Observation without relationship allows little influence and creates little change. We live in a culture where everyone has an opinion on just about everything and most of us have no problem letting others know what we think – whether it be on sports, parenting, food, lifestyle choices, behavior, or any of the variety of conversational options available to us. We are constantly observing one another and constantly coming to conclusions regarding what we would do if we were in that position, what they should do, and why they should listen to us (many times these thoughts are subconscious, and many times these subconscious thoughts are voiced). Observation is healthy. That’s not the problem. Encouragement and advice is often good (key word: often, not always), but there is a catch. Encouragement and advice outside of relationship and love becomes opinion and judgment. Observation without relationship allows little influence and creates little change.
Having a house-full of people on Thursday night provided an excellent opportunity to observe relational interactions and behavior. Especially when that houseful included twin 7-year old boys, a 9 year old with Down Syndrome (possibly my favorite kid!), random kids running in and out between the ages of 4 and 12, three teenagers, and a few adults! As everyone milled around my house eating the 40 or so hotdogs that I grilled up (my boys decided to have a guys night because Michelle was gone, and others just kind of joined in the fun!), I just kind of stepped back to watch, to learn about the people I was with [note: thank you SE4square for the hot dogs!].
The interaction that I observe with the most intentionality is the parenting relationship. Michelle and I, as people who care deeply for the family yet have no children of our own yet, have such incredible respects for the difficulties and challenges in raising children. We both have received education in child development, and have significant experience working with children of a variety of ages, and in many contexts, particularly one such as the one in which we find ourselves, that means we have received more instruction about healthy parenting than many of the parents around us – but at the same time, neither of us are parents and we fully recognize and accept that. We are constantly observing parent-child interactions around us, and observe so many that are less than healthy – excessive discipline, using anger, threats, fear as a forms of discipline, inconsistency, lack of boundaries, etc – that we long to discuss with the parents around us. Yet encouragement and advice outside of relationship and love becomes opinion and judgment. Observation without relationship allows little influence and creates little change.
This is a difficult thing to remember. It is even more difficult to practice. How can we observe something that we know we could help to be so much better (a parent’s relationship with a child for example) and do nothing? Isn’t being able to help and not helping a sin or something? We’re asking the wrong question. Instead of asking how can we fix this situation? the better question is how do we foster a community of healthy families? Do we seek to correct all “bad” behavior as soon as we see it, or do we seek to model and develop a community of love, caring, compassion, discipline and relationship? As much as we would love to sit down with many of the parents and discuss helpful parenting practices, we cannot begin there. Maybe one day, maybe soon, we will have to opportunity for conversations like that, but encouragement and advice outside of relationship and love becomes opinion and judgment. We must start with relationship. We must start in relationship. We must begin by opening up our home to children, to parents. All of the children that come through our door understand that the McMahon home is different. We have expectations on the behavior of the kids, on how they treat our home, toys we let them play with, books, each other, and ourselves. We must start in our home. Every once in a while we find a parent watching how we interact with their child – how we correct, rebuke, encourage, affirm, and love. Some day (we pray someday soon), maybe we can actually have a conversation about parenting (maybe why it would be beneficial for 6 and 7 year-olds to be in bed before 10:30pm!). But encouragement and advice outside of relationship and love becomes opinion and judgment. Therefore we must live our lives as lights before men and women, visibly living a different way of life, and as relationship is built, it is not opinion and judgment being shot at those around us, but encouragement and love and an invitation given to our communities to share life together with us!
Not always easy in a culture in which tension is perceived as bad and problems are to be fixed ASAP. The way of Jesus is far more relational than easy, far more love than opinion, and far better than anything without him!