Build Strong Families
By Jaimie Fales-Brown
In the previous Congregationalist, I shared five ways that the Church can help build strong families. This month, I would like to highlight how the Church can build parental resilience by helping families exercise flexibility and develop inner strength.
My son, Isaac is three. You can only imagine the number of things that don’t go the way I plan each day. I often find that when I am trying to get things to go a particular way, that’s when I get the greatest resistance from my son. This resistance can be a huge source of stress for any parent.
Sometimes, this stress is what causes me to lose it and snap at Isaac. Almost every time I snap, I feel ashamed of losing it just because he’s doing what comes naturally to him—being a three year old!
One of my greatest sources of encouragement as a parent is grandparents. I’m not just talking about my parents’ parents. I’m talking about all of the older adults in my life who know all about this stress. No matter the differences in opinion about child rearing or the age gap between us, grandparents get the stress of parenting.
The difference is, they are on the other side of this stress. They help remind me of the joys of parenting even if I can’t remember them (mostly due to sleep deprivation.) They also remind me that I can do it. That I have what is needed within me to parent and love well. They remind me to stop and find sources of resilience in G-d through self-care and looking at things through a difference perspective.
This spring, the church offered the Wisdom Heart Parenting Retreats. During the retreat, we focused on a phrase to help us gain perspective and accept circumstances when they don’t go our way: “It is what it is. In light of what it is, who do I want to be and what do I want to do?”
The Church is full of grandparents who can help remind us of who we want to be as parents and how we want to parent—especially when parenting doesn’t go as planned! Parents can’t change the fact that three year olds don’t like getting dressed or don’t understand the words, “Hurry up! We’re late!” But through the support and encouragement of grandparents who have “been there and done that,” we learn to accept what we can’t change and parent with intention and grace.
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