Teaching By Example: Does it Actually Work?

Childrearing is often treated in our culture as a competitive sport. Parents become overinvolved coaches running drills. The relationship between parent and child can be seen as decidedly one-way: the parent teaching the child.

Outside the strictures of hyper-scheduled living, there is another, more interesting model of the dynamic relationship between parents and children. Mothers and fathers may find that they learn far more from their children than they will ever be able to teach. The homeschooling mother discovers when reviewing basic math with a young child that she never mastered the material at all but is only just beginning alongside her child.

Most humbling, parents who have masqueraded as successful, emotionally well-adjusted people up to now find themselves seething with rage, crushed with despair, and impatient in the face of daily life with children. In this instance, there is not much that an emotionally explosive young child can teach the parent, but the parent is given the gift of seeing himself as he really is. We can have all the pretense of being in control of ourselves in a quiet life with scheduled rest and fancy facials, but when the rubber hits the road—and the kids start screaming—we find ourselves ever so much out of control. In that terrifying realization, we have the opportunity to turn ourselves over to God’s power, the only power that can rescue us from ourselves.

A Different Kind of Teaching

Now that we know we don’t even have full control of ourselves and our stormy tempers, bad habits, selfishness, what in heavens’ name are we supposed to do with these children? Maybe a valid approach is not much. Yes, there will be lots of caring and feeding, time spent reading books, shared afternoons in the park. These don’t look much like the rigors of sport-coach parenting. There’s very little bossing, monitoring, measuring, or prodding. There’s much more living together.

While that may sound peachy, there’s the pesky question of all the stuff the children are supposed to pick up before reaching adulthood. If we want them to read, we should read. If we want them to play the piano, we should play the piano. If we want them to have a tidy environment, we should clean the house with them.  If we want them to draw pictures, we should spend time in their presence engaged in creative pursuits.

If we pour all our energy into sanitizing countertops, orchestrating extracurriculars, chauffeuring to planned activities, our children never have the benefit of seeing how civilized people live. Leisure is merely the space between activities but a foretaste of the eternity we crave. By managing less and demonstrating more, perhaps we can teach our children lessons that are really worth learning.

Too Good to be True?

Could something so simple really work? Not for everyone and not always. But for many people a lot of the time, surely it’s worth a shot. In her 1938 book If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence, and Spirit, Brenda Ueland includes a chapter entitled, “Why women who do too much housework should neglect it for their writing.” She writes:

For to teach, encourage, cheer up, console, amuse, stimulate or advise a husband or children or friends, you must be something yourself. And how to be something yourself? Only by working hard and with gumption at something you love and care for and think is important.

So if you want your children to be musicians, then work at music yourself, seriously and with all your intelligence. If you want them to be scholars, study hard yourself. And so it goes.

And that is why I would say to the worn and hectored mother who longed to write and could find not a minute for it: If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say: “Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!” you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.

With such startlingly little ability to control ourselves, ruling others by force and domination is sure to lead to frustration. Our children need authority but more than that they need example. The stories people tell of adults who shaped their lives and defined their ideals are rarely ones of management. They are visions of a life worth living: full bookshelves, happy families, warm qualities that are a joy to be around. Teaching by example keeps the focus on the best things of life, offering an invitation for our children in place of a cudgel.