“One of the great illusions of our time is that hurrying will buy us more time.” (John Ortberg)

Invariably, when I am in a hurry to check out at the grocery store, something will happen to make my line slower than a your average snail. The cashier changes shifts. The register runs out of receipt paper. The lady in front of me is buying some rare Guatemalan melon the cashier has never seen and he has to send three bag boys to find one with a sticker on it. I used to think I was cursed in the “waiting in line department” since this happened to me at banks and in traffic jams as well. But now I think I was just participating in a natural law.

The law is this: Hurrying actually slows you down. This is true not only with cashiers and bank tellers, but with our kids as well. Ever noticed that when you are hurrying to get out of the house with your children, something always happens that slows the process? It’s almost as if the more you speed up, the slower your kids get. I think that’s because hurrying is a needy thing to do. It is a symptom of impatience and anxiety. It is a form of weakness. And kids can sniff out weakness a mile away.

When you hurry, you aren’t creating more time. You are missing out on the only time that is truly yours – the present. Working yourself and your kids into a frenzy just for a couple of extra minutes isn’t going to really get you anywhere. Plan ahead and give yourself margin – more time than you think you’ll need  – for a task. Then enjoy yourself along the way. That’s tough to do, but practice helps. The next time you’re at the grocery store, give your patience muscle a bit of a workout and choose the longest line. Who knows, maybe the simple act of not hurrying will pay off and your line will outpace the one next to you.

“Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.” (George Lois)

Just about every day, we get requests from people who want to know specifically what to do in certain circumstances. “What do I do when my three year old won’t potty train?” or “What should I do when my teen breaks curfew?” On occasion, we oblige with targeted responses. But for the most part, we don’t. Not because we don’t want to help, but precisely because we do.

You see, we believe, like Lois, that the creative act is more powerful than most things known to man. In creating, you are pausing instead of reacting. You are assessing rather than assuming, and you should trust that your ideas are every bit as good as ours – if you’re following the main principles and staying calm and connected with your kids.

“Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried out on him personally.” (Abraham Lincoln)

Ok, so maybe this one is a stretch. Don’t get me wrong. I am not intending to liken certain authoritarian parenting styles as slavery, but old honest Abe does make a good point here. We tend to forget that our children are learning and growing every day. Why not extend them the same grace and dignity that we expect other people to liberally shower our way?

Think of it this way, would you want to be your parent? Would you like to grow up with someone who encourages or someone who berates? Would you feel comfortable coming to someone like you with sensitive and embarrassing matters? You never really know how influential you are as a parent. Take that role seriously, and ask yourself the tough questions. That way, you can’t go wrong.

“It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one on the end of your arm.'” (Sam Levinson)

I wouldn’t go quite this far when trying to teach my kids self-sufficiency, but I like the spirit of this quote. Too often, I step in when my children are struggling with something because I can’t handle the anxiety. Then I wonder why they don’t do more for themselves – I’m the one who gave them the message that they couldn’t!

But hear me out. Allowing your kids to struggle doesn’t mean that you throw up your hands and remain aloof to their suffering. No, there is a balance – it may look different for each of us, but it should include a healthy dose of encouragement, just the right number of hugs, and probably a little more space than you think they need.

“Speech is conveniently located between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.” (John Andrew Holmes)

Unfortunately, this statement is all too true. And when our mouths lead the charge, we have no choice but to follow. If we could just realize that speech is another form of action, we might have more success in pursuing peace filled relationships.

The thing that should be located between thought and action/speech is pause. If we could retrain ourselves to recognize thoughts for what they are, welcome them into our minds, and then pause while we decide how we want to handle them, our relationships would all change drastically. Today with your kids, practice this discipline. Be slow to speak and quick to pause.

“Be aware that a halo only has to fall a few inches to become a noose.” (Dan McKinnon)

When we are trying so hard to do everything perfectly and be the “model” mom or dad, we might as well think of it as tightening the noose. We are not only choking the life out of our own experiences, but we’re unwittingly teaching our kids that anything less than perfect isn’t good enough. That’s not to say that we should stop trying our best to be a good parent. It just means that we should readjust our idea of what being a good parent means. Reclaim your sense of humor and your ability to learn from your mistakes. Be coachable instead of perfect and a couple of things will happen. You’ll not only be more fun to be around, but you just might teach something attainable and valuable to the ones who are watching.

“How do you explain to a little child why you have to go to jail? Coretta has developed an answer. She tells them that daddy has gone to jail to help the people.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

One night during the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr. King received a late phone call just as he was dozing off to sleep. All he heard on the other line was name-calling, threats to his family, and hateful speech. He got up, paced the floor, and eventually warmed a pot of coffee. There he confessed to God that he could not see himself continuing his fight. He felt “all of [his] fears coming down upon him”, and he just knew it was time to give up. With his head in his hands, he recalls suddenly feeling a divine presence like never before, as if God were sitting right next to him, promising that Dr. King was not alone in this fight, and he never would be.

A couple of nights later, when the threats of violence were made a reality and his house was bombed, crowds came forth with outrage, demanding immediate retaliation. Dr. King responded with a new-found calm, instructing the crowds to go home, be with their families, and further their cause the next day by continuing the nonviolent protests.

It is difficult to imagine the challenges of pursuing a calling that could lead to arrests, endanger one’s family, and eventually get you assassinated. It’s one thing to risk your financial future in order to start an organization that hopefully changes relationships throughout the world, but that is embarrassingly minor compared to Dr. King’s calling. It must mean that he either didn’t care about himself or his family, or just the opposite: he cared so much for them that he had to risk everything in order to make possible a different reality, a different future for himself, his family, and all of us.

“Maybe the foundation for a new Birmingham will [not] be in mortar and stone, concrete and steel, or industry and commerce, but rather in the memory [of] the innocent blood of these precious children of God.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

When four little girls were killed in the horrible bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Dr. King somehow brought his peace within to the outraged masses, choosing to eulogize the girls with these words. Again, the power of his calm outweighed the power of his pain and inspired people to change the world. That kind of calm leadership and refusal to retaliate allowed him to turn even the darkest moment of his movement into an opportunity for growth.

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Rosa Parks is often used as an example of what it means to be a true revolutionary. Her statement, “You do what you’re going to do, but this is what I’m going to do” is at the very heart of what it means to be a nonconformist. She was one who was not automatically swayed by popular opinion or practice. She did not need the herd’s support in order to move in her own direction, a direction she believed was the right way to go. That the revolution she started came from the weakest social position in the South at the time, that of a black woman, is even greater testimony to the power of nonconformity.

This may be how true reform occurs within Fundamentalist Muslim countries as well. It may very well be led by a small minority of oppressed Muslim women whose creative maladjustment leads them to honor both the highest principles of Islam and the highest principles of human equality and justice.

None of this excuses any of us from doing what we can to speak out against injustice wherever we are. But there is such a truth in Dr. King’s words there that it is worth hoping that such a nonconforming minority of intelligent, brave, and self-respecting people awaken in every place where injustice appears to have the upper hand.

“Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Earlier this week, our nation paused to celebrate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King’s revolutionary approach to raising the national consciousness has been dubbed “passive resistance” — but there is little passive about it. One of the greatest misunderstandings about a nonviolent approach is that such a stance implies weakness, or inaction. This was the confusion about Jesus’ admonition to turn the other cheek, Gandhi’s nonviolent protests in South Africa and India, and Dr. King’s program of civil disobedience here in America. All could come across as promotion of weakness, of laying yourself down and letting others beat you down further. To refuse to retaliate could only be the work of cowards.

Similar questions are frequently asked about the ScreamFree approach to parenting: “How can you just sit there calmly when your kid misbehaves? They need to know you mean business! They need you to be a strong parent!”

Of course we agree wholeheartedly. And so did Jesus. And Gandhi. And Dr. King. People do need to know that you mean business. A principled commitment to nonviolence and nonreactivity is not a weak stance formed in passivity. It is instead a very active, very passionate response to the conflict at hand.

Gandhi was absolutely furious when 1500 men, women, and children were gunned down by British troops for having a peaceful gathering. Dr. King was absolutely full of a passionate desire to fight social injustice. And each of you has a burning desire to change the misdeeds of your children, and revolutionize your relationships with them. But such passion has to be disciplined, has to be contained and directed in order to have the actual effect you seek. Fire without boundaries is an out-of-control disaster, while that same fire contained and directed fuels the world.