Raising Gritty Kids: Your Guide to Parenting in Times of Uncertainty

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Copyright © 2021 Kara Yokley & Constance Yokley

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-5445-1859-6

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To a better world

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Contents

Introduction

1. Know the Landscape

2. Know Your Child

3. Nurturing Mental Interests

4. Physicality and Self-Esteem

5. Developing an Emotional Tool Kit

6. Developing Social Presence in a Shifting Landscape

7. Nurturing Spirituality and Ethical Behavior

8. Money and Raising Resilient Kids

9. Don’t Lose Yourself in Your Parenting

10. Parenting with Others

11. Ready to Launch

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

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Introduction

She doesn’t talk much about the war days, but when she does, I listen, rapt with attention. My husband’s grandmother came of age during World War II. Spend any amount of time with her today, and you can’t help but be struck by her strength and zest for life.

It can be hard to imagine growing up in a landscape shaped by such upheaval. And yet, life goes on. Babcia married, had children who had children, lived through the loss of a husband and a child. She left her home in search of a better life, watched the world become more interconnected and then more digital, and through it all, carried on—through all the dramas, large and small, personal and impersonal, mundane and heartbreaking. Her fearlessness and resilience in the face of change seem to be the precise result of having lived through so many changes.

In reality, each of us will live through many personal and societal upheavals. When I first conceived of this book project with my mom, I never could have anticipated the circumstances under which we would be writing. Truly, these are extraordinary times. Who knew the rapidity with which the COVID-19 crisis would unfold and that day-to-day life would change so dramatically? That we would witness a frightening reinforcement of old anxieties around money and tribalism? How could we have known there would be an immediate need to reassess the extent and nature of personal freedoms?

I have lived through my share of personal upheaval. So, even before COVID-19, I made every effort to be flexible in my thinking and adaptable in my actions. However, the sweeping nature of the pandemic took me by surprise and forced me to reflect anew on the need for resilience in the face of unforeseen challenges.

In this book, my mother and I hope to share ideas and reflections that are relevant today, perhaps now even more so than before. COVID-19 has been a wake-up call. Ultimately, decisions made halfway around the world affected everyone’s ability to work, educate and learn, exercise, shop, travel, and simply be in the company of others. This uncertain environment has caused many to question how much anybody truly understands the world in which we live. As parents, this reality can be especially daunting.

Most parents feel the weight of responsibility to protect their children, to do what is best for them, to help them launch into adulthood, and to achieve success. Yet in these uncertain times, the best way to do that is often unclear. These current challenges underscore the anxieties many American parents already felt as they looked to the future—the prohibitive cost of higher education, the mismatch between salaries and childcare costs, the escalating price of home ownership and cost of living. In the context of today’s landscape, these age-old questions only add to the intensity of felt anxieties.

Brené Brown has said, Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.1 The natural instinct of most parents is to help their children thrive. It is a biological imperative. However, here’s the thing: the model that worked for past generations seems to be broken, and it feels hard to carve out something new.

America is in a period of flux and there is a lot about which to be anxious. How does one prepare children for the future when the paths to success are no longer clear? How is one to raise well-balanced, productive, resilient members of society who can handle whatever life throws at them? Goodness knows, a lot could be coming their way.

This book offers a practical framework to help answer these questions. Our intent is not to suggest one definitive way to parent. Rather, we are providing research-backed tools to help you identify and refine your parenting style and to develop the best plan for your child in your landscape, a plan that will give you confidence that you are indeed making the best choices possible for your unique situation.

Organic Parenting

Shinichi Suzuki came of age at a time of great global upheaval. In many ways, those profound experiences shaped him into a true citizen of the world and influenced the music education philosophy he would later develop. In Nurtured by Love, Suzuki says, Our aim needs to be the nurturing of children. The moment we rigidly convince ourselves, ‘Education is what we’re after,’ we warp a child’s development. First foster the heart, then help the child acquire ability. This is indeed nature’s proper way.2

Organic parenting takes into consideration some of Suzuki’s revelations. Instead of a rigid set of rules, we offer a framework that focuses on fostering your child’s heart and spirit and helping your child acquire the ability to navigate the changes and uncertainties of life.

The framework is grounded in two basic principles:

Knowing the present and shifting social, familial, and cultural landscape in which you are raising your child

Knowing your child’s interests, preferences, personality, strengths and weaknesses, and more

Organic parenting is responsive. It respects the individuality of each child and does not compare siblings or peers, so as not to inadvertently impose on one child the expectations had for another. It does not mean leaving a child to his own devices. It means allowing the child to make age-appropriate decisions and being ready to offer guidance as a wise observer-participant.

From this vantage point, it is possible to craft decisions with confidence derived from knowing that the unique landscape and the characteristics of the child have been fully considered.

In the pages that follow, we discuss various aspects of this framework along with concrete suggestions for applying it within your environment:

In chapter 1, we discuss the first principle: understanding the landscape in which you are raising your child, shifting and uncertain as it may be.

In chapter 2, we discuss what it means to know your child and to make parenting decisions based on his unique characteristics.

In chapters 3–7, we look more closely at five aspects of your child’s makeup and the landscape in which she lives: mental, physical, emotional, social, and ethical/spiritual. We also present ideas for developing and navigating each component in a way that makes sense for your child. Think of your home as a safe place in which your child can try on and practice new skillsets that will help her function responsibly in the real world.

In chapter 8, we delve into money and how it relates to raising resilient children.

In chapter 9, we suggest ways to embrace the opportunities for personal growth that parenting provides, without losing yourself entirely in your parenting.

In chapter 10, we discuss challenges that arise as you parent with others. We provide suggestions for harmoniously navigating the wishes and quirks of partners, grandparents, teachers, and more in ways that benefit your child.

In chapter 11, we provide suggestions for laying the groundwork for your child’s eventual launch into adulthood.

Four important threads weave in and out of our framework, as well as each chapter: love, respect, trust, and curiosity. Out of a foundation of love for one’s child comes respect for his individuality and personhood. Through conversation and mutual engagement, trust is born, which creates a healthy parent-child relationship. Finally, to parent organically, one has to be curious about the current landscape, to ask questions and embark on a quest to find the path that makes the most sense given the landscape and the child. You remain your child’s first model of love, respect, trust, curiosity—and resiliency.

My mom and I talked at length about the kinds of new choices we observed parents making today. In this book, my mom shares generously her own experience with the organic parenting method. In the main text, I discuss her method, tips on applying the framework, and resources for more information. Each chapter also features sidebars penned by my mom, Connie. These stories illustrate principles from the main text through family history, glimpses of cultural landscape, and examples of organic parenting in action. Later in this introduction, for example, Connie explains how and why her organic parenting style came to be.

Coming of Age on the Southside of Chicago

Much as is the case in families everywhere, my two siblings and I exhibited different personality traits from the start. In our little home, there was no shortage of sibling drama. My older sister was strong, one might dare say, headstrong. Once Nora decided how things were going to go—be it what clothes she wanted to wear, what after-school activities she wanted to pursue, or getting married at age nineteen and sneaking out to elope if my parents didn’t agree—woe to anyone who got in her way. She was dedicated to her principles in a way that made her unafraid to engage in all-out combat to get her way.

From the get-go, my younger brother was the cool one. He had an ease with peers and grownups alike that I often watched with a tinge of envy. He had some natural-born Jedi mind tricks that made argument and debate unnecessary. He had my parents indulging him with whole trays of cinnamon rolls and seemingly endless episodes of DuckTales and Gumby. David was that rare child who was simultaneously brilliant and popular, nerdy and cool. Both captain of the math club and his youth soccer team, he flitted between groups like it was no big deal. And yet, he was most comfortable close to home.

As the middle child, I craved acceptance and approval. Sure, I had my moments of pushing boundaries, like the time when I was seven and decided to cut choir practice to hang out with the naughty kids because I wanted to walk on the wild side (i.e., play on the swings behind the church). Generally, though, one stern look from my mother was all it took to have me quivering in my boots. I was nerdy and plump, intensely competitive, and awkward all at once. More than anything, however, I was curious about the world. I had a sense that there was so much more to experience beyond the confines of our little neighborhood. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been on the lookout for my next big adventure.

Today, my sister lives in a deeply conservative environment in the southeastern United States. Nora is an evangelical minister and full-time homeschooler for her six children. She did marry young, although my parents convinced her to wait until she was twenty-one and nearly done with her undergraduate work. She went on to work in communications, complete graduate studies, work in epidemiological research, and collaborate on published papers.

My brother remains in Chicago, but he traded in the near-suburbia of our youth to live in a glass-walled high-rise overlooking the lake. He is a successful software developer, so passionate that even his free time is spent coding and sharing his work in open-source forums. He continues to play soccer and lead his adult league team, and despite my mother’s pleading after each ankle injury and knee surgery, he has no plans as of yet to give it up.

I have lived on the East Coast and in the Midwest, in big cities, and now in another country within a semirural community. I have climbed mountains and hiked through Antarctica, jumped out of planes, and run half and full marathons. I put travel, graduate school, and career before parenthood, and now I’m an older mom with one child.

As when we were children, my siblings and I are very different as adults, but we are all productive and resilient. Most importantly, though, we have a great relationship with our parents and with each other.

When I was growing up, I watched how my mom parented my sister, brother, and me. I watched how she responded to each of us and to our individual interests, personalities, and needs. She knew how to appeal to our unspoken natures to get the best results with seemingly the least friction. It felt like she was raising each of us in a different way, yet it did not seem forced. It seemed natural. As a result of the parenting decisions made, each of us thrived in our own unique ways.

Perhaps guided by a fear of the future, some of my peers’ parents followed an approach bordering on helicopter parenting. They seemed almost to be depending on their children’s success as their own ticket to a new reality. These parents seemed ambitious, demanding, and driven. And it did not always work out as planned. I knew kids who responded to this pressure by rebelling and, to put it mildly, moving in directions their parents could not have anticipated. With less stress all around, my siblings and I were able to chart our individual paths and find happiness and success on our own terms.

My goal in writing this book is simple: I know my mom’s organic parenting style works because I have lived it. As I continue on this grand parenting adventure with my own daughter, Lena, it is my intention to mimic those guiding principles my mom laid out. In the pages that follow, we share with you what we’ve learned along the way.

Citizens of the World

Some ideas can best be shared through stories, which resonate differently for different people. It is my hope that the vignettes shared are entertaining, informational, and helpful to parents in the trenches.

Many years ago, when Kara’s sister asked me for tips on child rearing, my rather offhanded reply was, Raise children with whom you can live. At the time, I wondered if that was the response Nora expected. In retrospect, I think she was looking to me for some kind of magical parenting formula. The truth is, it doesn’t exist.

When I was attending the University of Illinois as an undergrad, a social science professor told our class, Your children will be children of the world. Say what? Although not fully understanding the implications, I internalized this statement as one more life task to complete without any explanation as to how. I filed the thought away in the must plan to learn more category.

Later, when I was married and planning for my first child, the professor’s admonition came to mind. How was this citizen of the world business to take place? As a child of the Great Migration, I wasn’t sure, but I committed to finding a way to raise a world-class child.

When Kara’s sister was a toddler, my plan was to go back to school for a graduate degree. In my youthful mind, I assumed that I could rely on my mother to be a major parenting presence throughout those years. From my perspective at the time, my mom had done a good job of raising five successful and responsible children—and she’d done it while working the eleven-to-seven shift as an OB/GYN nurse. She taught us how to maintain the house while she was away. We learned how to look out for each other and how to rotate the daily chores, which included cooking, cleaning, washing, and ironing clothes. The house was clean and well organized. We were happy kids who did well in school.

Within two years of my marriage, I found myself spending more time at Mom’s house than at my own. My beautiful and youthful-looking mother became a grandma when my first daughter was born, but she certainly didn’t look like anybody’s grandmother. She could have passed for a not-very-much-older sister. So, Mom became Mama and my daughter called me Connie. At one point, a playmate who wouldn’t dare call her own parents by their first names, remarked alarmingly, You mean you call your mother ‘Connie’?

Needless to say, life can be unpredictable. My plan fell through when Mom, after more than two decades juggling the night shift with being a single parent as well as active in our community, suddenly and unexpectedly was struck with a life-threatening illness. It was then that I really understood that being Mama to my child was my responsibility.

Before Mom passed away many years later, she shared with me that she had been determined to raise her children in a way that was different from the way she was brought up. In a sense, when the ball was in my court, it became my turn to figure out how best to get the parenting job done. These were the circumstances that inspired some deep thinking around what kind of parent I wanted to be.

I liked the idea of raising my children to be citizens of the world, to thrive in dynamic environments, and to find creative ways to contribute to their communities. One element of my strategy was to give my children gender-neutral toys, which meant dolls