Recently, my youngest son was baptized. A few weeks back, he came to my wife after a Wednesday night service and said he wanted to accept Jesus in his heart, and he also wanted to be baptized. I was meeting with our middle son upstairs in my office when my wife came and got me. We all gathered in the living room as she prayed with our son. Our wonderful children’s pastor, Miss Lori, asked if I wanted to baptize him. “Of course, I do!” One of the greatest honors of my life was baptizing my oldest two sons. I had every intention of doing the same with my youngest son one day. I have been practicing what I would say to the congregation about Zane for years. I had it memorized. It was going to bring people to tears and would be a powerful moment of me affirming and blessing him in front of family and friends. It would be epic!
I knew he would obviously want me to baptize him but, in an effort to allow him ownership, a practice all good parents do (right?), I presented him with the option. “Zane, do you want Daddy to baptize you or Miss Lori?” “Ummm, Miss Lori.” My wife and two older sons shot their eyes at me with their jaws dropped. “He must not have understood the question,” I thought. So, I clarified, “So, you want Miss Lori to baptize you? Not Daddy?” “Yep, Miss Lori.” My wife started to speak up, “But Zane, Daddy…” I cut her off and shook my head and silently mouthed the word, “No.” I looked back at Zane and smiled, “Ok buddy. It’s going to be awesome, and we are so proud of you!” He got up and walked out. My wife and two teenage sons were still in shock. I stood up and started pacing the floor. I put my hands out, palms up, looked at them and said, “What! I wasn’t ready for that!” My wife said, “Zac, you just need to tell him that you are going to baptize him.” I said, “No, I’m not going to do that. That would be making this about me, and this is his day, not mine. If he wants Miss Lori to do it, then I am good with that. Besides, you know how he has to process things and I’m sure he’s going to ask me to do it later.” He didn’t.
Last year, Zane was diagnosed with ADHD and a processing disorder. The doctor told us that it was our decision whether to medicate him or not, but that if we chose to he could start with a low dose and see what we thought. I have always been adamantly opposed to medication like this unless we believe that we have absolutely exhausted our parenting efforts. We did not want to medicate our child just because we were too busy, stressed, and exhausted (and we were) to deal with him. After talking with several trusted people who made us feel better about it, we decided to give it a try. We just wanted to do the right thing by him. He deserved that. Zane also started seeing a therapist about 18 months ago. It was determined that he most likely has residual effects from the trauma he experienced six years ago in the tornado. At two years old, he and my wife miraculously survived a tornado as our home and property were destroyed. You can read about that in my four-part series, How To Survive a Tornado. I also believe it gave him tornado superpowers because everywhere he goes in our home, he leaves a path of destruction and debris.
This is not a post telling you whether you should give your child medication or not. I do not have the right to weigh in on your specific circumstances. But I am sharing with you that I really struggled with this. I still did not feel that I had done everything as a parent that I could do, although I was giving the best I had available. My business of ten years was a constant drain on my time and energy. I did hard physical labor nonstop all day every day, often six days a week. My day off was usually spent undoing what three boys had done to our home over the previous several days. The work was draining and exhausting. What was worse was adding the emotional exhaustion that came with running the company. I always felt that Zane suffered the most from this. My oldest two are close in age and have grown up best friends. They have always had each other. When my wife and I were in a busy or hectic season, they could always rely on each other. Zane, being six years younger than my middle son, has felt alone. He told his therapist that he doesn’t fit in at home. Heartbreaking! Of course, that is not true, but it is true to him. His feelings and perceptions are real. I, as the leader, must take ownership for those perceptions. After the tornado, there was a long time of rebuilding, and I am not just talking about our physical home. For the first several crucial years of his life, his mom and dad were in literal survival mode. That is not his fault, nor should it be his problem to sort out. And on top of that, I felt like I was now giving him medication because I didn’t have my own stuff together. Whether this is true or not, it is what I believed. I know that this topic concerning medication is very sensitive, so I will repeat again, I am only speaking to my own personal family circumstances and experiences, not yours.
One day, Zane asked me to hand him one of his “chill pills.” I said,
“What did you say?”
“My chill pill, Dad. I need one.”
“Don’t call it that. I don’t like that.”
“That’s what it is, a chill pill.”
“No, it’s not. Don’t say that.”
After a few months of being on the medication we did see a difference in his behavior at home and at school, but any time we forgot to give him a “chill pill” we could also tell. I found myself using this as an excuse to his coaches if he was not paying attention at practice. We were blaming his poor behavior at school on forgetting to give him his medication. I didn’t like any of this. The final straw for me was when I blew up on him for not eating dinner one night. It was the umpteenth time in a row that he did not eat the dinner that I made and told me he wanted something else. I lost it. My wife told me that its not his fault, and that its “one of the side effects of the medication.” She said, “He has to make himself eat because it takes away his appetite.” I was still hot, so I loudly replied (she would probably say yelled), “Then I don’t want him on the stupid medication if he can’t even eat. I’d rather he eat healthy than be chilled out all the time!” She gave me a disagreeing look which I later realized had less to do with what I said and more to do with how I said it. The next evening, she came to me and said, “Hey, I just want you to know that I agree. I’m ready to pull him off the meds.” Done.
Shortly after this, we transitioned from our company. I told my wife that I feel that closing out our company and having more free time was much more for Zane than anything else. I am devoted to putting his needs ahead of mine. Like many of you, I believe that I have always given my very best to my kids. The problem is that I just didn’t like “my best.” It was the best I had, but it wasn’t good enough. I have worked intentionally hard for a long time to improve what “my best” is.
When Miss Lori took Zane out for dinner to talk one-on-one about his decision to follow Jesus and his upcoming baptism, he told her, “My daddy plays with me every night before I go to bed.” When I was told that he said this I was hit from both sides emotionally. On one side, I felt such joy knowing that was so special to him. Every night we play Monkey. Monkey is a blue, long-armed, long-legged, stuffed monkey with a shirt that says I (heart) NY. I bought it as a last-minute souvenir from La Guardia airport to bring home to him a few years back. Monkey does not talk but does all these stupid, mischievous, knucklehead things. It is so dumb and silly, but it is the highlight of his day. He belly laughs at the ridiculous things that Monkey does every night. Zane is eight years old, and I recently wondered, “How long am I going to have to keep this up?” The other night he told me that he will never get rid of Monkey, and he is going to play Monkey with his kids. I never would have thought that this is what would be the most important thing that he wanted to tell Miss Lori.
The other side of this is I also felt shame. I feel shame for all of the nights I have told him no. He asks every night for me to play Monkey. I have told him so many times that “I can’t, I’m too tired, not tonight, let daddy rest, I’ve had a hard day,” etc. And, unfortunately, I was too tired. This sounds bad, but there are many nights that I knew I could not even walk up the stairs. My body was that physically drained from my work. That is sad. Thankfully, I can now say that as of the day I first brought Monkey home to him, I have lost over 50lbs and am in great shape. Being physically present with my boys was a big motivating factor for me to take control of my health. I now race Zane up the stairs when he asks me to play Monkey and tuck him in.
Being more present, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, was the medicine that Zane needed…well, and some Monkey. We are working harder as parents to research, study, and prepare food, activities, and organizational systems that are going to help him be successful. “Our best” has gotten better. We still have a ways to go, but his behavior at school has shown signs of improvement. I think he scored seven goals in his last two soccer games. The kid has been laser focused. He sets his own alarm in the morning and a couple of weeks ago, he got up, brushed his teeth, got dressed, made his own breakfast all without being told. This may not sound like much, but this is a BIG deal for Zane! The most impressive part of the recent changes in him has been his joy. He feels valued, loved, and knows that he “fits in.”
A week before Zane’s baptism, my wife asked me if I wanted to talk to Zane again about me baptizing him. I said no. I was just so amazed at how excited he was to do this. This was his first and most important spiritual decision to make in his life. I did not want to confuse it at all. I felt such pride watching Zane enter the baptismal. He was nervous. He looked out across the crowd of people, shoulders slouching. When his eyes met mine he smiled, then he looked over my shoulder at both sets of grandparents and all his uncles and aunts and cousins. I felt my eyes water a little as I watched his chest begin to bow, his shoulders perk, and he stood tall and confident. His people showed up for him and as his Dad, I knew every single thought he was thinking through the expression on his face. He knew he was in the right place, and he knew he “fit in.”
I would not have seen any of this if I had not been sitting where I was. I was supposed to be in that chair, not on the stage. I snapped the picture above just seconds before he got dunked. I looked through my pictures the next morning and just happened to zoom in on this one. His face says it all. He was so excited. This was his big special moment, and in his mind, everyone in attendance was there just for him. I loved it! Miss Lori said that backstage he was singing and dancing and told her, “This is the best day ever. I am super-pumped!”
Many times, as parents, we unintentionally get in the way. We get in the way of our kids. We do this by being selfish, again, unintentionally. We’re busy, we’re stressed, we’re exhausted, we want to baptize our own kid! We’re just doing the best we can. I applaud all parents for giving their best, but I would challenge us to always reevaluate what our best is.
As I was writing this, I could not help but think about our friend Andee. She is a single mother of a child with disabilities. She is and always has been a rockstar parent. She probably does not see herself that way, but we do. I always wonder, “how does she do all that she does?” As I have known her since we were kids, and have watched her raise her son, I clearly see the answer to my question. She does three simple things:
1. She gives her best.
2. She works ridiculously hard to increase what her best is.
3. She uses her experiences, success, and hardships to help others.
That’s it. That is the straight-forward formula to being a better parent. It is not the fix-all for all the unique situations that you may be dealing with, but it is where you begin. The details for each of our families and situations look a little, or maybe a lot, different, but if we can just intentionally and consistently focus our efforts on these three things, then I believe we all will see positive change in our homes and internally.
