“The parent’s role is primarily to stand by with a goodly supply of bandaids.” (Leo Buscaglia)

Children are constantly discovering and learning — mostly by touching and tasting and falling. They crawl all over everything and put things in their mouths. This is how they get the information they’re seeking. Helping children process all of this input is the task given to responsible authorities — parents, teachers, coaches, and other trusted adults.

These responsible authorities must understand the needs of a child, respect the worth of a child, and recognize just how vital it is to validate the child’s emerging sense of self. They must allow for spontaneity, encouraging awareness and evaluation of this ongoing learning process if a child is ever to attain any measure of mastery over her environment.

The most damaging thing one of these adults can do is to attempt to keep the child from experience or protect them from pain. This is the time when a child learns that the world is like a rose garden — filled with beautiful things and thorns — a place to be entered into with care.

Don’t throw them in the rosebush, but don’t keep them from it, either. Let them explore, and make sure you have plenty of bandaids.

“Our world is a place where even a spider refuses to lie down and die if a rope can still be spun to a star.” (Loren Eiseley)

Life is hard, and it sometimes sounds like a good idea to stop, to give up, to lie down and die. But there are those who refuse to stop spinning, even when it seems more sophisticated to give in to cynicism and pessimism.

The rope you spin, even if it is thin, can still be spun with optimism, curiosity, wonder, and the sincere desire to share your trip to the stars with others. Such a goal would be worth the struggle — especially since the star to which we aspire is full adulthood.

It is in this ongoing striving for adulthood that our true hope lies, so keep spinning.

“Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

The biggest barrier to creating the great relationships we crave most has always been, and will always be, our fear. We are all, at varying levels, afraid of change — even if it’s the change we’ve always wanted. We say we want to have a better relationship with our teenagers, but with their door closed or their face buried in their phone we shy away from making an awkward interruption. We say we want to improve our sexual connection with our mate, but when we actually think about sending that inviting text, or making that gentle but unmistakable move…well, the TV’s always “turned on.”

Say the word. Make the move. Create the new.

“Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

My wife and I recently re-seeded a large portion of our yard. It was arduous work that left us covered in dirt, manure, and sweat. After we finished laying it all down, however, the most difficult part remained: watering and waiting.

When would the seed take hold? When would the emerging sprouts give us validation that all our efforts were not in vain? How long would we need to keep gently watering this soil every day? It’s expensive! Will we ever see any growth at all?

Felt a lot like parenting.

“If you don’t run your own life, somebody else will.” (John Atkinson)

Authority is a tricky thing, really. Sometimes we crave it over somebody else, like a child we think needs to behave, or a co-worker who needs to get something done. Sometimes we crave it over ourselves, like whenever we’re that child, or we’re that  co-worker, being told what to do.

What’s most fascinating is when we crave for someone else to have authority over us. “Just tell me what to do,” we may say to a boss (or a therapist!). “I don’t want to have to make any decisions,” we may say to a spouse, after a long day’s work (in or out of the home). While this is okay and understandable at times, it actually reflects a sobering truth: we’re scared to have full authority over lives. Why? With authority comes responsibility. Responsibility for our present state of mind. Responsibility for the future outcome of a current decision. Responsibility for everything we do, feel, say, believe, etc.

This is scary, because once we take full responsibility for our lives, who’d be left to blame?

“He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skills. Our antagonist is our helper.” (Edmund Burke)

One of the simplest ways to stimulate your mind and your body is to enter into competitive situations. This is why games that pit one person or team against another are so appealing to us. The challenges of competition are enjoyable and beneficial.

However, when beating your opponent becomes the primary goal, when it takes precedence over trying your best and having fun, the enjoyment tends to disappear. Competition is enjoyable and beneficial only when it is a means to self-improvement — either through the betterment of one’s skills in the task at hand or the enhancement of a relationship with one’s opponent and/or teammates.

When competition becomes an end in and of itself, it stops being fun. Redefine winning, and you could just go undefeated for the rest of your life.

“We are always getting ready to live, but never living.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

When you’re young, you can’t wait. You can’t wait till Christmas, or till your birthday, or till junior high, or till graduation. We’re so eager to get bigger and older, and our hearts are full of hope.

At the same time, children can also be very present in the moment. They can get lost in a daydream, or get focused on a lego project, or lose all sense of time playing in the pool on a hot summer day.

This ability to hold a great longing for the future, while being present in the present, can be elusive for us grownups, however. Perhaps this is because when you’re young, so many others are the ones making the plans for our future, whether it’s dinner or the mortgage, or the plans to go see Grandma. In adulthood, though, we’re the ones making all the preparations for the future — making to-do lists, making investments, making travel plans.

We have to learn to cultivate both the planning for the future and the living in the moment. These two tenses, future and present, if done well, will always be in tension. I’m guessing you’re way better at one, the planning, than you are the other, the being.

To quote David Foster Wallace, I wish you more than luck.

“Revenge is often like biting a dog because the dog bit you.” (Austin O’Malley)

Funny thing about revenge — in an effort to heal our hurt we decide to hurt right back. Whenever we choose to do the same behavior in retaliation, it’s as if we deem the other person’s bad behavior not bad in and of itself; it’s just bad because they did it first.

This is especially fascinating in marriage. Like it or not, we all have a tendency to keep score. We too quickly make an assumption about being unfairly treated, and we immediately try to rectify the situation. Our dearly beloved uses the insider information they have on us, and everything in us screams out to get revenge — by doing the same right back to them. That’ll show ‘em, we reason.

Show ‘em what? How much they’ve hurt you? Why not just tell them that straight up? “Ouch, honey, that really hurt. I don’t know if you were meaning to insult me like that, but you did.”

By telling them, you end up showing them something better: maturity.

“The wildest colts make the best horses.” (Plutarch)

Among the most destructive labels we apply on our kids are those having to do with their perceived disobedience. We call them “rebellious,” or “defiant,” or “out of control.” They may even get officially diagnosed with “Oppositional Defiant Disorder.”

These labels are especially sticky, and we shouldn’t be surprised that they actually perpetuate the behavior we were hoping to curtail. Think about it — if the kid’s got a condition, a disorder, then how can we expect him to suddenly become compliant? He can’t, he’s too Oppositionally Defiant!

The next time you’re tempted to call your kid rebellious, pause. Ask yourself what exactly you think she’s rebelling against? You? A relationship with you? Law and order? Or is she just fighting off your efforts to control her?

If your kids are part of the rebellion, doesn’t that make you Darth Vader? (which, if you didn’t already know, was intentionally a play on Dark Father) I know this sounds crazy, but I pray you don’t have totally compliant kids. The rebels are the ones who are most able to think for themselves, create the world’s innovative solutions, and fight off oppressive injustice. Just like those pesky Skywalker kids.

“If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse.” (Henry Ford)

It’s easy to say yes. Saying yes feels good. Saying yes makes you well-liked. The problem is you quickly have a pile of things you’ve said yes to, and you can no longer see what it is you started out to do. Saying yes to anything eventually leads to saying no to everything.

We often avoid saying no because it might lead to confrontation — which makes us uncomfortable. Still, the consequences of saying yes when we want to say no are even worse. We drag things out. We make things complicated. We end up working on things we don’t believe in.

It’s like when you’re dating. Breaking up is hard to do, but staying together just because you’re too chicken to leave is even worse. Dealing with the brief discomfort of confrontation up front helps avoid long-term regret.