Give Your Children Deep Roots
Shallow roots weather no storms. At least, that’s a lesson we teach our children. It is a lesson of botany with a metaphor about the value of struggle in human development.
You see, when a tree is first planted, it requires a great deal of care, just like a child. You must monitor it so that you may be able to prevent it from dying unnecessarily, encouraging your investment so that it will eventually increase the value of your property.
Then there comes a time when the tree must survive and thrive on its own. It has to learn to dig into the soil, burrowing as deeply as it needs to for its water; if it does not, then its foundation will be shallow and it will blow over as soon as the first big storm rolls through.
Children and Their Storms
And so is it with children. Those who do not learn to “dig for their own water” will not be able to dig when they need to. They will simply fall over.
Knowing this and seeing the various depths of those around me, I have begun this lesson of the roots with my children. When they fight, I let them fight. I used to intervene, but all that it accomplished was that I would get upset and they didn’t learn to settle their disputes. Can you think of any adults who cannot settle disputes maturely?
Children Should be Encouraged to Carry Their Own Money
When we are out and the children want something, I almost always ask, “Did you bring your money?” Surely I must look insane when I ask this of a three-year-old, but my insanity is matched by her response of a downtrodden, “no.” “That’s why it’s important to always have your money on you,” I say.
Sometimes she’ll surprise me by pulling out a penny or a quarter. As cute as this is, it does not buy anything for more than that amount. Other times, she’ll pull out several dollar bills.
This money thing did not come easily. In fact, it came with me having to do some digging of my own. My wife had always felt guilty about working and my being away often, so she would buy our oldest (now eight) something every time they went to the store. It would just be a dollar or two, but by the end of a year the house was full of all kinds of crap that didn’t mean anything to anyone save for the $500-$1,000 that had been spent, which would have been much better off in a 529 plan, or IRA.
This Money Well Required Two Months of Non-Stop Digging
I began to dig when my wife, who was then a military reservist, had been activated for three months. We were in a store. My daughter asked for something and I said no. She began to get upset and asked for it the whole time, even throwing a fit. At the time, I was working 45-55 hours a week and was not used to this, so I spent nearly a month of finishing my shopping as my five-year-old screamed bloody-murder while my one-year-old may or may not have joined in at some point.
Then I realized that my daughter had her own money in her piggy bank, so I let her bring it to the store so that she could get what she wanted. This should work out very well, right? Wrong. We got to the store and she wanted something that cost more than she had and refused to leave that section of the store without it (whatever it was). I even let her take it to the register to have the cashier see if she had enough. That did not go over as well as I thought it would. We left the store with a trail of bloody-murder dragging through the parking lot. Again.
Weeks later, she had enough money for the thing (whatever it was) that she had wanted previously. We made a special trip to the store for it, but she now wanted something else that she did not have enough money for.
Through this all, my wife had wanted me to “help her” by giving her a few dollars or paying the tax, and my mother suggested the same. But this lesson was not about digging into dad’s well for what he had. It was about my daughter digging so she could fetch a pail of her own water.
Having gone through two months of living hell, my daughter realized that the days of daily knick-knacks were over. Toys outside of Happy Meals, birthdays, and the holidays were gone, and she did not want to leave another store empty-handed when she had the money to buy something. She decided upon a $16 red dragon with a button on its back that moved its wings and head. Three years later, we still have it. Today, she has her own bank account as does her younger sister, as will the one on the way.
Strengthening the Lesson of the Roots
Recently, I was showing my daughters the disparity between the browning grass and the blossoming magnolia trees in our yard. I explained about the deep roots of the magnolia, how it has survived hurricanes and droughts. The following day I was watering a potted plant and my younger daughter asked, “Why are you doing that, Dad?’” I responded, “So that it has some water to drink.”
“No, Dad,” she said. “Plants dig for their own water.”
And I knew right there that the lesson had stuck. As the years go by, I’ll be able to easily expand upon it so that she will see her roots as she unflinchingly weathers storms that her peers will see as great trials. But she? She will have already been made for them.
