Promoting Family Unity - The Power of Forgiveness
Categories: family observations
The other day a very close friend of mine IM’d me, quite distraught and looking for input on a situation he had at home between he and his two young daughters. The situation was that his wife’s father was terminally ill and so she was out of town, spending as much time with her father and family until he passed away. So my friend, we’ll call him John, was left to tend to all of his usual burdens as provider and dad as well as the responsibilities as primary homemaker and caregiver that his wife normally fulfilled. John is a young guy, full of energy, charismatic…every time I picture him I see him smiling. This particular day, though, even though our conversation was purely textual, John wasn’t smiling at all and was carrying a massive burden that he didn’t know how to move.
The burden began the morning prior, when he had instructed his girls to clean up the room they shared. After some time when they hadn’t reported completion of their task, he went to inspect and found that they hadn’t even touched it. Wrong morning, wrong side of the bed, missing his wife, burnt toast…all of the little things that he had been working hard to deal with had accumulated and his daughter’s lack of effort or obedience became the final straw. Emotions got the better of him, and the correction he dealt to the girls, especially the older, more responsible one, was completely (this is his assessment, not mine) out of line and unproductive. In fact, it was downright mean and ugly…picture a grouchy father bear roaring at his cubs. He felt guilty, but knew his daughters were in the wrong, so he maintained his position as “Dad” and stuck to his guns, withdrawing none of the harshness he had dealt earlier. The girls got on the stick and cleaned their room, but bearing the stinging mental wounds of a harsh, emotionally charged correction.
The next morning was Monday and the girls had school. The majority of yesterday’s scene had distilled down to just the parts that were still relevant: the guilt he felt for his lack of control and judgment. This in itself added to the normal burden he was carrying, and thus made him more sensitive to any disobedience on the girls’ part. As John describes it, he had asked his older daughter several times the day before about her homework…was it complete, did she have it, each of which time she assured him all was well. As they approached her school that morning, he asked her one more time just to make certain, and the response she gave was NOT what he wanted to hear. She had forgotten the homework at grandma’s house, and in fact, hadn’t done it at all. Rightly so, he judged her to have lied to him and the scene became once again one that I know afterwards broke John’s heart to even recall.
It was later that day that he contacted me, elucidated on the details of it all, and asked me for advice. Having literally spent over half of my life so far raising my own seven children, and being part of that “Village” with many of my close friends and their children, I have stood in John’s shoes more times than I care to recollect. I’ve always put a lot of energy into making it a point to learn from my mistakes, as much as my ability to do so is, and so shared with him what I believed would help. Knowing that such a situation is not nor has ever been unique to only he and I, and knowing that a lot of fathers (and mothers) out there have and will deal with the same burden of having made the wrong choice when correcting their child, I now share my advice with you as well. Take from it what you will, leave of it what you will, let it work in you as you will. The first thing I did was to remind John of some very basic, yet extremely important truths; truths that are so simple that in the tunnel vision we have in the midst of such a situation, we absolutely cannot see them at all.
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. The Creator Himself tells us this, that children are not created wise, informed, or with good judgment, but rather are almost completely void of anything we adults would call common sense. It’s not their fault, they aren’t accountable for these lackings, and they were given parents to help weed out the foolishness and impart the wisdom of living. It’s when we forget this and hold them accountable for things they cannot possibly fulfill that we set ourselves up for such a fall as John took. Of course it goes without saying, that as children age and learn they slowly become more and more accountable for their actions, but careful attention to who they are as people and using our best judgment in individual scenarios will help us to decide where that accountability lies.
Children are people. Yes, they wear a size one shoe whereas we wear a ten; they eat half a bowl of oatmeal whereas we eat a whole one; but miniature though they be, they are as whole and complete a human being as you or I. Their little hearts can be broken or be filled with joy; their little minds can be captivated or bored; they have their own little individual personalities, quirks, and habits; they can be provoked to anger and grudges; they can feel sorrow and repentance, humility and pride, stubbornness and irrationality. Even when our child first comes into the world, did we not marvel at their every little detail and comment out loud and to ourselves continuously how incredible they were and possessed everything that we did? “Look at his little fingers!”, everybody exclaims, as they can’t help but see that this tiny, tiny, swaddling bundle is EXACTLY like us. Children are people, minus judgment and wisdom, and when we deal with them we should deal with them as we would have ourselves to be dealt with. Children are taught to honor their parents…but a parent should first behave honorably toward them, with the same respect you would give any other adult. Not leaving off the fact that you are the authority, but rather letting the fact that they ARE completely in your hands be the thing that keeps you walking uprightly toward them.
YOU are a person, a human being, who, although you may have managed thus far to take tens of trips around the sun, are and always will be in a constant state of growth and learning. As such, my friend, you will make errors in judgment and you have to accept that about yourself. As I told John and as was once shared with me by a dear mentor and friend of mine, “everybody falls; just make sure that you fall forward”. Just as holding on to unrealistic expectations with your children can only result in a negative outcome, so too will holding unrealistic expectations for YOURSELF keep you from ever being able to “fix it when you break it”. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that everybody should set their standards and expectations just out of their own reach in order to excel, but don’t make the mistake of somehow believing that you won’t make a mistake. I reminded my friend John of this. I had to, because the man was beating himself up in the wrong way and not giving his own self the opportunity to do what I know is the next most important step of all: repent.
After reminding John of these basic things, I then told him what he had to do to fix the situation, both with the girls and with himself so that everybody could gain from the situation. He had to go to them, either individually or together, and the man had to ask their forgiveness. Not just an “I’m sorry”, but a genuine humbling of himself before them, an admission of his guilt and lack of judgment in how he dealt with the situation, and an assurance that he would do his best to learn from this and not repeat it again. Oh the incredible and almost miraculous healing that takes place within every heart involved when a child’s parent, those whom they rely on and love with all their being, comes to them and, figuratively speaking, bows before them in an act of such contrition! Oh the incredible lifelong lessons that are taught in the example of that one single act! And lessons, not only for the child, but for the parent, too. Asking for your child’s forgiveness is absolutely the only right and productive thing that can be done when you or I or John have left love, patience, and judgment by the wayside in correcting our baby.
Asking your child to forgive you is far from merely an act of contrition: it is a lesson that is given without ever directly giving it. Your sincere apology will not only be giving them what will help them in their own struggle to forgive you, but you will be SHOWING THEM how an adult behaves when they have wronged another human being, and you will teach them how it is that they will be able to perform the same healing process on themselves when they too one day become a parent and make the same age-old mistake. Humbling yourself before another person, especially your own children, is in every single way the best example you could ever set for them.
So, this is what I shared with John, facts and lessons that I absolutely know to be the unequivocable truth because I have stood in his shoes more times than a man should, in my opinion. I still make mistakes; I still sometimes feel like I’m unsuccessfully grasping in the dark for those glimmers of truth that would help me to deal with a situation with my children properly. In more ways than I care to admit most times, I am far from being as mature as I believe a man my age should be. But I keep on trying, and when I wrong my children or any other person, most of the time I find the good judgment to go to them and ask their forgiveness for it. That same beloved mentor I mentioned earlier also once told me this regarding the summation of what repentance should be: “Admit it, Quit it, and Forgit it”. You will make mistakes, accept that, and when you do, admit it, try harder not to do it again, and then take the most important step of all, my friend, and forgive yourself.
The burden began the morning prior, when he had instructed his girls to clean up the room they shared. After some time when they hadn’t reported completion of their task, he went to inspect and found that they hadn’t even touched it. Wrong morning, wrong side of the bed, missing his wife, burnt toast…all of the little things that he had been working hard to deal with had accumulated and his daughter’s lack of effort or obedience became the final straw. Emotions got the better of him, and the correction he dealt to the girls, especially the older, more responsible one, was completely (this is his assessment, not mine) out of line and unproductive. In fact, it was downright mean and ugly…picture a grouchy father bear roaring at his cubs. He felt guilty, but knew his daughters were in the wrong, so he maintained his position as “Dad” and stuck to his guns, withdrawing none of the harshness he had dealt earlier. The girls got on the stick and cleaned their room, but bearing the stinging mental wounds of a harsh, emotionally charged correction.
The next morning was Monday and the girls had school. The majority of yesterday’s scene had distilled down to just the parts that were still relevant: the guilt he felt for his lack of control and judgment. This in itself added to the normal burden he was carrying, and thus made him more sensitive to any disobedience on the girls’ part. As John describes it, he had asked his older daughter several times the day before about her homework…was it complete, did she have it, each of which time she assured him all was well. As they approached her school that morning, he asked her one more time just to make certain, and the response she gave was NOT what he wanted to hear. She had forgotten the homework at grandma’s house, and in fact, hadn’t done it at all. Rightly so, he judged her to have lied to him and the scene became once again one that I know afterwards broke John’s heart to even recall.
It was later that day that he contacted me, elucidated on the details of it all, and asked me for advice. Having literally spent over half of my life so far raising my own seven children, and being part of that “Village” with many of my close friends and their children, I have stood in John’s shoes more times than I care to recollect. I’ve always put a lot of energy into making it a point to learn from my mistakes, as much as my ability to do so is, and so shared with him what I believed would help. Knowing that such a situation is not nor has ever been unique to only he and I, and knowing that a lot of fathers (and mothers) out there have and will deal with the same burden of having made the wrong choice when correcting their child, I now share my advice with you as well. Take from it what you will, leave of it what you will, let it work in you as you will. The first thing I did was to remind John of some very basic, yet extremely important truths; truths that are so simple that in the tunnel vision we have in the midst of such a situation, we absolutely cannot see them at all.
Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. The Creator Himself tells us this, that children are not created wise, informed, or with good judgment, but rather are almost completely void of anything we adults would call common sense. It’s not their fault, they aren’t accountable for these lackings, and they were given parents to help weed out the foolishness and impart the wisdom of living. It’s when we forget this and hold them accountable for things they cannot possibly fulfill that we set ourselves up for such a fall as John took. Of course it goes without saying, that as children age and learn they slowly become more and more accountable for their actions, but careful attention to who they are as people and using our best judgment in individual scenarios will help us to decide where that accountability lies.
Children are people. Yes, they wear a size one shoe whereas we wear a ten; they eat half a bowl of oatmeal whereas we eat a whole one; but miniature though they be, they are as whole and complete a human being as you or I. Their little hearts can be broken or be filled with joy; their little minds can be captivated or bored; they have their own little individual personalities, quirks, and habits; they can be provoked to anger and grudges; they can feel sorrow and repentance, humility and pride, stubbornness and irrationality. Even when our child first comes into the world, did we not marvel at their every little detail and comment out loud and to ourselves continuously how incredible they were and possessed everything that we did? “Look at his little fingers!”, everybody exclaims, as they can’t help but see that this tiny, tiny, swaddling bundle is EXACTLY like us. Children are people, minus judgment and wisdom, and when we deal with them we should deal with them as we would have ourselves to be dealt with. Children are taught to honor their parents…but a parent should first behave honorably toward them, with the same respect you would give any other adult. Not leaving off the fact that you are the authority, but rather letting the fact that they ARE completely in your hands be the thing that keeps you walking uprightly toward them.
YOU are a person, a human being, who, although you may have managed thus far to take tens of trips around the sun, are and always will be in a constant state of growth and learning. As such, my friend, you will make errors in judgment and you have to accept that about yourself. As I told John and as was once shared with me by a dear mentor and friend of mine, “everybody falls; just make sure that you fall forward”. Just as holding on to unrealistic expectations with your children can only result in a negative outcome, so too will holding unrealistic expectations for YOURSELF keep you from ever being able to “fix it when you break it”. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that everybody should set their standards and expectations just out of their own reach in order to excel, but don’t make the mistake of somehow believing that you won’t make a mistake. I reminded my friend John of this. I had to, because the man was beating himself up in the wrong way and not giving his own self the opportunity to do what I know is the next most important step of all: repent.
After reminding John of these basic things, I then told him what he had to do to fix the situation, both with the girls and with himself so that everybody could gain from the situation. He had to go to them, either individually or together, and the man had to ask their forgiveness. Not just an “I’m sorry”, but a genuine humbling of himself before them, an admission of his guilt and lack of judgment in how he dealt with the situation, and an assurance that he would do his best to learn from this and not repeat it again. Oh the incredible and almost miraculous healing that takes place within every heart involved when a child’s parent, those whom they rely on and love with all their being, comes to them and, figuratively speaking, bows before them in an act of such contrition! Oh the incredible lifelong lessons that are taught in the example of that one single act! And lessons, not only for the child, but for the parent, too. Asking for your child’s forgiveness is absolutely the only right and productive thing that can be done when you or I or John have left love, patience, and judgment by the wayside in correcting our baby.
Asking your child to forgive you is far from merely an act of contrition: it is a lesson that is given without ever directly giving it. Your sincere apology will not only be giving them what will help them in their own struggle to forgive you, but you will be SHOWING THEM how an adult behaves when they have wronged another human being, and you will teach them how it is that they will be able to perform the same healing process on themselves when they too one day become a parent and make the same age-old mistake. Humbling yourself before another person, especially your own children, is in every single way the best example you could ever set for them.
So, this is what I shared with John, facts and lessons that I absolutely know to be the unequivocable truth because I have stood in his shoes more times than a man should, in my opinion. I still make mistakes; I still sometimes feel like I’m unsuccessfully grasping in the dark for those glimmers of truth that would help me to deal with a situation with my children properly. In more ways than I care to admit most times, I am far from being as mature as I believe a man my age should be. But I keep on trying, and when I wrong my children or any other person, most of the time I find the good judgment to go to them and ask their forgiveness for it. That same beloved mentor I mentioned earlier also once told me this regarding the summation of what repentance should be: “Admit it, Quit it, and Forgit it”. You will make mistakes, accept that, and when you do, admit it, try harder not to do it again, and then take the most important step of all, my friend, and forgive yourself.
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Re: Promoting Family Unity - The Power of Forgiveness
good article. as a new parent this is something I will need to learn. how to say sorry if I do (when I do) something I aught not as a parent.
Posted by ladysown on October 24, 2007 at 3:31 PM
Re: Promoting Family Unity - The Power of Forgiveness
Thanks for sharing this wonderful story of forgiveness. A parent admitting to being wrong is very important.
Posted by Patricia on December 20, 2007 at 2:12 AM