OPA - Gentleman Benefactor
The next significant relationship role for me is the one with my two sons Andrew (6) and Eric (4). Once again I looked for a role model (or in this case a story) that would help me represent this role. I chose the name Gentleman Benefactor pulled from the essence of Charles Dickens story Great Expectations. For those that don’t recall, it’s a story about a commoner named Pip living in England in the 1800s whose fortune is turned around as a secret benefactor (a convict named Magwitch who Pip showed generosity to one night) gives him the life of a London gentleman. No, I’m not a convict 
but I was drawn to the spirit of what he did for Pip. And then I chose my quote: A home, resources, and most importantly love do I provide thee.
So what are my outcomes?
- I want to give Andrew and Eric the love, care, resources and training to give them the richest life possible.
- I want to share life’s experiences with them.
- I want to be a friend and a role model for them.
Why?
- To give them a great quality of life.
- To prepare them for the rest of their lives.
- To form a deep bond of friendship with them.
So what would I need to do in this role to help realize those outcomes? As the saying goes children do not come with an instruction manual. In my knowledge gathering on this subject I found some great answers in John Gray’s book Children are from Heaven. Like issues of health, marriage and money there is so much material out there and I found this book helpful for me. After reading it I typed up a summary, two parts of which I will share here:
First is a method for getting your child to cooperate, which is something many parents (including us) struggle with. Here are the 5 steps (in order of escalation :)):
Five Steps to Positive Parenting
- Simply ASK for what you need your child to do.
- Actively Listen and empathize (with their resistence).
- Offer a future reward for present cooperation - the best is quality time with you.
- Command firmly without emotion and repeat your command if necessary.
- Finally, use a time out when a child is out of control (one minute per year of age).
Some ideas to reinforce and live by:
- It’s OK to be different.
- It’s OK to make mistakes.
- It’s OK to express negative emotions.
- It’s OK to want more.
- It’s OK to say no, but Mom and Dad are the bosses.
We’re very fortunate that Andrew and Eric live with an extended family right in our house so there are a lot of examples to learn from, a lot of love and a lot of help. I’ve also found that the 5 steps have been very effective in helping my kids get better at managing themselves and timeouts are needed less. From this strong base, my wife and I are able to spend more of our time with Andrew and Eric in a quality way, reading to them, taking them out to restaurants and play places (including Disney last year). We’ve also had great conversations with them as they learn to ask deeper questions about life and the world around them. And finally, we attempt to be great role models for them as good or bad, they are likely to model our beliefs and way of life whether we like it or not.
As for all parents, one of the continuing challenges is to set aside adequate time for our children amidst work and other responsibilities. I see them most weeknights for bedtime and storytime and then for one or more activities on the weekend. We also have weekend and longer family getaways of course.
I’m not trying to make it sound easy or suggest that the tables listed above work for everyone or in every situation. What I am saying is, as in other areas of my live plan, I’m taking the conscious approach of what I want these relationships to mean to me over the longer term and what I want to (and am able to) do for them. Our whole family is blessed to have these young, shining lights in our life.
So let’s update the table:
| My OPA Roles | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Hours Per Week | |||
| Soldier of Steel | ||||
| ___Sleeping | 49 hours | |||
| ___Eating | 11 hours | |||
| ___Exercising | 05 hours | |||
| Total | 65 hours | |||
| Mountain Man | ||||
| ___Personal Hygiene | 07 hours | |||
| ___Stuff and Household Maintenance | 03 hours | |||
| Total | 10 hours | |||
| Information Engineer | ||||
| ___Working | 40 hours | |||
| ___Commuting | 10 hours | |||
| ___Continuing Education | 06 hours | |||
| Total | 56 hours | |||
| Financial Wizard | ||||
| ___Maintaining the Family Finances | 01 hour | |||
| ___Pursuing Wise Investments | 01 hour | |||
| Total | 02 hours | |||
| Knight of the Roses | ||||
| ___Weekly Outing | 02 hours | |||
| ___Errands, Surprises and Phone Calls | 02 hours | |||
| ___Initiating Quality Time, Loving and Affectionate | 03 hours | |||
| Total | 07 hours | |||
| Gentleman Benefactor | ||||
| ___Bedtime and Storytime | 03 hours | |||
| ___Weekend Activities | 03 hours | |||
| Total | 06 hours | |||
Stay tuned for the walkthroughs of my last two roles!
Posted in -Berick, Contributing Writers | March 21, 2006
March 21st, 2006 at 8:33 am
Berick,
It is very refreshing to read about your plans for your family.
So few parents are plugged in enough to realize the importance
of having a plan. Children do what they are good at, and that is
being a child. I have worked at homes for children and often heard the parents say where did I go wrong in raising my child.
The first step is to have a plan and not wait for life to hit them up side the head and say maybe this will work. I will try
this. Tell your the children’s mother that I am proud of her, at
least she took the plunge, I didn’t.
Love,
BABBETTE
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Oh, Babbette! You have the right to be proud of yourself, too! We each have a different purpose here ~ I constantly seem to be reminding myself that we’re not all playing the same game, and not to be discouraged by thoughts that another seems to be doing so much better. Everyone envies someone!
Berick, I am again amazed at your work. I admire your motivations and perspectives on who your children are, and the role that you play in their lives. I share most of your sentiments, and I only hope that if I ever become a parent, I can stay true to them. I’m sure it is very challenging at times, even with a plan!
March 22nd, 2006 at 8:38 pm
Berick ~ your 5 Steps for Positive Parenting could apply to other situations, such as, trying to motivate a group of people to become more socially aware. It could also be applied to Self when we are trying to “Convene a Meeting of the Dimensions of Self”, as discussed by Waith ~ http://www.terralux.org/2005/09/15/how-to-convene-a-meeting-of-the-dimensions-of-self-concepts-and-applications/ ~ and, thus, learning more about each part of Self.
March 25th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Babbette, I want to echo Estara’s sentiments. We all work on different purposes as we got through life together. What’s important is connecting with them and going forward (or backward
).
A plan does help as you have an agenda in advance which will then be tested. Last night my son Eric would not brush his teeth. He had a lot of energy matched with stubbornness. So we waited together in that bathroom for nearly 30 minutes. In the last minutes he cried but when he saw I wasn’t going to buy it, his face cleared up and he opened his mouth for the brush. Obviously this is a rare event but I saw it as him testing the situation. In my younger years I don’t know if I could have afforded the patience - but now I know that it’s a wise investment in our future together.
April 1st, 2006 at 12:56 pm
I admire you, Berick, for the effort you put into being, not just a parent, but a good parent and role model for your children. I didn’t make the choice in this life to be a parent, but then, I have chosen other challenges and responsibilities. But I still think of parenting as a really special challenge, as you are nurturing the wonderful light and energy of two wonderful beings. That’s something special. That is a groundwork that is being layed for the future of all, really. Children are our future and the more we invest in them the better off we all are.
I am reading of the incidents in my city (Springfield, MA)in the schools ~ vandalism in the schools is incredibly high and costly, monetarily and in other ways. Today I learned that there will be criminal indictments brought against some students who committed recent damage to an auditorium. These students are said to be good students, some are athletes, with no prior history of troublemaking. Five of them are black, one is white. Some city councilors are making it into a racial thing. Some want to have fundraisers to help the families and the students pay restitution for the extensive damage. Others feel that the students should bear the burden of paying, perhaps by working it off through community service. Others feel that the book should be thrown at them as an example to others.
Regardless of where one stands on this issue, it is clear that the future of these kids will be severely impacted because of that one incident. I have to ask myself, why did they do it? I can’t answer for them, but it seems that it is a cry for attention, and/or to feel that they have power and control that perhaps they feel is lacking in their lives. Also, the outward expression of aggression is a way of expressing oneself in a way, to youths, that is more culturally acceptable then to sit down and talk about things or to cry, or express anger verbally, for example.
Now, I am not blaming the parents of these kids, or anyone in particular ~ but I wonder if more effort is made to consciously and wisely invest in children when they are very young, to teach them about how to respect themselves and others, and provide them a safe environment in which to explore their own spirituality and issues of importance to them that perhaps these destructive displays of aggression would not be necessary. Am I being naive or “pie in the sky?”
April 2nd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Thanks for the lengthy comment Solara as well as your story about the Springfield kids. Children are of course our future as sooner or later we won’t be here and they will be making the decisions that will have great impact on them and the world. Personally I’m glad that the light was shed on the incident that you speak of. Setting some sort of an example (or not) makes a statement to others of what we as a society accept. Life’s pressures from our parents, peers and other expectations can drive us towards negative behavior. I’d like to think that we can still help our kids raise the bar in a loving and supportive way. Provide the love, structure, example setting and then they will mix in the world hopefully for the better. Thanks for contributing!