Raising Likable Humans

Is your child someone others want to be around?

Two weeks ago, I tipped my hat to Dr. Feigin and the most important thing he taught me: to keep my parenting goals simple and twofold. Raise kids who will be kind and contribute to the world.

Thinking back on my own parenting goals, I thought of one more to add. My grandmother said to my mom, and my mom said to us, that her main goal was to raise children to be people that others will want to be around.

I have thought of that many times as I make my way through my own parenting journey. I am raising three children who will be citizens of the world. Some days, I do it well, and other days, I totally, mercilessly screw it up.

But on the days I screw it up, I know it. Don’t we all? And I hope for a better tomorrow. Some mornings I nag them to death to get their stuff together for school. Some afternoons I greet them with exhausted irritation rather than the loving reunion they’d expect from a mother. And some nights, we all drop into bed exhausted and disconnected.

But daily I am proud of my children for being people that others will want to be around. When they were very young, it was a joy to be around them as they explored their world and absorbed new things. And for almost 16 years I have watched their interactions and tried to correct them when I see them behaving in a way that is annoying, disrespectful or unconscious. I have tried to guide them so that they won’t be seen as such.

One of my children inherited the hot-tempered gene. It has mellowed with age, but he feels emotions intensely and always has. When he was around 18 months to 2 ½ years old, he was fierce. We have “incident reports” from his school that are all similar.

“A friend stepped in front of him in the line. He bit the friend.”

“A friend took his toy. He bit the friend.”

“A friend wouldn’t let him on the slide. He bit the friend.”

Those reports are funny now, but at the time, my son’s teachers and we were working with him daily on naming the emotion of anger and choosing words instead of biting.

They called me one day with a notable success. A classmate was poking my son on the shoulder repeatedly. My son asked the friend to stop and, as he felt his temper rising, finally offered the phrase his teachers had been diligently teaching him to say before biting. “WALK AWAY OR I’LL BITE YOU!”

In that particular case, he got poked one more time and snapped. He still bit his classmate that day, but he was able to warn the friend his anger was boiling and the teeth were coming. It was a step in the right direction, a step toward becoming someone others want to be around.

We all have to learn to walk away from tense situations and prickly people. We all have to learn not to bite (figuratively and literally) so that we won’t be someone others act like they don’t see in the grocery store and avoid at all costs.

So there’s another goal to add to the first two.

Be kind.
Contribute to the world.
Be someone other people want to be around.

If, in every single situation, you treat others the way you want to be treated, then that mutual respect spreads out into the world.

There are so many lessons to learn on the road to being someone others want to be around, but we can handle them, one at a time, even if we have to say each one 100 times.

Don’t bite your friends, so they’ll want to be around you.

Don’t be bossy, so people want to be around you.

Don’t brag. Don’t be a bully. Look people in the eye. Don’t be critical. Don’t gossip mean-heartedly. Don’t be disrespectful. People won’t want to be around you.

I watch my kids’ interactions with people they know and, sometimes more importantly, people they don’t know, and I am proud. I am proud because, somehow, even with all my imperfections as a parent, and even on the days our own interactions are toxic and unproductive, I think my kids are growing into people others generally want to be around.

The advice and opinions herein are by no means meant to be a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact your personal physician, mental health provider or health care professional for medical advice.

Be Grateful for Unpleasantries

Fathering