Parenting Fears: Fear of Rejection

by Devin Dummel

Once a week I give my five-year-old a pop quiz.  The test consists of one simple question.  And each week I anxiously await his response.  So far his answer has been the same every time I’ve asked, but I know one day that won’t be the case.

What question do I ask him?  I ask him who his best friend is.  And up to this day his consistent and steady answer has been, “You’re my best friend, Dad!”.

It’s as precious as it sounds – I promise.  His response fills my heart with joy each time I hear it.  While I don’t usually make it a habit to make best friends with five-year-olds, this one has a special place in my heart.  I dream of being best friends forever.

It’s a dream I know won’t come true.

Over the past decade and a half, I’ve worked with enough teenagers to know that there is a natural period in the life a child where the last name on the “best friend list” is mom or dad.  For some teens the mere suggestion of being friends with their parents during this stage of life could be shuttering.

But as parents, if we are honest with ourselves, one of our greatest desires is that the fruit of pouring into the lives of our children would be to establish and maintain a close and meaningful relationship for our lifetime.  No parent says to themselves, “I hope when they get older we grow apart and hardly speak to each other.”

We all want to remain close to our children, that’s pretty normal.  But there is an unhealthy expression to this desire, and that is the fear of rejection.  It’s easy to fall into this fear especially as our children get older and become more and more independent.  As they begin to make decisions for themselves while we try to help them navigate becoming an adult, it can be very easy to focus more on being your child’s friend than being their parent.

The fear of rejection fuels this desire to make sure our children like us rather than trust and respect us.  This fear is something most parents experience at one time or another, but as we have been learning fear is just a feeling it’s not reality.  Our children will have plenty of friends, but God has chosen us as their parents.  It’s our responsibility to focus not on keeping them as friends but on training them and showing them how God has called them to live.

Proverbs 22:6 says,

“Train a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Our job and calling are to set our children up for a lifetime of success.  They best way we can do that is to show them and model God’s way for living.  When we are able to do that and resist the temptation to be the “cool parents” and instead stand firm pointing them to truth and godliness – they will discover God’s way and that will serve them for a lifetime.

I think it’s okay to see how long your child will view you as their best friend, but one day you will be replaced by Kegan or Kellie or some other child that you are sure can’t measure up to your ‘awesomeness’. 

There may be seasons where you are not their best friend, but their will never be a time in their life where you are not their parent.  As your children grow older, don’t worry if they like you or want to hang out with you.  Don’t worry that they will reject you or replace you. 

Your role as their parent can never be replaced - it is exponentially more important than any other role you can play in their lives.  They will always need you to be their mom or to be their dad.  You will always have a special place in their hearts.

Just as they always have a special place in ours.

Parenting Fears: Fear of the Unknown

by Whitney Jones

If you are anything like me you want to control every minute of your child’s life. What they wear, the friends they hang out with, the sports they play, the college they go to, the food they eat…the list is endless. As parents we try so hard to have control over our children’s lives so that we can rest assured that nothing “bad” will ever enter their lives.

Now yes, we do need to guide our children. The Bible even tells us in Proverbs 22:6 “Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”

However, in Proverbs it says to guide our children. It does not say to choose the path for them. Many parents want to make all the choices for their child, but this can hurt your child in the long run. When parents teach their child how to make decisions, rather than make the decision for them, the child is able to learn from their mistakes. Train your children to choose the right path rather than choosing that path for them.

Sending my daughter to middle school was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. All of these feelings of fear entered my mind. She’s going to be exposed to other teenagers that won’t be making wise choices. She might choose to start hanging out with friends that we don’t approve of. She could be offered drugs. She will have raging hormones and so will other teenagers. She won’t care about school anymore. She will make unwise decisions that will mold her future. All of these fears overcame me and instead of handing these fears of the unknown to God, I let them consume me. I neglected to remember that fear is just a feeling, it’s not reality.

This experience brought to mind a biblical mother who literally had to give the fear of the unknown to God and trust that He would take care of her child. She had to put her son in a basket and she entrusted him into God's care. Moses' mother Jochebed had to face the fear of the unknown just like we have to face the fear of the unknown with our children. 

Jochebed hid her newborn son Moses for three months, but then knew she could protect him no longer. So the Bible tells us, "she got a basket made of papyrus reeds and waterproofed it with tar and pitch. She put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile River" (Exodus 2:3b, NLT).

How many of you would have a really hard time with this? Putting your small baby in a basket to watch him float away in the Nile River. I definitely would!

Sending my daughter to middle school was hard and it still has its challenges, but imagine how Jochebed must have felt, watching her precious baby floating down the river in a basket. A million things could have gone wrong. She could have fretted over every worst-case scenario possible. Instead, she entrusted her child to God.

Although we don't know exactly what Jochebed was feeling, I like to think she believed God had a plan and purpose for her child's life, giving her the courage to step away from the basket. In the same, God has beautiful plans for our children. We must step away and let God take control. We need to trust and believe that God loves our children even more than we love our children.

As parents, we want to keep our kids safe, protect them from pain, fix their problems, make their decisions and steer them in the right direction. However, there comes a time when we realize we aren't in control anymore and have to accept that our children's futures are in God's hands, not ours.

Whether your child is starting kindergarten, middle school, high school or college, this is the time when parents need to trust God and believe He has good plans for their children's lives.

What comfort and peace it brings to remember God is always in control and ever present in our children's lives, even when we can no longer be.

Parenting Fears: Fear of Being Judged

by Leah Dummel

I have a really special and unique group of about 9 girlfriends. Some of us have been friends since 3^rd grade and some of us met in college. Some of us are married with children, some of us have doctorate degrees; some of us are single. One lives in Louisiana, one in Kentucky, and the rest scattered around Indy, all at least a 45 minute drive from the next.

We are all very different yet we talk almost every single day. All 9 of us!

We use this fun app called Marco Polo which if you haven’t heard of it is basically like group Facetime, except it isn’t live. We can leave video messages for the group when it’s convenient for us and catch up on the other messages also at our convenience. It’s awesome, and it has truly helped us all stay in contact.

Something we noticed about our group of friends a year or so ago is that we all apologize for the SILLIEST THINGS! It’s not uncommon for somebody to start their video message with, “hey girls, SORRY it’s been a long time since I’ve been on here” or “SORRY, this message is going to be a long one I have a lot to say” or “SORRY but this is my opinion on this matter”.

We started to ask ourselves why we apologized so much for the strangest things. We were apologizing for not responding to other messages within minutes…because you know…kids and jobs and marriage adult life. We were apologizing for our thoughts and opinions, and for taking the time to share and discuss them with our nearest and dearest. What?!

Once we recognized this problem and spoke it out loud we quickly made a new rule, NO SORRIES! We are no longer allowed to apologize for things that don’t warrant apologies like the weather or time frames or raising our kids or doing well at our jobs or thinking Kate on the show This Is Us is the most annoying character on there. It’s no longer allowed and we quickly call one another out for silly apologies.

Once we brought this up in our group message I started to pay closer attention to people around me, and noticed that EVERYBODY IS APOLOGIZING for things that don’t warrant apologies; and parents are the absolute worst.

We apologize for what we do or don’t feed our kids. We apologize for the way we choose to discipline. We apologize for our thoughts on public school vs home-school. We apologize for the amount of screen time, the number of activities we involve them in, we apologize if we throw a giant birthday party for our toddler or if we throw a tiny birthday party for our toddler, we apologize for dishes being in the sink or toys being on the floor of our living rooms, and the list goes on and on and on.

As I observed and as I contemplated our behavior, it dawned on me that we apologize up front because if we “bring it up first” then we may save ourselves from being judged by the person we are apologizing too.

The longer I am a parent the more I realize that we (parents) spend a lot of our time and energy in fear that other parents, or non-parents, are judging every move we make. Not only that, we spend time and energy comparing the décor of our home or the level of “home cooked” our meals are and how well (or unwell) dressed our kids are to that of our neighbor or social media friends. Friends, this is exhausting, and detrimental to our mental health and our parenting!

Scripture tells us,                                                            

 “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise.” 2 Corinthians 10:12b 

It is UNWISE and unsafe to play this comparison game. Comparing ourselves to other parents will steal every ounce of joy that parenting brings. It’s completely counterproductive and living in our fears will destroy us.

As we have been saying all month - fear is just a feeling, it’s not reality. And it comes straight from Satan himself.  Fear (Satan) wants to isolate you. Fear wants us to feel alone. Fear tells us we will never measure up to others and that no matter our efforts we will always fall short. Fear tells us we are bad parents. Fear is a feeling and fear LIES.

Now don’t get me wrong, feelings aren’t bad and we all feel fear, especially fear of judgement and not measuring up. And it’s okay to feel those things, but it’s not okay to live there. One of my personal biggest parenting downfalls is not living in my feelings. I react to a situation and I live there, in the negative, in the lonely, in the fear, in the danger zone. It’s an ongoing battle for me and probably a lot of other parents too if we were all honest.

1 Peter 5:9 says, “Stand firm against him [the devil], and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.” (NLT)

Fear convinces us that we are alone, that we are the only ones fighting the battle or feeling the feelings, which I believe is why we automatically feel judged by other parents. When in reality, I guarantee the parents we feel “judged” by or afraid of, are going through the exact struggle you are.

So what would it look like if we viewed other parents not as “better than us” and instead viewed them as teammates and support systems and equals and other adults who just might need as much encouragement as we do. I think parenting would look a lot less lonely, a lot less stressful, a lot more authentic, and a lot more like Jesus.

So parents, try not to live in fear. It’s okay to feel fear; it’s not okay to live there! Otherwise, we are a self-fulfilling prophecy of depression and anxiety and the comparison game. Try not to live in a world of worry, where you are afraid of being judged, but rather believe that others are just as much of a mess as you are, even if their mess looks different than yours.

Be an encourager and BE ENCOURAGED. And if you just need to observe a parent who is a little more of a mess than you, to help you feel better, come on over to my house! The zoo is always open for viewing ;)

Parenting Fears: Fear of Missing Out

by Desi Ash

Smartphones. While people might complain that they have made us into zombies there is a benefit of smartphones. We are able to stay connected and not miss out on the life not only of our friends and family but we are able to document life as it happens around us.

 The smartphone has taken place of the camera, the video camera, and even the baby book. Our memories are kept on a single device that when said device messes up and our memories are lost it is earth shattering and we will do whatever it takes to get those moments back.

Smartphones and a long list of many others things though can cause us to miss out on life happening around us. We can get sucked into the life of strangers or the unending work emails or the new movies being released on Netflix that we miss the simple moments of seeing kids light up when they see you or being able to teach them something new or even just having an extended conversation, because they truly enjoy talking to you.

When I moved from Ohio to Indiana one of my biggest fears was missing out on the life of three boys that had become my little brothers. I wanted to see them on a regular basis, attend sporting events, and be their big sister. I feared that by missing out I would lose my assigned title as their sister. While our relationship changed, the last four years have proven to me that my fear was irrational. I have had to become more intentional about being involved in their lives and each time I see them, I get the same awesome welcome of hearing my name shouted, feet pounding through the house, and big hugs.

Those same feelings were stirred when as a mom discussed the fear she was having adjusting to her oldest being in high school and how she didn’t want to miss out on anything because she realized soon he will be graduating from high school and starting the next chapter of his life. It can be easy to feel that because you are a working mom or a traveling dad or juggling kids with different sports schedules that you are missing out on the life of your kids. Remember, that feelings, while they are hard, are just feelings. Fear is just a feeling, it’s not reality.

The disciples feared that children were going to be in Jesus’ way. Instead the reality was that Jesus wanted to see the children. He even compared Heaven to them: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)

Instead of the irrational feeling of missing out, think of all the ways you get to be.

·        You get to be the one who comforts your kids when their feelings are hurt.

·        You get to be the one who runs your kids anywhere and everywhere they need to go.

·        You get to be the one who shows them true love and forgiveness.

·        You get to be the who to hold your kids close and love them, no matter how old your kids get

We want to help you be intentional with your kids and not feel the fear that you are missing out. Every year we realize parent resources. These are simple tools that engage the whole family by being together. 

We currently have the Fall Family Bucket List (pdf can be found here: http://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/21b341_bb398892d80f4d3ebea221c28d0918d8.pdf) and our next one will be our Advent boxes released the beginning of December.

Parenting Fears: Fear of Failure

by Devin Dummel

I have prayed one prayer every day since the birth of my children: “Lord, please prevent me from screwing them up.”

From the moment I held those boys in my hands, two things I became instantly aware of: their innocence and my propensity for messing things up.  Before those bundles of joy arrived, my mistakes and shortcomings were just that – mine.  Now every choice I make, every word I say and every thought that I hold captive have the ability to shape and mold the next generation of my family.

All this month, our blog posts we will be looking at and discussing parenting fears.  And while at one time or another I have wrestled with all of the fears we will discuss, there is no greater fear of mine than to be a failure as a father.  I am afraid that I will let them down.  I’m afraid I won’t get it right.  I’m afraid that they will have baggage and wounds that one day they will trace all the way back to me and they will hate me for it.

Over the years as I have shared these fears with other parents, and surprisingly I found that I wasn’t the only one who was afraid to fail as a parent.  It seems that most of us at one time or another have been afraid of letting our kids down in the parenting department. 

The truth is we rightfully feel a responsibility – and it’s a God-given responsibility – to as the scriptures put it, “train up a child in the way they should go”.  That kind of responsibility brings with it stress and pressure.   Especially in our less than best moments we tend to feel grossly inadequate for taking care of the emotional, spiritual and physical well-being of a tiny human.

All of those things are real things to feel.  But that’s the thing – they are just feelings.  And as we will discuss more this month – that’s exactly what fear is – it’s just a feeling.  Fear is just a feeling, it’s not reality.

In reality the things we fear the most are some of the least likely things to happen or to be true.  The more we obsess about our fears the more likely we are to develop unhealthy habits and patterns around those fears.  The trick and challenge is for us to view our fears appropriately as feelings but not embrace them as realities. 

The best way I know how to sort our feelings from reality is through spending time in God’s word.  When we allow the scriptures to shape us instead of our fears, that’s when we start to see things clearly.

The ancient Israelite's used to have this saying; it’s written many times in the scriptures, especially early on to remind God’s people that they had nothing to fear.  Some of the greatest leaders of God’s people are quoted in reminding those they were leading and those they cared for this crucial truth.

“Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Let’s keep it real – being a parent is hard.  There likely isn’t a tougher job on the planet than being a parent.  But you do not have to be afraid of failure. 

Part of our problem is that we take all of the responsibility and pressure – but notice what the ancient people understood – that in all their efforts God was with them. He bears the burden with us. They didn’t need to embrace fear – even though they surely felt it – because God was always with them.

So when you start to feel the pressure rise and you feel like you are doing a “less than stellar” job at being mom or dad, remind yourself that you are not alone.  Remember that the burden doesn’t sit squarely on your shoulders.  Turn to God in prayer and thank Him for being with you as you navigate the difficult world of parenting.

The truth is we have been entrusted with a great responsibility to raise the next generation not just to being decent human beings, but to faith in our great God.  The best news is you don’t have to worry that you will screw it up, if you keep turning to Him and remembering that you are partners with God in taking care of and breathing life into your children.

Do not be afraid, for the LORD your God goes with you.