An Example of Trusting
I was interviewing someone in the living room of my home. After talking for an hour or so, we took a break, and I began to get off the couch. I was sunk deep into the couch, and I don’t have quite the mobility I once had, so I struggled a little to get up.
Another person in the room, a woman weighing maybe a hundred pounds, came over and offered to help. She took my hand and attempted to lift me straight up. Had I pulled on her hand, she would simply have fallen onto the couch beside me.
“No matter how hard you pull,” I said, “you’ll never lift me straight up.”
“I think you’re right,” she said.
“Don’t try to pull me up,” I suggested. “But if you’re willing simply to trust me, you’ll succeed, with very little effort.”
I instructed her to put her toes beneath mine, so she wouldn’t slip, and then to allow me to grasp each of her wrists with each of my hands. “Now, if you will throw yourself backward, and trust completely that I won’t let go of you, your falling weight will pull me right up. Simple physics, and the only real effort is my holding on to your wrists.”
Somewhat to my surprise, she did exactly as I instructed, without the hesitation that would have made our effort impossible. I rose easily from the couch.
Trusting the Parenting Principles
As with the woman helping me, often we believe that the harder we work or try, the better the results will be. But sometimes it’s only a little faith that is required. You don’t need to try harder to be a better parent.
Instead, trust the love you’ve acquired from others, trust the principles you teach, trust the power of loving your children, and trust your children that they will respond to loving and teaching better than all the alternatives. It’s all in the trusting.
