In our Encouraging Courage (Girls) Letter was a neat little message that had clear edges and the takeaways fit the title where we came away looking like competent parents. But life isn’t always so cut and dried. Encouraging the heart can often be vague platitudes that miss the mark and confound parents and frustrate children. That was the case when dealing with our son Kevin whose sweet spirit was occasionally a puzzle to us.
Dave’s competitive nature in life colored his views on how his boys would, and should, see the world. Dave believes a major point of sports is to build character through disciplining oneself to learn skills and use those skills against the competition to measure one’s self-improvement. Dave certainly isn’t a “win at all costs” guy, sports should be fun, but the desire to win was integral to self-improvement, or so he thought. But that perspective proved to be superficial as it pertained to Kevin, our youngest.
Kevin’s Love Language priorities are Quality Time and Physical Touch. His temperament leans toward Melancholy. Dave’s coaching/parenting style didn’t think to consider Kevin’s learning style. So even though Dave was engaged and participated in Kevin’s sports life, he often frustrated Kevin’s learning style. Dave took Kevin to the gym to practice basketball, but instead of it being a fun one-on-one time with his son, Dave tried to introduce drills for skill development. Kevin shrunk away from “trying”. Dave couldn’t encourage Kevin’s motivations to put forth effort towards skill development and instead generated frustration and hard feelings.
The whole episode, and many others like it, spoke more to Dave’s desire for Kevin to win and have that feeling of success rather than Kevin owning it himself. Kevin’s learning style and temperament emphasized relationship over skill development. He would rather have played with dad without agenda rather than spend hours in skill development. Further, a tendency of melancholy temperament is perfectionism. He was very self-critical. So instead of being able to figure out his learning style to unlock Kevin’s potential, Dave hammered away at using Words of Encouragement thinking it the appropriate code. That didn’t work and a slight gap emerged between father and son.
Encouraging courage can take many forms. As parents, we desire to see our children fulfill their potential and maybe enjoy a day in the sun. But that feeling can also be some sort of selfish desire to see your child on the podium. Was that Dave’s desire? Kevin is very physically gifted, so imagining him successful in sports if he worked at it was the idea. It’s hard to say if pushing him was beyond reason. The point here is that in parenting you have to examine your own motivations and desires so that when you approach your child’s situation you are open to a more effective way that might have a different outcome than what you envision. To reach your child’s heart and help them thrive, parents should consider the challenges from the child’s particular learning style, love language, and temperament. (See Letter on Temperaments).
In today’s Letter, we hope to encourage you through our learning. Was this situation a mistake that created life-long issues that weighed Kevin down? Well, it was more about a failed effort at unlocking his potential more than anything. Not figuring out Kevin’s learning style is a parenting regret that we feel to some small degree. However, Kevin was able to take that life lesson and learn about himself which translated into many future successes. You see, failures and successes go into the mix of parenting. Obviously as you attempt to encourage their heart, you want more successes to influence their steps in life. But it’s important to not feel too disheartened if you get some failures too. God uses your goodly intention in creating the right balance.
To your family’s encouraging effort,
Lis and Dave Marr