths identified in humans are your strongest.

What experience do you have with submitting to God and recognizing your dependence on Him? Will you try crying out for mercy in areas of need, especially in your family life?

Notes

For an excellent book on the secular model of well-being, read: Seligman, M. E. P. (2002). Authentic happiness. New York: Free Press.