Helping propel moms & dads of 3 to 13 year-olds to invest in their power-decade of parenting. Father of 3 teenagers and pastor of 20 years turned digital writer.
Family Friday: It's OK Raise Them Slowly
Truths From Trees
There are lots of names that we give to groups of animals:
Lions: A Pride 🦁
Whales: A Pod 🐋
Beavers: A Colony 🦫
Monkeys: A Troop 🐒
Rhinoceroses: A Crash 🦏
In the world of arboriculture (ok, that's just a fancy word for trees) we call a group either a Grove or Forest 🌲🌲🌲🌲
Take for instance a grove of trees...
Most young tree saplings spend their early decades of life under the shade of their mother tree's canopy.
Limited sunlight means that they grow slowly.
Slow growth, of course, leads to hard, dense, and strong wood.
Something entirely different happens if you plant a tree by itself out in an open field.
Free from the shade of bigger trees, the sapling gorges itself on sunlight and grows really fast.
Fast growth leads to soft, airy wood that doesn't have time to become dense.
Soft, airy wood is a breeding ground for fungus, disease, and a much shorter life overall.
A tree that grows fast, rots quickly and therefore never has a chance to grow old.
Another invaluable effect of the grove for a young sapling is the root system.
An old, dense, and sturdy tree has years of roots that run deep into the ground.
A slow-growing tree in a grove has the benefit of intertwined roots that will benefit it for decades as it grows taller.
An isolated tree, planted by itself, not only grows too quickly but lacks any of the supporting underground structures.
So what can we learn from the world of arboriculture that can affect your parenting for the next decade? I suggest to you ...
7 Parent Take-Aways
- Raising kids slowly is a long-term blessing for them, but they will not see it that way till they are much older.
- Starving them of all growth opportunities (ie. sunlight) stunts their life in a tragic different way.
- It is a good thing to want our kids to outgrow us someday but it happens best when we are actively alongside them.
- Your overall health has a direct effect on the daily health of your kids today and in the future.
- Proper sunlight produces upward growth but difficult moments reveal if downward growth has taken place.
- Isolation is a sneaky killer, for individuals and for families.
- Proximity to parents, both in heart and in time spent together, is how kids develop the strength they need for life outside your home someday.
Do you consider your home to be a "raise them slowly" kind of family? In what ways have you provided shade or kept your kids from growing up too quickly? I'd love to hear if you'd reply back and let me know!
FYI: Mom and Dad, you can always read old newsletters right here!
School's Out Ice Cream Session
With the calendar rolling over to June, most of your kids are wrapping up their school year.
If you are a family that likes to take a look back and process the year together, here are 5 questions you can ask your kids over ice cream in the next 7 days.
- What was your favorite memory or experience at school this year?
- What was the hardest part of school? (ie. friendships, a specific class, a teacher, certain classmates, etc)
- Who did you meet and get to know that you didn't know before you were in this grade?
- Was there a time you had to work extra hard or show courage that you are proud of looking back?
- What is one way that you think you have changed from the beginning of the school year until the end now?
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Power-Decade Parenting
Helping propel moms & dads of 3 to 13 year-olds to invest in their power-decade of parenting. Father of 3 teenagers and pastor of 20 years turned digital writer.
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