David Staal - Lessons Kids Need to Learn: Six Truths to Shape the Character of the Child You Love

If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning.

C AROL S. D WECK , P H D

O n the day before Becky and I wed, my grandpa asked if I wanted advice about how to have a working, happy marriage. He and my grandmother had stuck together for many decades until death parted them, so I eagerly listened.

There are two things you should do, he said. God gave both of you opinions, so work hard to always find common ground on issues. That will help your marriage work well.

Okay, Grandpa, I said, whats the second thing?

With a wink and a chuckle he said, Always go with her opinion.

Sage advice no matter which side of the aisle you stand on. While I found his counsel profound at that moment and for over two decades of marriage have done my best to live up to that advice I have also learned that the roots of Grandpas two-halves-of-the-same-equation wisdom significantly preceded his marriage.

Consider the direction given to the first couple, Adam and Eve. To paraphrase, God told them: You are free to eat anywhere in the garden, but leave the tree in the center alone. Enjoy the gift of an intimate relationship, yet bond with only one. Work hard, then take a day and relax.

From the genesis of mankind through today, we require guidance to help us become who God made each of us to be. And just as they did in the beginning, lessons imparting essential wisdom often travel in pairs. On its own, each individual lesson sounds great, but learn one without the other and you might easily travel toward an extreme, toward a life without balance.

Again, lets consider Eden. Take just one side of each of the pairs mentioned earlier and picture what would eventually happen:

• Work hard without rest wear out and die from exhaustion.
• Relax without the hard work fall short of your God-given potential.
• The gift of intimacy with no exclusivity risk health, life, and love.
• An exclusive bond with no intimacy lets not go there in this book.

Had Adam and Eve only heard instructions about the tree, they might have starved. We know that in the end, unfortunately, they took their freedom to eat too far (with the help of a slippery tempter) and ignored the boundary aspect of this lesson.

Likewise, it is critically important for todays parents to recognize that important pairs of lessons exist that, when taught in tandem, will help children achieve life-thriving balance and avoid unhealthy excesses. Looking for and teaching complementary lessons can help children grow into the young people their parents dream they will become mature individuals who live a God-honoring life.

Lessons Kids Need to Learn is designed to provide you with insight on how to best teach your children such high-priority pairs of lessons. Each chapter contains two complementary lessons, along with the important-to-understand relationship that exists between them. Practical tips and everyday examples provide ideas that will enable you to put these lessons into practice as soon as you have read each chapter. While many books rely on counsel from credentialed experts only, this book also offers a practical, hands-on approach proven by experienced parents.

The best parenting advice to come my way has typically emerged from trial and error; specifically, the successes and failures from other parents. So, as part of the research for this book, my wife, Becky, conducted focus groups made up of actual moms and dads at various locations across the country. While I observed from the back of each room, she facilitated in-depth discussions among parents with only one common, and treasured, characteristicexperience.

The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice. (Proverbs 12:15)

All these veteran moms and dads have children in their teens or older, so they know what theyre talking about. All had plenty to

We encouraged openness and candor among these parents with a commitment to change every parents and childs name in any story shared in the book. The only real names used are those of our own family members with their permission, of course.

This promise of anonymity also encouraged participation from a second valuable group. While the focus-group parents described why and how they taught the lessons in this book, my kids, fourteen-year-old Erin and seventeen-year-old Scott, conducted focus groups with fellow teenagers. Those students willingly provided unique perspectives on how kids learned these same lessons.

Erin and Scott took a unique approach to this task, conducting virtual focus groups via Facebook. As a result, youll often read affirming or challenging words straight from students, just as they typed them. To most authentically voice a collective youth-originated message to readers, one student wrote a challenging lesson for parents to serve as this books Final Word.

To protect the teenagers identities, no identifying references (gender indication, names, or ages) appear with their comments. After all, it takes a brave young person to say, When all I hear is correction, life starts to feel like a mistake. It is imperative that we protect that kind of candor.

And one more important note, this one about gender: All lessons apply equally to boys and girls. To minimize wordiness, each story will reference either a male pronoun or its female equivalent, but throughout, the general use of one or the other implies both. As a parent of a son and daughter whose perspectives are equally valuable, I tried to balance gender references throughout the book.

While an exhaustive list of topics to teach kids might fill an entire library, Lessons Kids Need to Learn focuses on six pairs of critical truths to share along with the three foundational lessons every kid needs to learn. The fifteen lessons in total, all strongly affirmed by our focus-group parents, emerged from my three highly differentiated areas of personal experience.

In seven years as the childrens ministry director for Willow Creek Community Church and the Willow Creek Association, I fielded questions every week from parents and small group leaders who worked directly with kids. In this role, I was privileged to lead a team of people who tirelessly sought to understand children, how they learn, and the biblical truths that help train up a child in the way he should go (Proverbs 22:6, KJV).

Now, as president of the national mentoring organization KIDS HOPE USA, I work every day in the deep gap between childhood as it ought to be and the life-draining challenges that todays children and families too often face. Perspectives come at me from public educators, researchers, and most importantly, an ever-growing network of everyday heroes who leave their jobs or other responsibilities to spend an hour every weekfor months, even years filling the holes that exist in at-risk childrens hearts.