Normalising good!

One of the things I like to share about parenting is what I call "normalising good". 

One of the best examples I have of this is a video I have of one of my kids at a stationery store. If your kids are anything like mine, there's a good chance that they really like nice stationery, like the ones they have at Smiggle!

So in the video, my daughter is a few years old, maybe 5 or 6. She wanders up to a gloriously pink pencilcase in the store and picks it up. 

She clearly loves it, and her eyes widen as she looks over all the sparkly bits. She then looks straight at me in the camera, calmly says, "cannot buy right?", and without skipping a beat, wanders right off screen :D

Now, it's not like she doesn't like the pencilcase. She obviously does. It's not like she gets praise for not throwing a tantrum. She doesn't. It's not like, as a secret reward, I get her the pencilcase later. I don't.

Repeated again and again, this behaviour is normalised. That's why she knows enough to not even ask for the pencilcase. 

That's not to say she didn't get nice stuff - she did. But she knew that random loot was not a thing. And she knew that kicking up a fuss would achieve nothing. 

Importantly, and here's the key I think - she also knew that NOT kicking up a fuss does not result in a reward. Good behaviour is expected. It's normal. So there's no special reward for it. This is what is supposed to happen, whether or not there is a reward.

Over time, good behaviour is learned as a good in itself, and not as a trigger for reward. No reward is needed to prompt good behaviour. 

And super importantly, she learns to engage in good behaviour even when it hurts, and even when it doesn't offer any apparent reward.

Again - this doesn't mean she isn't loved and provided for. I like to think she knows she is so regularly loved and provided for, independent of "good behaviour", that she doesn't need extra rewards.

Now, I'm not saying that my children grew up never having tantrums, always doing good for the sake of it. They also had meltdowns. They didn't always do the right thing. But they understand that good is supposed to be normal, whether there is reward or not, and whether it is easy or not.

So what kinds of behaviour do we want to see in our children? For me, it's important that my children get involved in serving others. How do I make that normal? 

So my kids have been dragged along on my wife and my social activities and mission work from a very young age. 

I once brought my toddler children to engage in flag day for a charity - anyone who's ever done that will know it's super tiring standing around all day, trying to talk to people who don't want to talk to you :D 

I didn't realise that it's an offence to bring children along to such activities (because it seems exploitative), so when it was pointed out to me, I had to stop! But for what it's worth, it was fantastic for my kids to have the chance to work, with no reward other than the work itself.

From the moment they were toddlers, I brought my kids for mission work in Japan, China and now Indonesia. These trips taught me several things. 

For one thing, it helped to break all the walls in my own head that said, oh it's too difficult to haul along diapers and milk powder, too difficult to handle a wailing child, there're too many germs for a kid to handle. We'll do it when they're older.

Well, it was difficult. At first. Then... it just became normal.

Because the kids were tiny, we brought a pram with us on one of our mission trips. That seemed a mistake - because when we got there, we had to haul the pram up to a hill village while carrying the kids as well - I didn't think that there would be no road for me to roll a pram on! 

When we finally got there, I sure was not going to haul that darn thing back down the mountain, so I gave away the pram to a mother of twins up in that village. So, I guess, not a mistake after all!

I also remember the time we spent time in a farmer's home talking to the family there while the children ran around outside. My son casually appeared in the doorway some time later, absolutely smothered from head to toe with cow dung, having romped around in the field with the animals while we were distracted (accompanying picture is Co-Pilot generated and with a Caucasian kid, but... not too far off what my son actually looked like that day :D). My wife and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

But you know, he survived (though none of his clothes did - we decided they were impossible to wash!). He didn't get sick. And judging by the amount of poop on him, he had a great time :D

Fast forward to when my children were in university or in the army. My daughter studied overseas - when she was back in Singapore, the thing she wanted to do the most was stay at the home she missed so much. But when we went on our trips to Indonesia, she'd still come along, assuming that she just would. It was normal. No complaints, no rewards.

If you've gone through national service, you know how precious the weekends are to the boys. They train hard all week, sometimes with very little sleep if they're on exercise or shift duty. Weekends are to decompress, relax, probably play computer games :D 

So I was amazed when my son would also just turn up for our weekend trips to Indonesia, to spend time painting the school, play games with the students, visit our friends in the villages and even (nervously!) wash out lice from the kids' heads. He simply assumed he was supposed to be there. No excuses, no rewards. And he even invited his own friends to join him!

My children know very well that their father is full of faults - sometimes hot tempered, often impatient, struggling to do what he should. But normalising good has taught them that if even their very normal, very flawed father can do good, then so can they. 

You don't have to be Mother Teresa to serve. Normal, messed up people serve, and serve in amazing ways that they can't even imagine, because it's not them, but God working in and through them.

Now, none of this is absolute assurance that it will continue for my kids. But I have a confidence that it will, as I cling to the promise that if I "train up a child in the way he should go; when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6)

So that's my blog for this month. Normalise good - it's worth it! And if you have kids you want to start on this journey of serving others, do get in touch. It's not too early, and never too late. We have interesting work in Singapore every month, and overseas every 1-2 months. Join us :)