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NOLACatholic Parenting Podcast
A natural progression of our weekly column in the Clarion Herald and blog
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By Gavin Lewis
NOLA Catholic Parenting
The fall season is upon us, which means so many different things for our families and our children.
Summer vacations are over. School is in session, along with new weather, new classes, new teachers, new friends, new schools, new attitudes, new expectations and new experiences.
If these changes begin to take a toll on our children physically and mentally, we must be mindful of how we can help them adjust in every phase of their lives. It’s a good practice to ask your children daily if they are OK, to let them know you love them and to support them even when they make mistakes.
Daily affirmations of positivity can go a long way in keeping a child on the right track. Sometimes, it just feels good to hear, “I love you.”
Oftentimes, as parents, we tend to think with our adult minds when we are giving advice or trying to help our children through a situation with which they are struggling. They may have experienced a friend being mean; the teacher not picking them to answer a question; lunch being “nasty”; someone posting a not-so-nice picture of them on social media; not doing as well as they expected on a test; breaking up with a friend.
The list goes on and on. It is important, however, that when we offer advice to our kids we also consider how we adapted to change and handled issues when we were their age. Ask yourself how you received advice from those who raised you when you were your child’s age.
Taking your personal experience into consideration will help you remember that you once were a child who had to find your way in life. You did not always listen to the advice that was given; you made mistakes, learned from them and still became the parent you are today.
We don’t want our kids to make the same mistakes we made or have to learn the hard lessons we did, but we must allow them to grow, and, with change comes growth.
It is in our parental DNA to protect our kids from situations that we believe are not good for them. But, no matter how much we try to protect them from the world’s ills, at some point, they will have to learn how to adjust to change and the challenges they will face.
Proverbs 22:6 says: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
If you allow the current challenges and changes in your children’s lives to foster their growth and way of thinking while they are with you, when they grow up and are out on their own, they will remember the lessons learned, more than the words spoken.
Gavin C. Lewis Sr., a native of New Orleans, is married and has four young children. He is a graduate of McDonogh 35 Senior High School, earned a bachelor’s degree from The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, a master’s in educational leadership from the University of Holy Cross and is currently a full-time student on track to earn a doctorate in organizational development. He enjoys reading, traveling with his family, going to sporting events with his son, swimming and playing dress up with his three daughters.