RITES OF PASSAGE

I was scanning blogs this week when a subheading caught my eye with a resounding “Me too”.... It was from an article written by mother and businesswoman, Naomi Simson. She said, “What I want is for my children to have respect, take responsibility, and be resilient.” 

 

We live in a time like no other: the speed at which my grandchildren can find what they want to know on their Dad or Mum's computer and smartphone is breathtaking. But parenting in this age of ultra-fast electronic connection and mega messages has its own set of challenges. How do we balance these high-tech toys with learning low-tech necessities like self-knowledge, self-esteem, self-realistation, self-reliance and self respect? How do we uncover and nurture our children's low-tech resources in sufficient time to enable them to use their high-tech tools constructively and creatively?

How do we help them negotiate the turbulent white waters of adolescence without getting terminally snagged on the hidden branches of disillusionment with "grownups" or marooned on the rocks of rebellion against inadequate parenting?

How do we help them navigate and graduate from childhood to adulthood, marking not only the successful realisation of essential knowing, skills and strategies, but also initiate them into the secrets and responsibilities of intellectual and emotional maturity?

Our ancestors had the advantage of enculturated tribal mentoring from parents and tribal elders. They had their stories, their songs and their elders to give them a sense of belonging to something far greater than them selves. They marked the time of transition with initiations and rites of passage. I vividly remember a visit to Zimbabwe about 25 years ago during which I was privy to some of the male and female rituals and dances of the Zulus. Australian aboriginal tribal life places heavy importance on the education and mentoring of their children in the lore and songs of their ancient national Cultures, culminating in a rite-of-passage Initiation that marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood. By contrast, it seems that in a vacuum of parental spiritual ignorance and neglect, we are left with a social abortion that some young people mark with the self-degrading spectacles of Schoolies Week. If that's our major national celebration of attainment, we're in deep shit.

When I transgressed what was expected of me, my father would yell a lot, give me a shocking thumping, then send me to my room to discipline me. It's debatable whether that strategy worked then; it certainly doesn't work on today's teens. Physical violence has been outlawed (thank God!) and sending a teenager to his or her room just gives them time without interruption to keep doing what they do on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.

But the need for boundaries and guidance is still there, and teens want it. Teenagers don't need "friends" sleeping together in the front bedroom; they already have heaps of friends. Kids need parents to Parent them. They need our guidance and values, they need to be coached, and they need us to listen to them. As a grandparent, simply being present and in my children's world, often on the floor playing their games, works a treat when they are small, but when they reach their teenage years, life changes. As our kiddlies grow up, we have to grow up, too!

I have heard many parents say, "I just want my kids to be happy." What a pathetic cop-out that is! “Happiness” has two modes of being, neither of them requiring any particular skill or effort. One mode has Happiness as a Context for living, and the other defines Happiness as one of the Contents of living. As content, Happiness is one of the many human emotions. So the best these "parents" can muster is to want their kids to live on a single-emotion diet? No variation? Nothing but "happy" -- forever? With that kind of parental aspiration, I'm not surprised kids look to drugs; I wonder how could they not??!!

As Context, Happiness is the quality of space in which we do everything we do, say everything we say, and feel whatever we feel. To put it another way – if I'm chopping wood, I can do it Happily, or some other way; if I'm arguing for renewable energy, I can argue out of Happiness to be involved, or some other way; if I'm feeling sadness, I can chose to be happy to experience the depth, the breadth and the emotional shades of sadness. Happiness is not some eventual outcome or a destination. Never was; never will be. Happiness is one of the available modes of transport that we can select to get us from A to Z. Happiness has the advantage of being natural, bright and green, whereas its opposites are unnatural, darker and toxic.

The experience of happiness is available as a natural consequence of so many unqualified actions including gratitude and helping others; but some people get a kind of happiness from ingratitude and making someone's life a misery. What I want for my teenagers is for them, along the way, to have and cultivate self-respect, -responsibility and -resilience. That opens up a space of happiness in and around them, in which everyone can bask. What a difference!

I find with my children and grandchildren that if they have a sense of purpose, stick at it and work toward something that innately challenges and extends them, then they will be in a vastly richer emotional space than just "being happy."

The difficulty is how to teach teenagers resilience in the age where they get what they want too easily. My strategy is to care-fully refuse immediate gratification, and to let them fail. I contend they need to learn to - sometimes - trade gratification for a greater reward. For their own wellbeing they need to learn how to bend with pressure, and pick themselves up after a fall without demanding to sue the pants off someone or something in retaliation. Entitlement has no validity without corresponding responsibility. Life is not perfect and too often as parents we try to cosset our kids in a perfect world, like driving them to school just because it is raining. This can be so hard as a parent: we want everything to be just perfect for our precious small-people, but for them to be truly happy and satisfied they need to experience what it takes to struggle and achieve in a world that is deliberately NOT perfect..

Here's part of how Naomi Simson has done it --both of her children were granted a Rite of Passage Year.

If you can, consider what kind of denotative event or definable series of experiences would signify your child/grandchild earning the right to transit from childhood to adulthood. Let them earn the right to be treated as an adult. Plan something like a significant challenge, a trip, a volunteering project, a school exchange to another country? Make it something that requires them forgoing something else; an activity into which they have to put creative engagement and time. Many cultures celebrate a moment in time where certain rituals identify this change. But as a society we seem to have dropped something that was quite useful and culturally important and let everything slide into the realm of Chance. I'm guilty of that -- I didn't know any better at the time. My son made it through on his own; my daughter was not so fortunate. I'm now making amends to both of them: this much at least I owe them.

The timing of this Rite of Passage is important. Certainly before age 12 is way too early, and anytime else after 21 is probably way too late, unless the candidate has been on another planet for a decade or more.

Naomi and her partner made a statement to both their daughters on their 14^th birthdays: "After your rite of passage year this year, on your 15th birthday you will be a "young adult" and we will no longer treat you as a child." This included them taking responsibility for their finances, their choice of school, education and courses. This triggered for us parents a specific change in our language. We no longer would tell them what to do. We would ask them what they were doing. We became their coaches.

“The shift to Asking also helped us listen, and respect the choices they made. This was a massive step in how we parented, and we did not get it right all the time. But having this as a formula helped guide us.”

I applaud this strategy in families where competent and informed parenting up to the age of 8 has set a firm foundation for rounding temperament into personality, and given an adequate start in developing social skills and style that work.The groundwork can't be overlooked. If that hasn't been done, then you need to wind back and get it done.

 Adults have the right to choose, decide and experiment. But teenagers need a chance to practice those skills under the protection of family. Some of the questions I have asked to help my grandkids make conscious choices include, "What do you think it means to be a Barkla?", "If you do this, what impact might it have on others?", “If you choose to go down this path, how do you think it will affect how you see yourself developing as a man? How do you think it will affect others? Do you care? ” OK, so some of my questions are are bit gauche ; I am still something of a novice at this, but it seems to be way ahead of what I was given when I was growing up. And, now 23, my grandson actually said to me the other day “I could hear what you would say to me...” and I feel pretty pleased about that.

As they grow in years, our bairns fill their lives with more and more content, often bobbing chaotically on flushes of hormones and emotion without any conscious context to give it substance. Help them. Structure downtime into each day for them. For example, make dinner time about sharing food and conversation; don't allow electronic devices at the dinner table. Nurture face-to-face connection. Let them feel where the ground is as often as you can.

And discipline does not mean "Go to your room until you get it!" This isn't about blind obedience. We're after self-discipline here, so I ask instead, "What do you think should be the consequences for what you have done?" It is often surprising what they come up with – and it's another chance to check in with what is going on in their heads.

Being a parent is a great job, and forever challenging, and just when you think you've got it sorted, one of them will throw you a curve-ball. Kids keep reflecting parts of you that you never realised before – or at least not in a long time.

There is a lesson in parenting here that I learned from my son – move from telling to asking and keep your eyes and ears peeled for what shows up.

And drop your fear of not being the perfect parent. No matter how much they roll their eyes and answer you back, kids hear everything they appear to ignore, and will forgive just about everything, as long as they know they can rely on you to step up and parent them, and be the ever-present cheer-squad, and hero when they need one.

They need to know that.