What Your Kids Can Teach You (If You Let Them)
By: Rahjon Acey
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Personal Development

What Your Kids Can Teach You (If You Let Them)

A Starter Kit on Humility

So after nine years and two amazing children, I’ve learned that the best teachers I’ve had in my life are the two little human beings that have little to no experience with it. In having a nine-year-old son and a two-year-daughter, they’ve continued to reinforce how much I don’t have life figured out. Through their unconditional love, honesty, forgiveness, they have their work cut out for them as they help me to continue to grow in being a responsible human being. Despite having spent eight years in the higher education system learning from professors with various teaching styles, my kids still hold the title as best teachers. And luckily for me, they’ll continue to remain the best teachers I’ll ever have.

This realization took some time to sink in as even during my single years when I worked with mentoring young kids, I had the mindset that kids were to receive instruction and not give it (I know pretty prideful huh?). But it was never about how I had so much knowledge to give and that every child should stand before me to receive my pearls of wisdom. Instead, it was about providing a positive example and sound instruction to kids who were living in less than ideal conditions and needing some healthier guidance in their decision-making. This was crucial as most of the kids that I worked with weren’t exposed to receiving encouragement through character building that is necessary at such a young age in their respective homes.

During that time, what I hadn’t realized was I was learning from those kids just as much as I believed they were learning from me. Qualities such as integrity, hard work, consistency, responsibility, maturity, and leadership were what started to be established within myself from mentoring. Despite what I was learning from them, I continued to maintain the frame of mind that those kids needed to learn from me. Then with the positive feedback, I received from their parents, coworkers and community partners of how well their behaviors had improved, it only really reaffirmed my position. So as I grew older and transitioned into having children of my own, I was in for a rude awakening as to how much I would be challenged to change my outlook on where my instruction of personal development would come from.

Receiving lessons from my kids in areas such as sacrifice, forgiveness and selflessness started early on in my fatherhood. Financially I needed to spend less on myself and more on the needs of my children. Also, all of the copious amounts of free time that I’d use to play video games would be no more because of the need of being present in spending time with my family. Because of my innate deficiency of selfishness, pride, and laziness, I continually had to make a gut check as to what was important.

I’ve made mistakes such as telling my son I’d take him to the local county fair but not following through with it because of my laziness and limited funds financially. Then after spending the whole day with my daughter, I ended up causing her diaper rash to worsen because I hadn’t changed her diaper all day except once and didn’t use any diaper rash cream when I did. From these two experiences, I was able to gain invaluable lessons of spending less time focusing on me but instead on what the needs of my children are. Through these and many other mistakes, it dawned on me how I needed to be a quick study in learning how parenting is all about how well I can be outwardly focused. As the more I can improve with that, the better I’ll be as a father and student. When I don’t, it ultimately hurts them and myself in our relationship.

Personally, what I found to have been essential towards being a better student consisted of what I would call the ABC’s of learning. These lessons are what my children have taught me as I strive to deepen my relationship with them. Which for me are:

Apologize

Don’t be afraid to tell your kids that you’re sorry and letting them in on how you messed up. Children are some of the most forgiving creatures we have on this planet and it’s amazing how quickly they’re able to let go of past hurts then move on from them. It’s important to have a level of humility that allows them to see that making mistakes is normal and okay (as long as they see that you’re learning from them). Being able to acknowledge your mistakes to your children through a lens of humility allows you to strengthen your relationship with them. It helps them to understand that failure isn’t fatal. Also, it allows them to understand how you can learn and bounce back from mistakes when you make them.

Be available

Russian writer and philosopher Fyodor Dostoevsky once said, “The soul is healed by being with children.” Spending time with your children is the best way to experience and provide nourishment emotionally. Showing a commitment as to how much we’re spending time with our kids is paramount in how quickly we’re able to develop and deepen our relationship with them. Being present in the home helps you to be attuned to the type of changes your kids are going through while seeing firsthand how resilient children can be when faced with trouble. Children thrive on acceptance and availability, so for us, as parents, it’s crucial to consistently set aside time to have healthy interactions whenever possible with them. This is imperative in being able to communicate to them that you love them just as much as they love you. Want to begin bonding with your child on an emotional level? Then make a concerted effort to demonstrate you can be available to them.

Character

Being consistent with doing what we say we’re going to do is incredibly important to our children (and one that I’m still working on). Demonstrating integrity as much as possible helps our children to feel secure while maintaining the respect that we so desperately require from them. Children are good about remembering what we say we’re going to do for them and it’s our responsibility to follow through on it. They have no problem with following through on what they say they’re going to do because their desire to give comes from such a sincere place. Our kids are consistent with this because it comes from a place of genuine appreciation that hasn’t been distorted by life experiences. So how can we grow and learn this from our children? Decide to be humble. In that, you’re going to focus on applying to others the same unconditional admiration our children have towards us.

Focusing on being humble about what we don’t know while being committed to learning from our children helps us become the best parents we can be. As our relationship with our children can only improve for the better because of it. Albert Einstein once said, “A true genius admits that he/she doesn’t know anything.” I’ve concluded that the more I embrace this, the more I learn and grow. Which I know allows for my kids to benefit by teaching me life lessons more than they’ll ever know.