Chaos, calm, or hiding —
Emotions. There, I’ve said the E word. We can’t live without them, and many times we don’t know how to live with them. As parents, when we don’t know—we can’t help our children.
I wrote these words on Facebook recently; it was one of my most shared posts—ever.
“Relationships that stay with us in our unpleasant emotions…and help us return to joy after we’ve processed all they offer…are
relationships that help us grow up.”
So many people commented on the post with something like, “Sometimes, this is so hard…”
It is. And when we struggle as parents, it is a gift from God—if we see the struggle as an invitation to model giving permission for others to speak into our lives and ask for help. If we demonstrate humility in safe relationships, our children can grow up trusting this mature way of relating, too.
We’ll get to have many conversations with our children about emotions during our season of parenthood. This blog post may help you have one of those conversations. Share this post with your family over dinner one night. Brave love starts the hard conversations and offers protection from shame.
Butterflies in your stomach –
There are few events quite like the first day of school. For weeks, you know it’s coming. You feel all the feels, and watch as your friends and family experience all the drama and delight that happens before the big day finally arrives.
The emotions that wash over you before the start of school can be the refreshing kind—like excitement, confidence, and eager anticipation. Or they can be the “I hope I just survive” kind —like dread, doubt, worry, and fear.
Perhaps “butterflies in your stomach” is a good description of this weird combination of all these emotions.
This is a true story about butterflies: They are fun to watch and beautiful to see—and they make poor line leaders. I’d never hand one of these fanciful, winged creatures the keys to my car! Butterflies go in circles and change directions without any warning. Their flight patterns look more like tangled yarn than purposeful pathways.
Butterflies are poor line leaders because they are not created to be line leaders. We can get confused if we follow them. Even if we don’t get lost, we will certainly make slow progress getting from where we are to where we are going—and we will definitely get very tired!
Emotions –
This is a true story about emotions: They are important. Emotions make life rich and powerfully real. They add value and depth to all of life’s experiences.
And emotions, like butterflies, make poor line leaders. Emotions are not created to be trustworthy taxi drivers for our travels through each day. They’re more often like hijackers than dependable guides.
Emotions are great passengers in the grand adventures of life—including the first day of school. Like your friends, you can greet them, name them, acknowledge them, wrestle with them, experience them fully—and then drop them off, until you meet them again to share a different experience.
Recognizing emotions as good passengers and bad drivers can be helpful as you navigate the beginning of a new school year. If you let emotions rule your life, they’ll tell you untrue stories —about yourself, about God, and about school.
Untrue stories –
When you make a good grade, you’re going to feel smart. When you don’t get picked for the team at recess—or if your friends ignore you, you may feel like you don’t belong. If the teacher tells you to move your clip or change your color—or if you make a bad grade, you can feel like a loser. If the teacher chooses you to be the line leader, you can feel like a winner!
Every feeling I just read to you could happen in just one day—even on the first day of school!
In less than a few hours, you may feel like a winner and a loser. You may feel smart and unworthy. The stories your emotions tell you can change in just a few seconds—as quickly as when your teacher says, “Put away the book you’re reading and get out your Math.”
The truth is, your identity never changes, even though your emotions often do. Because you have trusted the work of Jesus on the cross, you have an unchangeable identity. No matter how you feel about reading or math or being chosen or getting ignored, you are Christ in you— even on your very worst day. You always belong to God. That’s good news. And there’s more!
God’s identity never changes either. God is always love, and He is always loving you—when you feel worthy of His love, and when you don’t. God’s love is what heals your hurts and what gives you the strength to do with Him what you could never do on your own.
A true story about God and school –
God’s not grading your papers. He cares very much that you listen and work and learn; He knows that getting things right will help you, and getting things wrong will keep you confused about the way the world works. He’s more concerned about you missing out than messing up.
God doesn’t give you a bad grade when you mess up. Instead, He puts His arm around you— and offers to help. God’s hug sometimes gets delivered to you from mom or dad. You can experience His love when you let us help you with your struggles.
God doesn’t tell you to move your clip or change your color when you misbehave. God never punishes you when you struggle. Instead, God recognizes when you’ve let your emotions drive your decisions. He knows when you’ve let anger convince you to cut in line, or when you’ve let disappointment distract you from following directions.
God tells you the truth—about who He is, about who you are, and about school. He knows that when you trust Him, you’ll begin to let the truth of your identity sit in the driver’s seat of your decisions—instead of giving your emotions the keys to your behavior.
Your God-given identity will always tell you what is true, no matter what you feel. Values and convictions will grow out of your true identity—like branches grow out of the trunk of a tree. Values and convictions are the ideas you’ll grow up to believe are important in your relationships, and true about your character.
Humility –
So, welcome to a new school year, my daughter; my son. We’re going to take this adventure together. And I need your help, too.
Sometimes I let my emotions sit in the driver’s seat of my day. I let anger tell me what to say; I let frustration tell me how loud to say it. Some days I let feelings of being afraid to convince me to make choices I later wish I hadn’t made.
You have permission to respectfully remind me that emotions are more like hijackers than good line leaders. Here’s what you can lovingly say, “Mom/Dad—did you just hand your keys to a butterfly?”
This school year, can I remind you, too?
I love you, my son. I love you, my daughter.
I am so honored that you are mine.
Together, there is great hope.
Author: Janet Newberry
Janet Newberry is an educational consultant and an unshakeable believer in the transforming power of love. Janet and her husband Doug have sold their home and travel America in an Airstream named Freedom — building a platform they call “At the table with America.” They help families have real conversations without shame, so children have the freedom to ask for help in relationships of trust.
Having spent 30+ years in public and private education, Janet has spent the past fifteen years studying educational philosophy, adolescence, neurology – specifically how the brain responds to fear and love, and theology – specifically the power of grace. She is a self-proclaimed love researcher. With a vision to repurpose the way children experience education, Janet is working to share this great hope: “When we aim at the target of performance, maturity will always be stunted. When we aim at the target of maturity, performance goes off the charts. Let’s discover what it means to support maturity.”
Janet is coaching families in personal relationships as they connect with her in online classes that help people untangle fear and trust love. She is also a “Bookie” — currently writing several books with her agent, Cynthia Ruchti at Books and Such Literary Agency. She received a certification in High Trust Leadership from Trueface ministries and now serves as a faculty member in their High Trust Leadership Certification online course.
Janet and Doug share the practical hope of BRAVE LOVE on their weekly podcast. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/brave-love/id1404047919?mt=2
When I was 27 years old and had a daughter that was about to turn three years old, my husband/her father took his own life. It was very difficult to navigate life in the beginning. I have always been a believer, but I have not always been a follower of Jesus.
I am 61 years old now and my daughter is 37. She has been very successful in life, and shares a nice home with her second husband. They both are educated people. Unfortunately, my daughter has a daughter with her first husband from whom she is divorced. My precious granddaughter is 10 years old. She is a very sensitive child, just like me, and my daughter, although she provides for all of my granddaughters physical needs, seems to lack the ability To deal with the emotional needs of my granddaughter. She also has a son that is 3 1/2 years old, and he is a very unruly child. Her second/current husband is the father of my grandson.
I am concerned about both of my grandchildren’s emotional well-being, and as a Christian grandmother, I need some good advice on how to share my faith and positivity with them. My daughter and son-in-law are both believers, but they do not take their children to church or really try to teach them Christian values. They seem to be very focused on making money and all of the material things of life. My son-in-law grew up in a privileged home, but he has wonderful Christian parents. My daughter and I Struggled financially through her childhood, but we never did without. God somehow always provided, even when I don’t feel like I was being faithful as I knew I should. Every time I try to open up a conversation with my daughter about how I feel, she begins telling me that I am trying to make her feel guilty. I truly am not, I just have genuine concerns for my grand children’s eternal well-being. I’m just wondering if you have a book that might guide me. Thank you Janet. I enjoy your writings.
Please forgive me. This comment did not show up until today. I know it has a while. Im so very sorry. I am sharing it with Janet, along with your email address. Hope all is well with your family.