I remember hearing a guest lecturer during one of my college courses on child psychology. She worked with parents and “troubled” teens at a local child guidance clinic. One of the students in the class asked what advice she generally gave parents about raising children, especially those in junior high. Her answer: “Love them and pray.” We all laughed, of course, but over the years I thought a lot about that answer and eventually decided that, “Present a powerful role model,” needed to be added. So now I had a three-sided answer to the question, and I used this answer in many of my classes as a discussion prompt for childrearing. If we delve beneath the surface of, “Love them,” “Pray,” and, “Be powerful,” what are we really talking about?
Love them. From birth on, children need to sense they are wanted and loved. During the first year of life, this process involves mostly attending to basic needs, plus things like holding, cuddling, smiling, baby talk…all those things that make baby respond positively. These actions help children develop trust in others, and acquire a belief that the world is a trustworthy place. Also, these actions help reduce the primal fear that all children have: abandonment. Development of a trusting parent-child attachment fosters the feeling that, “I am not going to be left alone. My home base will always be there.” These feelings of security have psychological significance well into adulthood, and many adult coping issues have their roots in an unresolved fear of abandonment.
Be powerful. In the context of good childrearing, powerful means effective controller of rewards and punishments, not a dictatorial authoritarian. When power is dispensed in an atmosphere of love, parents are less likely to fall into the “enabling/indulging” trap, where parents believe they must ensure success for children, hover over them to help them avoid failure, and bail them out when they get into trouble. This pattern conveys the message that the kids are weak and dependent, and it can have devasting consequences for the kids: low self-esteem, learned helplessness, depression, a sense of entitlement, just to name a few. The powerful parent role model, on the other hand, working within an atmosphere of love and support, encourages independence, autonomy, assertiveness, and learning how to deal with and profit from failure. The powerful parent can cut the dependency cord without sacrificing love; the indulgent parent displays weakness, insecurity, and fear, traits that are picked up by their kids.
Pray. In the broadest sense, this advice says you should help your kids find a value system, a set of standards and morality that foster a social conscience. This sort of guidance fits perfectly with “loving them,” and helps them develop a spirituality and participate in the fullness of life with others. The dynamics are subtle but powerful, and need not be restricted to a specific religious context. In the wider context of “love” and “power,” values capture the essence of a parent-to-child transfer that produces a productive and purposeful member of society who has learned how to live with honor, civility, and respect for the needs of others.
Psychology and Stress 