Teaching Our kids to live outside the box, not in it

​In my opinion, one of the most misguided things I ever said about my approach to fatherhood went something like this: 'I want to raise boys who know their best life is found inside a box I help define for them. My job will be to help remind them when they step outside the box, and applaud them when they're living inside that it.'

That's code for, I'm going to reward them when they do what I say; punish them when they don't.

I'm grateful that, for the most part, I've abandoned that approach. Because here is what I know far better today than I did when my boys were little. If I define boxes for them early in life - because of how their little brains develop - it's likely they will ALWAYS see life as a box.

They will always approach the edges of the box with some level of hesitancy.

Yesterday, I wrote about this idea of one more door. I wrote that too often we quit because we get to believing there are no more doors to open.

In many ways, I believe we're training our kids to see life that way.

Heather Shumaker says, "Today families are caught in a paradox. We're parenting during a time when scientists increasingly tell us free play is vital to the health of our kids, yet schools and policies are pushing us in the opposite direction in an agitated rush toward early academics."

When Shumaker talks about free play being vital to our kids' health, it's because when they are young, our kids' brains are developing more rapidly than they ever will. Our kids worldviews are largely determined before they reach middle school. And whether or not they see open or closed doors is literally being wired into their biology.

When kids are outside playing, they are imagining doors to open. They run and skip and climb and wrestle each other as they go in and out of these doors. With free play, our kids are being wired to not only believe in open doors, but to go wildly searching for them.

In many cases, our schools have sacrificed play to accomodate more time in the classroom. In many cases, schools have defined for kids: success in life is what you're taught, not what you'll discover.

Our schools are not alone in that sacrifice.

In many settings, our kids are being wired to do what they're told and not question what's on the other side of everything they've ever heard. Our kids are being wired to believe life literally is contained in a box: the box parents define, the box a classroom defines, the box an iPhone or Xbox defines....

Here's the thing. You and me, we don't know the best paths for our kids. I know that because most days I don't even know the best path for me, so how on earth can I possibly know the best path for my kid?

Now, it's not like I want to raise boys who believe the world is a free for all. Clearly, the world is not. And I'm proud to say they seem to be figuring that out without any heavy handed reminders of that reality.

I often hear this argument that parents no longer know how to tell their kids no. I think I'd argue the opposite. I think more than an unwillingness to tell our kids no, we have a fear of telling them yes.

No says I have the answer; I'll define the wall. Yes says go figure it out; I love your curiosity.

I think the fear of yes comes from of a sense of wanting the best for our kids. It's out of a sense of wanting to protect them. It's out of a sense of wanting them to have a better life than me.

But it's also from a place of forgetting what we as parents have learned beyond any doubt.

Life is a journey. It's a journey that comes with few guarantees. Any box we try to create for ourselves or those around us - that box ultimately collapses. There are just no absolute and unmovable walls in this life.

Those of us who seem to navigate life the healthiest are those who, when the walls in life collapse, don't collapse with them. We don't collapse because we're wired to be curious about the collapse, not afraid of it.

We don't collapse - because we live trying to figure out the best definition of OUR life, not living obsessed with finding and following who has the best definition for THEIR life.

The world is hard. No box hides that reality. The younger our kids are when we help them disover that, the more likely it is they'll always believe there's one more door.