Raising Good Kids

Three Remedies for a Swelled Head

Picture yourself in this story told to me by a friend: She’s walking with her sixth-grade daughter when they run into a friend. "I hear you’re going to that special program at the high school this summer. What, are you teaching down there now?" the friend asks the daughter in jest. The daughter replies with a broad smile, "I’m probably smart enough to."

The mom finds herself on the horns of a dilemma. She has tried to foster in her children a strong positive sense of themselves. But she wonders whether she has unwittingly been encouraging arrogance instead.

An ethnic confession: The Irish have always had a horror of their children (or anyone, for that matter) having what they call a "swelled head." (One strand of the famed Irish sense of humor serves to cut you ruthlessly down to size if you get too big for your britches.) People my age often recall how their parents would take secret pride in their children’s achievements and even brag about them to others, but would rarely praise the child directly, lest the child fall into the sin of pride.

Times have changed. Every day we parents hear that part of our job is to foster in our children positive self-esteem. And so we cheer each shoe that is tied, hire a brass band for every successful trip to the potty, turn cartwheels for grades achieved, chores done. A little parental cheerleading has been long overdue, to help our children grow into strong, capable adults who don’t need to run up blind alleys (drugs, sex, bowing to peer pressure) seeking the self-esteem they lack.

So do we cancel out the sin of pride so dreaded by the Irish? Let our kids brag about themselves to the neighborhood?

I think not. But neither do we quiet our cheerleading. What if we hold this question up to the light of faith? Catholicism encourages us to see life through the lens of gift, gratitude, and generosity, the three G’s, which can give us some perspective:

1. Gift: Our very life, of course, is a gift from God, without whom we wouldn’t be here at all. So are our talents and our natural abilities, whether they be to make music, shoot a basketball, paint a picture, or get an A in English. Other gifts: curiosity, enthusiasm, perceptiveness. To these gifts we add a helping of our own hard work and persistence. God may have made me a natural musician, but I’ll only get to Carnegie Hall if I practice, practice, practice. I can take pride in my effort, so long as first I recognize the gifts God gave me.

2. Gratitude: We hammer into our children the need to say thank you for gifts given. Being grateful for God’s gifts can take work, however, because they surround us at every turn. We take them for granted. We may fall into thinking we earned them or created them ourselves. Gratitude is a discipline we can encourage in our children by modeling it ourselves. Do we thank God (out loud, in front of our kids) for all the gifts and blessings we know we did not earn? Gratitude often wells up at times of death or serious illness, when ultimate realities take center stage. But don’t wait that long. Practice being grateful every day, at the dinner table or bedtime.

3. Generosity: Gratitude, well practiced, leads us on to generosity. When I realize that I didn’t earn my gifts and that I’m grateful for them, I find myself wondering how I can share them with others. A concert violinist plays to stir her listeners with the beauty of music, not to win awards. A grateful heart doesn’t need to grasp for glory.

So cheer on your kids for their hard work. But also help them learn to recognize their gifts and say thanks to the Giver.