Our Encouraging Courage (Girls) Letter ,last week, 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 seem like 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 a puzzle to us in the pre-teen years.

Dave’s competitive nature in life colored his views on how his boys would 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 as a means for 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 positive motivation to put forth effort towards skill development. Instead, Dave 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 ahead of skill development. He would rather have played with dad without agenda rather than spend the time in skill development. Further, a trait of melancholy temperament is perfectionism. Kevin 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 with Lis and Shelli, Words of Encouragement was sufficient. With Kevin, his complexity required a different approach which first required introspection on Dave’s part.

As parents, we desire to see our children fulfill their potential and maybe enjoy some time 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 even a little at it was the idea. But the objective shouldn’t be glory, but instead fulfillment. 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 (Join us for our upcoming Temperaments Parenting Seminar – See Below)

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

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