The Parenting Children Course Scripts

Session 5 – Our Long-Term AimPlease note:

Text in a box indicates when Nicky and Sila tell stories from their own experience. These may be replaced with a live speaker’s personal experience, or the speaker may tell the story about Nicky and Sila in the same way that they tell stories about others. A text box is also used for the prayer at the end of each session which, if you would prefer, you can replace with your own.

The scripts include the filmed clip inserts that Nicky and Sila use when giving the talks live. The DVDs have a separate menu of chapter stops for the filmed clip inserts. These are indicated by the numbers 1.0, 1.1, 1.2 etc.

Each session contains more inserts than time permits when giving the talks live. The boxes where the script is struck through show the inserts that Nicky and Sila choose to omit due to time pressures. For example:

Insert – 3.4 Parents – discussing childrenIN 00:45:00

However, you should feel free to make your own selection regarding which inserts you show and which you omit.

It may not be possible to show the presentation slides as well as using the DVD inserts if you do not have the technology required to support both at the same time. If this applies to you, please feel free to leave out the presentation slides.

Part 1: Encouraging responsibility

NICKYWelcome to Session 5 of The Parenting Children Course. We hope you’ve been enjoying this course, including having discussions with other parents and being able to share some of the highs and lows of parenting.

In this session we’re going to be looking at our long term aim as parents. So often in the adventure of parenting we’re taken unawares. Whatever we read or try to discover, nothing prepares us for the realities of having children.

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We learnt our first lesson of this when our first child, Kirsty, was born. We were living in Japan at the time. To our surprise, two weeks before she was due, I went into labour, and we had to make an emergency dash to the hospital with a bag of essentials thrown together in a mad rush. I hastily made piles of sandwiches before we left home – mainly for me to eat in hospital! – as we’d heard that first labours were usually long. But Kirsty arrived with great speed and there was no time for even a mouthful! We were put on a ward where no one spoke a word of English. And as our Japanese was very poor at the time, I’ve never forgotten having to translate the midwife’s instructions: ‘Ikinde kudasai!’, meaning ‘Please push!’ Our journey to parenting, with all the surprises we’ve encountered since, had begun.

For all of us parenting is a unique journey and some parents have less time to prepare for it than others.

Insert – 5.0 Parents – adoptingIN 00:01:46Alan Well, I remember we were sitting together watching TV, and the phone rang.

And I turned off the TV, and Dianne goes, ‘Why did you turn off the TV?’ ‘They just rang to say we’re having a baby boy – we’re adopting a baby boy!’ and he was coming ten days later! So we had to change our life in ten days! (Yeah!) And, wow, it was the best start of a journey together!

Dianne Yeah, we were eleven years married when we got that phone call, and we had been eight years waiting on a list – well, waiting, and we had tried different things that hadn’t worked. And so that was great. We were both working. So suddenly we had very short notice. We had total life change!

OUT 00:02:29

SILA

Training our children for healthy independence

However parenthood started for any of us, we must remember we don’t own our children and we can’t control them for life. We can’t determine how they’ll turn out, but we will be a big influence.

Sometimes parenting young children can seem endless, but between the time they’re born and their eighteenth birthday, we only have 6,579 days for the awesome task of preparing them for life. By the time they’re ten, we’ve already had more than 3,650 of these days.

Our long-term aim as parents is to help our children become independent adults. This is a gradual process of moving from parental control, when they are totally dependent on us, to self control where they’re able to stand on their own two feet and are responsible to make good decisions for themselves.

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That doesn’t mean we don’t expect to have an ongoing close relationship with them – quite the reverse – but by the time they’re around eighteen years old, we’re relating to them adult to adult. We may be offering them advice; but we’re no longer making decisions for them.

Insert – 5.1 Parents – long-term aimIN 00:03:35

Madeleine Our long-term aims for the children can probably be umbrella’d by the expression, `We’d like children that make wise choices in all circumstances, even if it comes at a cost.’ You can break that up into a million different parts in a million different scenarios, (Mm) and in that, you know, there’ll be kindness, there’ll be respect, there’ll be thoughtfulness, there’ll be cost. I think there are a million things under that umbrella, but that’s probably our key aim: is that, when we set them free, when they go off, we can hope that they will make good decisions in difficult and in easy circumstances. (Mm)

OUT 00:04:20

NICKYThis gradual letting go of control starts at a young age and for many of us that can be hard.

I remember the day Kirsty started at her first school. There had been some excitement in the weeks leading up to it. It was a fifteen minute walk from our house to the school. As we got closer her hand was squeezing mine tighter and tighter. I had to carry her for the final two hundred metres and by the time we got to the school doors she was clinging to me, begging me not to leave her. The headmistress had to peel her off me and take her screaming into the classroom. I felt as though a part of me had gone in there with her – it was agony. Sila and I had a miserable day, thinking she was going to be damaged for life, but when Sila went to collect her at the end of the school day, we discovered that she had loved it. She’d stopped crying within two minutes of me leaving.

Letting go involves allowing our children to make choices, appropriate to their age and maturity, about all sorts of things such as choosing their friends, choosing what hobbies they want to pursue, giving them pocket money and allowing them to decide how they use it.

It also involves giving them increasing trust. Giving them appropriate levels of trust as they grow older builds trustworthiness in them.

Symptoms of unhealthy control

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As parents we can easily over-control our children, and we may not even recognise we’re doing so. Any sort of over-control will stunt our children’s healthy development.

1. Micro-managing our children’s lives

We want to look at some of the symptoms of over-control. The first symptom is micro-managing our children’s lives. You may be familiar with the term ‘helicopter parenting’, which is when parents hover closely over their children’s heads, rarely out of reach, whether their child needs them or not. This can continue to the age when children are quite capable of standing on their own two feet.

Insert – 5.2 Julie Johnson – being over-protectiveIN 00:06:04

Julie Johnson We need to stand back. Our children will feel pain. Pain is part of life. And in fact it helps: by processing pain appropriately and healthily we can build the ability and skills to manage pain well. So maybe when a child comes home and talks about a bad experience with a friend or a bit of bullying in school, rather than charging in and demanding that this or that happens, ringing the parents of the child that had the argument, we discuss it with the child. We empathise with them, we understand their feelings. We then talk about options of how they’d like to handle it: would they like to go and talk to the child the next day; would they like to just find other friends to play with? With the bully, would they like to say something back to the bully? So at certain points we may need to interfere, but if we interfere straightaway we can deskill and take away a sense of autonomy for our children. So we do need to learn to stand back, at times, appropriately, while still being the parent.

OUT 00:06:54

NICKYA friend of ours, who runs a small business, told us recently that a nineteen-year-old woman had come for a job interview and to his surprise her mother came too. The mother proceeded to answer all the questions for her daughter. Eventually our friend asked the mother to leave the room, at which point he discovered the daughter had no independent thoughts of her own and he was unable to offer her the job.

Insert – 5.3 Rob Parsons – over-controlling parentsIN 00:07:18

Rob Parsons You know, I sometimes come across mums and dads who are very controlling. And they say, ‘I can’t help myself. I’m saying, “Comb your hair! Your shirt’s hanging out! Do your homework like this!”’ And I say, ‘But you must help yourself. If you don’t stop doing that, two things are going to happen. Number 1, you’re going to drive a wedge between you and that child. And, secondly, it will be hard for that child to believe that something really matters to you,

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because you’re going on about everything. You can fight some battles, but you can’t fight them all.’

It’s as if the child is thirteen years old and they’re on a circus high wire. And they’re trying to get through to age twenty-one. And, you know, they’re doing pretty well, but they’re wobbling a little bit. But his mother’s underneath, saying ‘Tuck your shirt in! Comb your hair!’ Sometimes we have to back off a little.

OUT 00:08:01

NICKY

2. Being over-competitive for our children

A second symptom of unhelpful control is being over-competitive for our children.

I remember Josh aged eight coming home one afternoon and telling me that he had got 76% in a Maths test. To my shame I remember I wanted to ask him ‘Where did you come?’ but at that stage that was not what mattered to Josh. He would have been happy for the whole class to get 76%. What mattered to him was that he had done well by his own standards.

If we’re consistently over-competitive for them, it puts undue pressure on their lives and may even result in them becoming stressed and anxious.

A third symptom of unhealthy parental control is over-scheduling our children’s lives. The result is that children have neither the time nor the freedom to play or to make decisions for themselves. Because our culture is so aspirational, we worry about our children missing out or getting left behind and we find we’ve booked up their lives. But it’s counterproductive.

Insert – 5.4 Dr Aric Sigman and parents – gifts of boredomIN 00:08:57

Dr Aric Sigman

A whole generation of parents have been led to be terrified of their children being understimulated!

Ici So I think at the moment Monday’s tap.

Dr Aric Sigman

I understand in America psychologists now talk about ‘undesignated moments’, when children don’t have anything scheduled for them!

Ici Tuesday is athletics.

Dr Aric Sigman

The greatest gift we can give our children is the gift of boredom!

Ici Wednesday is gymnastics.

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Dr Aric Sigman

It’s great to allow our children to be bored, because it forces their minds to create things with their own imagination –

Ici Thursday is tutoring and (Swimming) swimming lessons.

Dr Aric Sigman

– and to get themselves out of the boredom.

Ici Sunday we have two sets of drum lessons.

Dr Aric Sigman

And that skill is something that only they can learn, and we have to allow them to learn that talent by becoming bored.

Ici A couple of holidays ago, the kids were up one morning and said, ‘Please, we don’t want to go anywhere!’ And so I’ve changed it now, and it’s great. It suits me right down to the ground!

OUT 00:09:59

SILA

3. Over-scheduling our children’s lives

A fourth symptom of unhealthy control is over-protecting and rescuing our children. When we over-protect and rescue our children they don’t learn to take responsibility for their own actions or to learn from their mistakes. As a result they fail to develop any sort of healthy independence. For example, if they forget their sports kit, we immediately go to the school to deliver it. Or they lose something and we immediately replace it.

We heard recently of parents with a nine-year-old child who received a bad report from her school. The parents, instead of talking to the child about how she might improve, were furious with the school for even suggesting that their child was not behaving well or working hard. The mother stormed in and took it out on the teacher.

We shouldn’t be afraid of our children’s mistakes or of allowing them to experience the consequences – obviously, the result might be a telling off at school or disappointment, but if we constantly rescue them, they don’t have the opportunity to learn.

Insert – 5.5 Parents – learning from their mistakesIN 00:10:57

Eli Children must be allowed to make their own mistakes. And I know that with my daughter it was getting to school on time. For many, many years it was always me telling her to get out on time, and trying everything to do that. And actually it hasn’t helped her at all with timekeeping, so I wish I had let her learn from that mistake.

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Philomena You do get really stressed. They lose things, you know. I had a list at one point as long as my arm of lost kit at school, which costs a lot of money! (Yeah, it is a lot) So we devised this new thing of they can lose something once – I’ll replace it. But if they lose it a second time, they have to pay for it. Which they think is sort of child abuse, but, you know, they only learn … The list has got shorter!

Con For example, a while ago Amelia came to me the day before her homework had to be handed in. She said, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got to do my homework! It’s got to be in tomorrow, tomorrow morning.’ And it was her bedtime, half-eight, a quarter to nine. And I said, ‘Oh, what are you going to do about that?’ And she said, ‘I don’t know. You’ve got to help me!’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, darling, I’ve got work myself to do. I can’t help you.’ And I said, ‘You can sit up alongside me if you want, but that’s the best I can do.’ And sure enough, I think she missed it and she had to speak to her teacher, and she was right onto it. And now, thankfully, she’s onto her homework, because she doesn’t like the embarrassment or the way it makes her feel.

OUT 00:12:29

SILA

4. Over-protecting and rescuing our children

It’s not just time keeping, homework or their belongings that we can end up rescuing them over, we can find ourselves being over-protective in a number of different areas.

Insert – 5.6 Parents – being over-protectiveIN 00:12:34

Ici When I had my own children, my sister had also had Lucas. And we went away on holiday together. And we were at a park, and she was so worried about him climbing up: that he would fall off, that he would hurt himself. You know, and he was about three years old. And I was like, ‘You’ve just got to let them go.’ And it is really hard. But you know what, I am quite harsh: if they fall over, they’ll learn not to do it again!

I mean, on the other side is the emotional side where you can hold on (Mm) to your children. So, on the physical side I’m very good at letting go. On the emotional side: Lauren’s just had a trip to Germany. She’s ten years old. The first time on a plane, away from us, without family there, (Mm) ever. So, on the physical side I’m very good at letting go. On the emotional side, that’s what I found hard.

Out 00:13:29

SILAAny attempt to control our children’s lives in these ways will be counter-productive, and can cause a variety of different problems.

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If we continue to do this, as they grow older it might result in them pulling away from us as soon as they can, and ultimately if the control has been strong they may even end up breaking off their relationship with us altogether.

Of course we recognise that for many parents a major reason for not letting our children make mistakes and make their own decisions is fear. We become afraid of them making mistakes rather than welcoming the mistakes. It’s a fear of the consequences for them if they get things wrong, a fear that their mistakes will damage them, that drives us to end up being controlling.

Actually we have to face our fears, and recognise that through their mistakes and wrong choices our children have the opportunity to learn and to grow.

What can help all of us is to ask ourselves questions like, ‘How much time do we allow our children to play by themselves? Are we allowing our children to take the consequences for their own behaviour? Are we encouraging increasing independence as our children grow up? Are we trusting them to make good decisions and to learn from their mistakes?

Insert – 5.7 Julie Johnson – learning from mistakesIN 00:14:22

Julie Johnson Mistakes teach us things. We learn through mistakes. There’s a lovely saying: `The only mistake in life we make is one we don’t learn from.’ But so many of us parents don’t want our children to make mistakes. I remember my father saying to me, `Julie, I don’t want you to make mistakes in life,’ and I remember saying to him, `But Dad, I need to in order to learn about who I am for myself.’

OUT 00:14:39

SILAAs parents it’s important to recognise any unhelpful patterns in ourselves so we can change, because our children are going to face bigger and bigger issues as they grow up and they’ll have tough choices to make in the future.

If we’re constantly making choices for them about their everyday lives now when they’re young, it will be much harder for them to make their own choices about the bigger issues such as sex and sexuality, the Internet, money and lifestyle, drugs and alcohol where the consequences of getting it wrong are much more serious.

Helping children make good choices

We want to look now in a little more detail at each of these issues, so we can think through some ways that we can help equip our children to make good choices about these things.

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Please don’t misunderstand what we’re saying about responsibility. We’re not suggesting that we don’t set clear limits or that we don’t guide our children on these issues. We can’t devolve our responsibility to others – whether that’s their peers, the TV or their school – or simply leave them to flounder around on their own with no help from us at all.

We equip our children first of all, by helping them take responsibility in smaller areas, where it’s safe for them to fail. Second, we equip them by passing on information, appropriate to their age, and values. In this way we are giving them a moral framework to live by.

Insert – 5.8 Dr Aric SigmanIN 00:15:43Dr Aric Sigman I don’t think we’ve ever gone through a period of history where our values,

which we want to pass on to our children, are being challenged by values which are absolutely the opposite of our own, usually through electronic media and so on nowadays.

OUT 00:15:56

NICKYWe can’t wait until our children are teenagers to start talking about these things. The first issue we want to look at is sex.

1. Sex

Our children are growing up in a highly sexualised culture so that sleeping together has become the norm for teenagers at a younger and younger age. The fifteen-year-old daughter of a friend of ours told her mother there were only three girls in her class of thirty, who hadn’t had sex. However, sex is a subject that most parents find difficult to talk about with their children.

Insert – 5.9 Parents – talking with their parents about sexIN 00:16:27Phil My parents didn’t really – I don’t remember them mentioning the subject to me

ever, really. I remember just the night before I got married [Ici roars with laughter] my dad rang me to say something along the lines of, ‘Is there anything you need to know, ha ha ha ha!’ as a joke. And I was sort of ‘Oh, I think I’m pretty there, Dad. I think I know it.’ But there was – I don’t know if it was embarrassment or whatever, I don’t know if it’s a generation thing – but (Mm) pretty much zilch really.

OUT 00:16:56

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NICKY Parents can be worried about what they might say about sex or can be caught off guard. Recently I read this story in a magazine: ‘My seven-year-old son came home with his friend, Ryan, and asked his father: “Dad, what is it called when two people are in the same bed on top of each other?” My surprised partner went on gently to explain that it’s called making love and it’s how babies are made. The two lads looked baffled and went out. Five minutes later, they returned. My son said: “Dad, that thing we were talking about, it’s called bunk beds – and Ryan’s mum wants a word with you.”’

Rather than gearing up for the one ‘big talk’, it’s much more effective to talk to our children throughout their growing up – perhaps through reading a book together when they’re little, through answering their questions (though it is worth checking what they are asking), through talking about something that comes up on TV, or discussing the contents of a pre-teens magazine. We need both to look out for and create opportunities.

Insert – 5.10 Parents – talking with children about sexIN 00:17:57Alan Yes, it’s important to us that we talk to our children in a natural way about sex,

because it’s a natural thing. And I talked to my son last week about sex from different points of views, from different subjects, on everything! And it flowed really nicely. And he asked questions and I responded, and it was (Yeah) good! And, you know, it can be a bit ohh-ffff! But he took it very well, and we went into it in quite good details, because we had to.

Dianne Mm. We got a note home from the school, (Yeah) and we wanted to tell him. We wanted to make sure that he heard it from us.

Eli My parents told me about sex when I was five, I think. And so I felt that – and they’re both medical professionals – and I felt that actually it’s important to do it very young. And I think it’s important to do it before they have an awareness of it, so that you don’t have the embarrassment, which is often a problem and stops people telling them. So I think I told Noelle when she was three.

Rachel We were at a conference once, waiting in a line to get tickets. And I was pregnant with my youngest, Talitha. And we had Caleb and Levi. And Levi was on your side, wasn’t he? (Mm) And there was a queue of people, and we were all waiting. And everyone was talking just quite quietly. And all of a sudden Levi said, probably in the loudest voice: ‘Mummy, how did that baby get in there?’ And the whole room fell silent! And the man in front of us said, ‘Oh, I’m quite interested to hear the answer to this question!’ I, of course, bottled out and said, ‘Daddy will tell you later!’ [they laugh]

Sam But something we have realised with the kids is sometimes they’re curious, and I think being the dad you sort of dread the fact that you’re going to have to go into how the birds and the bees all work and, you know, you want to do it well but just do it once. And I think something that Rachel told me very well was the fact that sometimes you just give them a simple answer and they’re fine – you know, that’s great. And I can remember our oldest son asking about where do babies come from, and I gave him a very brief, short answer. And

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then he was like, ‘Oh okay, can we play football now?’ You know, and so for him it wasn’t the fact that he wanted to talk, which I was sweating over, ‘Oh dear, I’m not ready for this at this age!’ But yeah, it was just the fact that he was curious. And the good thing is, hopefully, as he becomes maybe more curious, that we’ll in some ways drip-feed it as and when he’s ready. So.

Rachel They need it. [nods]

OUT 00:20:44

SILAResearch indicates that children who hear about sex from their parents are more likely to delay their first sexual experience. Surveys also show that children themselves want to talk with their parents about sex, even though this may initially be embarrassing for them and their parents.

The ‘drip feed’ method is the most helpful, then our children see the topic as one that comes up from time to time in different circumstances, or when they have questions, rather than a huge build up to the ‘one’ big talk.

With young children, we help to protect them by talking to them about right and wrong touch. We must explain to our children that if a relative or a family friend or someone at school does anything they don’t like, or touches them in a way that they don’t feel entirely happy with, they must know it’s alright to say ‘no’ and then they must tell us about it.

We can teach them that their body is their own and they don’t need to hug or be hugged by someone they don’t feel comfortable with. Similarly, we must teach children never to go anywhere with someone they don’t know and give them words to say, if ever they were approached.

Before they reach puberty, it can be helpful to give our children a book to read on their own and then talk together about their changing bodies and the effects of the new rush of hormones they will experience. It will really help our daughters if we have talked to them before they have their first period, and that will make them feel we are alongside them and supporting them.

Sex may not be the easiest subject to address with our children but we can’t relinquish our responsibility and the earlier we start to talk the easier and more natural it becomes.

NICKY

2. The Internet and electronic games

Another big issue today is the Internet and electronic games.

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With all the possibilities that going online offers our children, there are great benefits but also great dangers. We can encourage them to use the Internet but also alert them to the risks and take steps to make it as safe as we can. We need to put in the best, up-to-date filters on home computers, but at the end of the day our children’s best filter will be their brains as we teach them to make good choices. This will then help them whether they’re at home or in other people’s houses.

Insert – 5.11 Timothy Johns and Lucinda Fell – SMART rules with InternetIN 00:22:41Timothy Johns Technology is breaking new frontiers. It’s providing us with huge opportunities

in terms of knowledge, in terms of skills, in terms of research, that can all be used for the development of thinking, of understanding and, indeed, of knowledge. But equally it has sadly opened us to a world of – I actually called it a `cesspit’ – a world of corruption, a world of quite inappropriate material for different age groups. And parents need to be aware that there is this huge part of the internet that is detrimental to children and, indeed, to adult use, and that checks and balances need to be put in to ensure that that’s properly managed.

Lucinda Fell In talking to children about staying safe on the internet, as an organisation we talk a lot about the smart rules, staying safe. So think about staying safe – keeping your personal information private. Don’t meet up with anyone. Be very discerning about what you accept, whether it’s an email with a virus on it – you don’t know necessarily what’s going to be in it. Reliability is the key thing – encourage your child to think about the types of material that they’re looking at. Is it reliable? Is it trying to sell them something or tell them something from a certain angle? And that also applies to people: are they who they say they are? If you’ve not met someone in real life and you don’t know them, they’re still a stranger. And, most importantly, encourage them to talk about what they’re doing and to tell you or a trusted adult, whether it’s a grandparent or a teacher, about what they’re doing online and if they see something uncomfortable.

Timothy Johns It comes back to giving children a sense of responsibility at an early age and knowing what is right, knowing what is wrong; being able to put in boundaries for themselves so that when they come across something that they feel is inappropriate they know what to do. Something like the two-second rule: in terms of looking at something and having two seconds to decide, `Do I dwell on this, or do I move on from it?’ That sort of little tool is a vital one, I think, to help all of us to cope with what the internet throws up at times.

OUT 00:24:56

NICKYIt is important to keep computers they have access to, including laptops, in a family room as this will help them to take responsibility for what they look at online. We also need to have clear time limits of how long they can be online and what games they can play. We may have to explain that our rules are different to other families and why.

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Insert – 5.12 Parents – boundaries over websitesIN 00:25:15

Mandie We have a list of agreed websites that they’re allowed to visit when they’re on the computer – I think there’s about half a dozen. They know what they are. They can go on those websites when they want to. If they want to go anywhere else, they have to ask and clear it with us first.

Mark When they want, they come and ask us if they can turn the computer on.

Mandie It’s still password-protected. They can’t actually turn it on without us knowing!

OUT 00:25:43

NICKYWith electronic games it’s easy for our children to become addicted, and restricting how long and when they can play will be important boundaries to put in place.

Insert – 5.13 Children – parental boundaries with computer gamesIN 00:25:53

Abigail Sometimes after a while you get bored anyway. And we understand afterwards why our mum turned it off and we just need to get some fresh air or something. Because it’s good for us and it’s healthier.

Interviewer Are you always able to do things that you like to do?

Matthew& Emma

No!

Matthew Because I’m only allowed on the Wii once a week.

Emma And I’m only allowed on my DS on a Friday or at the weekend.

Hannah Sometimes it is because probably your eyes get a bit tired and you feel like, ‘I’ve had a bit too much!’

Emma When I’ve just come out of ballet and tap, Matthew always doesn’t stop playing on his DS, ’cos he wants to finish this game!

Matthew Well, I always get to a good stopping point, Emma, because you don’t want to stop too early! You want to do as much as you can.

OUT 00:26:53

NICKYWe need to watch out for which devices we buy as they have different capabilities for parental control.

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Insert – 5.14 Lucinda Fell – parental control with technologyIN 00:26:58

Lucinda Fell There are a plethora of new and exciting devices out there, and a lot of them are really, really good. They have great educational benefits. I think it’s really important for parents to do a bit of research before they buy them for children, and to understand what they will enable their children to do so that they can make an informed decision about whether they do want to buy them, knowing fully about the device and what the potential for that device could be.

OUT 00:27:24

NICKYWe recognise this issue of monitoring electronic games and the Internet is very time-consuming for parents and a big challenge, but it’s a challenge we’d encourage you to take on for your children’s sake.

3. Drugs and alcohol

Another big issue today is drugs and alcohol. Some parents think that talking to their children about drugs and alcohol will create an interest and encourage them to experiment. Actually, the opposite is true. As with the other issues we’ve looked at, it’s vital to equip them with the facts and have ongoing conversations as the opportunities arise. For some of us that may mean we need to do some research ourselves to get up to speed with the latest facts.

Insert – 5.15 Julie Johnson – conversations with children about drugs and alcoholIN 00:28:04

Julie Johnson With children who are quite young – eight, nine or ten – when it comes to drugs and alcohol you can almost put the whole subject together. And it’s not one conversation; it’s a series of conversations or comments about these issues. So, for instance, you might talk to them a little bit about what alcohol is and where it comes from. You might talk about the positive aspects of alcohol in our lives – like it has medicinal purposes; it can be used in cooking. But also the fact that people can have too much alcohol and it can affect their behaviour. You might also talk about the fact that with drugs there are legal drugs, which are healthy; there are medicines which are drugs. But there are also illegal drugs which can be damaging to the body. But also legal drugs can be damaging to the body if they’re misused. So it’s a bit of very simple information with children that young. You don’t use scare tactics and try and frighten them.

And as parents, one of the most important things we can do about this is what we’re role-modelling. So are we coming in saying we’ve got a headache and grabbing some aspirin or some paracetamols and painkillers before maybe having a glass of water and sitting down, or are we suddenly saying, `Oh my gosh, I’ve got to have a drink of wine when we come in, or a gin and tonic, to relax’? What are we modelling to them? It’s so, so important, because children,

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young people, hate hypocrisy and they need to see us modelling appropriate behaviour in any kind of drug situation, whether it’s alcohol, illegal drugs or legal drugs.

OUT 00:29:22

NICKYInforming our children about these topics and modelling a responsible approach is part of our role as parents. If we don’t do it, others will, and the information and values they pick up may be neither entirely accurate nor helpful in the longterm.

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONThere is a lot to think about in these areas. Please turn now to the exercise in your manual ‘Letting go gradually’. Take a few minutes to fill in your answers and then discuss what you’ve put with one or two others.

END OF PART 1

Part 2: Passing on beliefs and values

NICKYWelcome back to Part 2 of looking at our long-term aim as parents. In this section we’re going to be looking at how we pass on our beliefs and values.

The modelling of values by parents will profoundly affect the people our children become. That’s why we’ve put ‘modelling values’ as the rim around The Parenting Teenagers Wheel.

Our values affect our priorities in life, where we expend our time, our money and our energy, and what we hope to achieve. So it’s worth considering whether we’re living out what is most important to us. There is a difference between having ‘notional values’ and ‘real values’. Notional values are what we may consider important but don’t live out. For example, I consider taking regular exercise very important for my health and sense of wellbeing, but if I didn’t take any exercise for several weeks, then it is only a notional value.

Equally we may think that honesty is a high value to hold, but if our children frequently hear us telling ‘white lies’, they will notice and they’ll grow up thinking that honesty is not that important after all – it will only be a notional value.

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Or we may place a high value on people taking responsibility for their actions, but if we fail to own up to our own mistakes, our children won’t think they need to take responsibility for theirs.

Insert – 5.16 Dr Aric Sigman – children absorbing our valuesIN 00:32:53

Dr Aric Sigman While, as parents, of course we want our values to be imparted to our children, that has to happen through a process. Now, it isn’t a question of just giving parents an instruction pamphlet on how to transfer your values. Part of it is just something that happens naturally by enabling our children to be in an environment where they can absorb our values. So, for example, if we want our children to be helpful, we have to ensure that they help us. We have to ask them to help us, ask them to help other people, perhaps involve them in some sort of charity work. If we want them to eat healthy food, we can’t just put junk food on the table – we have to enable them to taste healthy food as part of their normal dinners. And so, by enabling them to live our values and acting out our values, they will, hopefully, naturally absorb those values without having to have direct lessons from us.

OUT 00:33:41

NICKYWhen we have children it is a good time to ask whether we are living by the values we consider important.

One important value for us was the relationships our children would build with our wider family, all of whom live 500 miles away in Scotland. It took a lot of energy and money visiting grandparents and cousins during the school holidays, but the result is that they all now have close and strong relationships.

Insert – 5.17 Parents – putting value on wider familyIN 00:34:06

Niyi One of the most exciting things I’ve done with my daughter was to arrive as a surprise for her great-grandmother’s hundredth birthday, which was a fantastic celebration. And it really helped to emphasise to her the importance of our wider family.

OUT 00:34:28

NICKY

How do we pass on our beliefs and values?

We want to go on now to look at where our values come from and to see how they are informed and influenced by our core beliefs.

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Everyone has beliefs whether or not they have religious beliefs. For some, these beliefs will be thought through and can be articulated. For others, they’ll be more unconscious beliefs that they’ve been brought up with or have absorbed from the culture around them and have never questioned. The fact is as parents, we will pass on our core beliefs to our children, consciously or unconsciously, whatever those beliefs might be.

For us it is our Christian faith that has shaped our family life and has been at the heart of the values and beliefs we’ve sought to pass on to our children.

Our beliefs will make a difference in a number of other areas, such as answering our children’s searching questions.

1. Answering our children’s questions

All children will have big questions that they put to us, questions about the meaning of life, what happens to someone who dies, why is there so much poverty and injustice in the world, and tricky questions about God.

One young child asked his mother at teatime, ‘Where is God?’ His mother replied, ‘God is everywhere.’ ‘Is God in this room?’ asked the child. ‘Yes darling.’ ‘Is God in my mug?’ ‘Yes darling.’ The boy immediately put his hand on top of the mug and said, ‘Got him!’

Discussing big, and sometimes difficult, questions with them, even when we don’t have complete answers, helps give them a framework for understanding what life is all about. For us when our children asked questions like: ‘Where’s Grandad gone?’ a few days after the funeral, or ‘What happens when we die?’ our own approach was to talk to them openly about our Christian beliefs.

I remember reading a bedtime story from a children’s Bible to Kirsty when she was six years old. She suddenly asked me, ‘Daddy, what will heaven be like?’

Wanting to give her a proper sense of excitement, I tried to describe how wonderful it will be. I told her that there will be more and more good things to discover, that death isn’t the end and that she will meet Jesus face to face, that he will probably give her a great big hug and they will talk about all the different parts of her life here on earth. As I talked, Kirsty’s eyes grew wider and wider. When I had finished she exclaimed, ‘Oh Daddy, I can’t wait to die!’

I wasn’t sure that this was healthy in a six-year-old and wondered if I had gone somewhat over the top. While I was still considering how to correct any imbalance, she added, ‘I know! It’s really good to be alive and then even better when you die.’ I doubt she remembers the incident, but I’ve never forgotten her words. She summed up the perspective on life and death that we have wanted to pass on to our children.

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For many people, becoming parents has made them think more deeply about their own beliefs and particularly about the spiritual dimension of life.

Insert – 5.18 Parents – thinking through beliefsIN 00:37:21

Mark Having children actually brought me to faith, and I’ve never looked back. And so that’s really the bedrock on which our family life has been based. Mandie was a Christian before I met her. So it’s really made our family whole, (Yeah) and really forms the bedrock of everything we do.

OUT 00:37:42

SILA

2. Our home environment

If we want our children to take on our beliefs and values, nothing will be more important than our home environment. The attitudes and atmosphere in our home profoundly affect our children.

The families who we feel got it right and whom as a result we have tried to mirror, are those where it’s clear the children feel free to be individuals, not in a straightjacket of conformity; where there are boundaries, but not legalism; where the atmosphere was not intense and heavy.

Intensity will always turn children off and sometimes away from their parents and family altogether.

As we said on Session 1, we have tried to ensure that our own children will associate home and family life with plenty of fun and laughter. So, for example, with reading the Bible we tried to make it something they enjoyed and wanted to do more of.

Insert – 5.19 Parents – reading the bible with childrenIN 00:38:28

Sam We’ve been going through the Bible, a children’s Bible, and we’ve been acting out some of the stories that we’ve been reading, sometimes using silly voices or, you know, big deep voices for God. And recently we were doing the story of the parable of the sower, and I got the boys practising to throw seed around the room and, you know, whether they were doing it well or throwing it onto the hard ground or to the good soil. And the great thing is that it gives action to the story and helps them remember it. And often they’ll come back to me later on in the day, or sometimes even later on in that week, to ask maybe more questions about that. And that’s been very rewarding.

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Sam Yeah, I think humour helps in all aspects of life. So especially in a faith, if you can keep it light and keep it fun and not too sort of intense, it definitely makes a big difference.

OUT 00:39:24

SILAWhile reading the Bible with our children has been important, we’ve known that seeking to live out our Christian faith was what mattered most, as faith is always more easily caught than taught. The way God relates to us has been the primary model for the way we’ve sought to relate to our children. The Bible says about our relationship with God, ‘There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear.’ In our parenting, that has meant trying to ensure our children know we’re for them, not against them, knowing our unconditional love rather than living with a fear of punishment. It has meant them knowing that, when they’ve made mistakes, we’ll forgive them, which makes the way open for a fresh start.

3. Involving other people

And parenting is best done with the support of others.

Insert – 5.20 Julie Johnson – others involved with our childrenIN 00:40:08

Julie Johnson We don’t have to be perfect parents; it’s good enough parenting. And in many ways, if we model good-enough parenting, we allow our children to make mistakes as well when they eventually become parents. But also we live in a very isolated society where we often are parenting alone. There’s a lovely phrase in Africa: ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ We need to allow our children to have other people in their lives, whether it’s grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, maybe youth-workers, teachers. I talk about `significant others’, I talk about mentors: allowing your children to talk to others, bringing others on board with our children. And it’s a community that raises a child, or a village. So much better, so much broader, and less pressure for us as parents. So let’s parent as community.

OUT 00:40:52

4. Passing on our values about money

NICKYWe want to look now at the issue of money, and the values regarding material things that we want to pass on to our children.

We live in a highly materialistic, consumer society, with all the pressures of advertising and a celebrity culture, a lot of which – particularly on TV – is aimed

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at children. Our children need our help to learn a healthy attitude to money and how to handle it wisely.

One way, among others, is by giving them pocket money, which allows them to make choices and to practise using it. We can talk to them about the different things they can do with their money, and suggest they save some of it, spend some of it and give some of it away. In this way we are teaching them important values from an early age, such as generosity, good management of money, and honesty.

Insert – 5.21 Parents – honesty with moneyIN 00:41:41

Oyinkan Not too long ago I went out to get a paper. And I suppose it’s not often that I’d sort of say, ‘Okay,’ you know, give them a little errand to do for me. So I gave Obafemi two pounds to get me a newspaper, and he went off. And I parked near the shop. And he came back – it took him a little longer than I thought it should have done. And he came back with the newspaper, and I then started driving off. And then it just occurred to me that I’d given him two pounds and the paper was one-ninety or something. And I said, ‘What happened to the change?’ and he said, ‘Oh, I forgot – the change!’ And I thought, ‘Oh! Okay, well, maybe…’ I thought, you know, ‘Ten p, maybe just leave it.’ And then I thought, ‘Oh, no. Well, you’d better go back and get it.’ And then it slowly started coming out that, ‘Well, you know, maybe – no, no, I didn’t forget the change.’ ‘But then what’s..?’ you know. ‘Oh, I got some sweets.’ And then it was, ‘Oh, you know, but you really should have told me.’

OUT 00:43:01

NICKYMoney can exercise enormous power over all of us – and our children need our help with handling peer pressure – the ongoing comparisons as to who has what and do we have the ‘latest model’. Of course, as parents, we too can feel the pressure to keep up. Sometimes we find it easier to throw money at our children rather than teach them to wait. The advertisers constantly feed us the message that happiness depends on what we have now.

One mother said, ‘My daughter went on and on about getting a digital camera. In the end I got her one. But as soon as I did, I wished I had got her to save up for it instead – or even gone halves with her.’

We can teach our children the value of delayed gratification. We do not need to give in to the pressure for them to have designer trainers or the latest up-to-the-minute gadget. They need to learn that other people will have or do things that we can’t afford, and that’s okay because the quality of our lives is about a lot more than how much money we have.

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In everything to do with money we can model holding our possessions lightly, prizing relationships over material things and caring for others perhaps by getting involved with a charity as a family. Our children are watching what we do.

Insert – 5.22 Dr Pat Spungin – parents as gatekeepersIN 00:44:18Dr Pat Spungin I see parents as the kind of gatekeepers between the world and the family.

And as a gatekeeper you keep out all the bad influences. So you might think, ‘The world is too materialist, and I’m going to make sure that those influences, how they impact on my family, I’m in control of how it happens.’ But the other side of the coin is that your role as a parent is to prepare your child for the world that they’re moving into. So there are obvious things that we all do: we worry about education, we worry that they kind of will be good citizens; but we also need to worry that when they go out into the world they’ll become involved in the world, they’ll feel responsible for things that they see around them. And all of that they learn inside the home.

OUT 00:45:06

SILAThere were times when our own children seemed to put a higher value on the opposite of everything we stood for and talked of becoming rich celebrity footballers with fast cars!

Don’t worry, that’s normal. It’s all too easy to feel that our children are rejecting our values. We want to encourage you not to panic! We can have confidence that the values we model will leave a lasting impact on their lives and become embedded in their characters.

Character is different to personality. Personality is the unique person our child is born to be, and we want them to flourish as individuals. Character, on the other hand, can be moulded and shaped with love and care. We can encourage, through the values we model, positive character traits such as showing kindness, displaying loyalty, being courageous, and being generous with what we have.

NICKY

5. Praying for our children

All of us as parents have deep longings for our children and those longings can easily turn into fears – will they be safe, will they make friends, how will they turn out? We’ve found praying has done more than anything to relieve us of those fears and anxieties.

And believing that God is looking out for our children and has a purpose for each of their lives has made a huge difference. It’s never too soon to start praying.

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We prayed for our children before they were born and when they were tiny babies.

But whatever age your children are, it’s never too late to start. There’s so much to pray about: their friendships, their time at school, things they’re worried about, their health, what they’ll do with their lives.

Insert – 5.23 Parents – praying for their childrenIN 00:46:36

Sam I think, definitely, praying for your children is very helpful. We’ve done a big move. The children are in different schools. And we’ve been able to pray with them or kind of together about that move and felt, perhaps, knowing that God is actually ultimately in control rather than just our decisions that we’re making has just, you know, really taken the pressure off. And also, sending your children into new environments, new relationships, knowing you can pray about it actually is so encouraging, because you feel like you’re positive sending them out, and you feel that you’ve done all that you can do, I suppose!

OUT 00:47:15

NICKYWe also prayed a lot for our children’s characters. There’s that amazing list of character traits in the Bible that we found such a help to pray for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I remember a stage when one of our sons was eight and he was very competitive on the football pitch. If his team lost, he would get really angry and was liable to stomp off rather than talking to anyone. Nicky and I talked to him about it, and then we prayed over a number of weeks with and for him that he would develop better self-control. The change was amazing. He continued to be competitive, but he became a really good loser and to enjoy sport a lot more as a result.

As well as praying for our children, we also prayed with them, usually as part of their bedtime routine after we’d read a story from a children’s Bible.

Insert – 5.24 Parents – praying with their childrenIN 00:48:09

Sam Typically we find that in the night-time the prayers are obviously a little bit more just ‘Bless Mummy and Daddy and, you know, may we have a good night’s sleep.’ But in the morning they can be quite poignant, really, to their day. And you also get to really see their belief in God to actually answer their prayers – because at the end of the day that’s why we pray: is because we believe God answers prayer. And you’re also able to see their perspective on life and see the things that may be concerning them, that maybe you were never aware of until that point.

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Shona I pray for my children every night. We pray together as a family as well at every mealtime. If we’re not rushing in the morning, we do pray before we go out the door. And at night-time I think it’s really important that I’ll have that time with my son ten minutes before when he goes to bed. We’ll pray together for each other, for our family and for their dad as well. And then he’ll fall asleep and then ten minutes later I’ll do it with my daughter and just have that prayer time together, just to thank God. Because, you know, they are a blessing from him, and without him I wouldn’t be able to raise them. So he definitely deserves all the praise, and I want the kids to know that!

Archie Ideally, it would be wonderful if the children all said a little prayer before they went to sleep – in reality I find that sometimes they don’t want to. And so we don’t make them pray. I’ll say, ‘Well, I’ll pray, then.’ And also sometimes they may go through a phase of doing silly prayers about silly things. But I think it’s better to pray a silly prayer than no prayer. So any prayer or no prayer is allowed! And sometimes we make a bit of a game out of praying! Sometimes we’ll all lie on our backs – you know, the boys will and I will – and say, ‘Okay, the person who’s got their arms and legs in the air, they can pray!’ So we take it in turns that way. So we make a bit of a game, and it’s sort of fun, the idea.

Rachel We show the children that we thank God for the things that he’s done for us, but also we talk about needs within the world. We look after other children, we sponsor other children, and we pray for their needs. So it’s not always focused about us, about our family, but we look at the outside world as well, and how we can pray for others and not just for ourselves.

OUT 00:50:32

SILAAs well as praying for and with our children, we also recognised that we needed to pray for ourselves; as we, like every parent, have experienced daily challenges, particularly when we knew we’d got it wrong.

Many times over the years we’ve had to ask God for wisdom to know what to do in difficult situations. Sometimes we wished we’d done things differently and being able to give it all over to God made a huge difference.

Insert – 5.25 Rob Parsons – encouraging parents to pray for their childrenIN 00:50:56Rob Parsons You know, I think it’s absolutely vital to pray for our children. I’m saddened and

surprised that so many couples don’t pray together for their kids, even for a minute or two every day. And not just for the little things – that they’ll have a good day at nursery, or the teacher won’t be nasty to them, or they’ll pass the A-level; but for the kind of men and women they will become, the friends who’ll come across their path, the partner they may meet later in life. And it’s never too late. All over the world I’ve spoken to parents whose kids have broken their hearts, but they have prayed. And time and time again when we pray, we say, ‘Lord, this is too big for me. I hand this over to you.’ There is no safer place to bring your child than to the hand of God.

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OUT 00:51:40

SILA

6. Developing family traditions, routines and rituals

Finally, we have sought to pass on beliefs and values through developing family traditions, routines and rituals. These have a huge part to play in family life.

These have a huge part to play in family life. Sociologist and author Tony Campolo says about them: ‘Family rituals are at the core of what builds loyalty and commitment between members of a family. Those families that have a great deal of ritual are usually the ones that are the most solid and secure. They seem better able to impart to their children the values and truths which they believe to be of ultimate significance.’

Rituals are good for families, and instituting rituals makes family life more fun for everyone.

Insert – 5.26 Parents – Sunday lunchIN 00:52:18Rachel One of the traditions that Sam’s mum has is food – sitting round the table as a

family and having a good roast dinner, typically on Sunday. But that is something where the whole family – and it’s about sixteen of us now on a Sunday – all get together, and we all talk over each other! But for our children to know who their cousins are and who their aunties and uncles are, that’s something that’s really important to us, that has really been modelled by Sam’s family.

OUT 00:52:53

SILAIt’s helpful to think about traditions, routines and rituals in terms of what we do on a daily, weekly and annual basis. We talked in Session 1 about the huge benefits of the daily routines of meal times and bed time. These cause our children to identify with and want to belong to their family. We also talked about the benefit of having a weekly family time. But there are lots of other traditions and rituals that will be good for our family and will strengthen our family life.

Insert – 5.27 Parents – family traditionsIN 00:53:22

Sam One of the most fun family traditions is that every Saturday morning we have Pancake Morning. And the boys look forward to it so much that usually by –

Rachel And Mummy!

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Sam And Mummy! [they laugh] Look forward to it so much that usually by Wednesday they’re asking, ‘Is it Pancake Day tomorrow yet?’ And they get involved in making the pancake mix – so with the eggs and the flour and the milk, and the stirring, and even sometimes doing a flip as well of a pancake. But also they have to think about the bits that we need. You like chocolate pancakes, don’t you, so if we don’t have any chocolate on any given Saturday it’s a nightmare! So we do rush to the shops. But that’s a great family tradition that we all enjoy as a family. So.

Sijeong The family traditions are really important to our family. And in Korea we have two big national holidays. So during that time we wear all the traditional clothes: which is a hanbok. So we go to the grandparents’ house and we greet them really formally, and they give us the pocket money. But it’s not about the money, but all the family gather together, (Mm) and we sit together and we eat together – that’s the … I mean, at the time I didn’t realise, you know, this is a family tradition. But now, because I’m far away from my home, this is really important, that we need to keep (Mm) in our family too. So Chinese New Year we celebrate, also Thanksgiving. So twice a year we put lovely clothes, which is hanbok, onto our children, and we have traditional food with them. (Mm) So we can pass our Korean culture, also our family tradition, to them. So we will keep on doing this. (Yes)

OUT 00:55:24

SILAIt was many years before it occurred to us that we were passing on values through the traditions we created in our family life. That’s why it’s worth all of us thinking about what our rituals and traditions are and ensuring that we’re passing on positive values not negative ones.

One family tradition that everyone grew to love was having a barbeque on the same beach in the same spot every year during our summer holiday - whether it was sunny or rain. Usually it was raining and a howling gale. But we have always had a great time, and we have continued this tradition to this day.

We recognise it can be hard to establish these routines and traditions if you’re parenting on your own or step-parenting and the children’s time is divided between two homes. It may require a lot of discussion with the other parent, about holidays, for example, or weekends or arrangements over Christmas.

But we’d encourage you to try to develop them, even when that may be difficult, because creating rituals in our family life gives children a deep sense of security and belonging.

To quote Tony Campolo again: ‘A child may have had a shattering day. He or she may have been scolded by a teacher, suffered unbelievable humiliation at the hands of some bully, or been rejected by a friend. Who can tell what really goes on at school? Asking a child what happened at school on a given day will usually elicit the answer, “Nothing,” and yet that child may have been wounded

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emotionally. The good thing about ritual is that it can put a child’s shattered world back together again. A ritual before the lights are turned out can convince a child that the world is still in order and that everything is okay.’

With our youngest son, Josh, a ritual developed at bedtime, which I’m sure at one level was a ‘delaying tactic’ and also just a game – but also gave him a great sense of ‘all is right with the world’. It was a dialogue, repeated back and forth with whoever was putting him to bed. It went like this: ‘Night-night. Sleep tight. Sleep well. I love you. See you in the morning. Have fun. Goodbye. I’m waving. Have a nice supper. And I agree.’

This was said three times, word perfect, getting faster each time – before we turned the light off and left the room!

Of course any ritual that is too rigid or becomes unhealthily obsessive can be detrimental but these patterns and routines can give children a deep sense of security and well-being.

Insert – 5.28 Rob Parsons – the power of ritualsIN 00:57:48Rob Parsons Traditions are very important. I remember speaking at a friend’s funeral and I

spoke to his grown daughters. And I said, ‘Tell me about your dad.’ And they said, ‘Oh, every Saturday night Dad would always do the cooking. He was a hopeless cook, but he’d dress up in an apron and he’d speak in a silly French voice, and we’d shout into the kitchen, “What’s for tonight?” and he would say, “Edna never tells.”’ And they said, `Sometimes it would go badly wrong. We’d see lots of smoke and we’d hear the car start, and that night we knew it would be fish and chips.’ Isn’t that interesting! What made family life sweet? Not an expensive present but a memory, a tradition. ‘We always’ – the power of what one expert said ‘connectiveness’, a sense of belonging.

OUT 00:59:33

NICKYIf we pass on our values and beliefs in an atmosphere of love, encouragement, and fun, most children will want to know the source of their parents’ views, and, more likely than not, will end up making our values and beliefs their own.

We hope very much that you’ve found this Parenting Course to be helpful, and that it’s given you a chance to stop and think about how you can strengthen and invest in your family life. There’s a lot more in The Parenting Book on all the subjects we’ve covered. We also run another course called the Parenting Teenagers Course which addresses issues relevant to parents with children aged 11 to 18.

We hope you’ve seen that often a small change can make a big difference, perhaps by adding a simple routine, such as starting a family night, or showing

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our child we’re really listening to them. Or spending one-to-one time with our children or standing firm on a limit we’ve set.

We know that parenting is challenging – and we recognise it’s especially difficult if you’re doing it on your own or step-parenting or if you have a very testing child. We’re all learning as we go along, and we all have to adjust as they grow up – and that’s really stretching for every one of us.

But it’s an exciting journey that has the potential to be hugely rewarding. If there’s one thing we’d like you to take away from this course more than anything else, it would be that building a strong, loving relationship with our child is what matters most.

And it’s a cliché but it’s true – the time when our children are with us will go by so quickly – so don’t miss any of it.

SMALL GROUP DISCUSSIONWe want you to turn now to the questions for discussion in your manual.

NICKYWe’re going to finish this course with a prayer:

‘Lord, we thank you for your plans and purposes for each child represented on this course. Please help us to trust you with our children and to put our hopes and longings into your hands. May we create homes that are loving and secure, in which our children are free to become the unique people you have created them to be. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.’

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