Life Notes
By Stacy Hawkins Adams
Theme: Planting Seeds in Young Lives
In recent weeks, I’ve spent quite a bit of time helping several statewide organizations articulate the best ways to help youths and families thrive.
In the literacy arena, we’ve touted how parents who take the time to read to their children at least several nights a week not only foster academic success, they also create lasting memories.
In my work with child abuse prevention professionals, we’ve focused on helping the community understand that while ‘abuse prevention’ seems like a topic for experts to explore, it’s actually a charge for every Mom and Dad to adopt effective parenting methods.
At the policy level, I’ve joined with a group of professionals and citizens intent on proving how advocating for children who can’t speak for themselves is necessary to help kids across the state grow up safe and healthy.
These efforts have reinforced a notion that many of us have heard before: Parenting is the one job we’re expected to learn on the job, perform with few mistakes and produce results that validate both us and our children.
It’s the one job that basically gives us free reign in execution, regardless of whether we possess adequate skills or minimal know how.
The truth is, all of us need guidance, and often training, to thrive in our given roles.
When we parents are equipped with the right information and access to helpful resources, we can do a great job of growing children into responsible, productive citizens.
However, in our bootstrap-success society, admitting the need for help and accepting support is often viewed as a sign of weakness.
In fact, it takes courage to reach out to others and share your vulnerabilities.
It takes selflessness to seek advice on child development, discipline methods and choosing the best child care or pediatrician for your little one.
The more often we take this kind of initiative, the more confident we become at serving as our children’s biggest and best advocates.
This may sound like an impossible feat to some, especially to professionals who work in settings where children’s challenges often overshadow their needs.
One committed, yet frustrated, friend works with children who come to school hungry and unkempt and often eager to fight, because that’s the only way they know how to express themselves.
If she can make it through the day without sending a student to time out or to the principal’s office, she considers that a victory. Never mind her plans to instill the knowledge these youths need to succeed.
All this friend can do, and all any of us can do - individually, through community programs or at the policy level - is plant the seeds of opportunity.
I continue to grow and evolve as a parent, and in doing so, I routinely reflect on the love and guidance that helped me thrive as a child.
Positive reinforcement from my extended family, and encouragement from teachers and other pivotal adults who challenged me to be my best, shored me up.
Though a lot has changed over the years, it seems that those simple strategies – those seeds - are still quite effective.
As we settle into spring and watch all that has been dormant come to life, why not view this season as a metaphor for the lives you’re nurturing?
Remind yourself that when you pour love, education, values, and memorable experiences into the children in your care, you’re in essence planting seeds.
I’ll be the first to admit that the task can be daunting – especially when coupled with the need to monitor homework, oversee chores, manage play dates and parties, shuttle multiple kids to multiple practices and rehearsals, and feed them decent meals.
It’s easy to forget that this most important job should be our favorite. Yet we can, and should, enjoy our children, and the process of watching them grow.
A friend whose children are now in college wisely said parents can’t take credit for their chidren’s successes and shouldn’t take blame for their missteps.
Our role is to plant wisely, nurture well and trust that as we give our best, we’ll help produce the best.
Our joy as parents must lie in the process, and in the fact that by being allowed to shepherd one or more young lives, we’ve been given a gift.
© Stacy Hawkins Adams
