To Push or Not to Push
“I can make my kids do hard things.” The words stung my ears, flooded my brain, shredded my heart. I was scaling back on homeschool requirements to accommodate my older daughter’s depression. I was slimming down the math program to help my younger daughter cope with ADHD and autism. I write curriculum that streamlines the classical model to something that any kid can do—and enjoy.
Am I failing my children? Am I allowing them to languish in laziness and ease? Am I preventing them from being as great as they can be? Am I cutting off their potential?
“I can make my kids do hard things.” The implication is that the more accessible work I’m asking my children to do is not enough. I’m slacking off as a mother. I’m not only allowing my children to traipse through a life of ease, I’m wallowing in the daisies myself.
Let me tell you, it isn’t true.
Depression is a hard thing. Autism is a hard thing. Bipolar disorder is a hard thing. ADHD is a hard thing. Anxiety is a hard thing.
My children do hard things. I don’t have to make them.
Life did that.
But how do you know? As a parent, how do you know when your child is manipulating you to get out of hard work? How do you know when mental health issues are “for real” and when they’re an excuse to be lazy? How do you know whether you’ve done everything possible to encourage them to try, to push them to excel, to nudge them up the ladder of success?
You don’t.
You can push them. Maybe they will do well. Maybe you will push them off a cliff. When mental illness is a factor, nothing is the same as it would be without it. Pushing too hard can result in suicidal ideation. It can result in a violent reaction. It can result in a meltdown.
I wish I had a yardstick by which to measure how close to the edge of that cliff my children are amid their complaints about their anxiety and depression. I can’t read their minds. I’m not sure they themselves know the answer to the question.
For me, then, the answer is usually grace. When my daughter says her head hurts too much to do schoolwork, I don’t make her do schoolwork. When easier work is something my daughter can do, and harder work weighs her down and makes her depressed, easier work is what I give her. Grace. Is grace always appropriate? Shouldn’t I push harder, make them try harder, assume that I can edge them to take one more step to the better?
Sure. Nudge—but don’t push. Encourage—but don’t browbeat. Suggest—but don’t demand. This is the tightrope I try to walk.
When mental illness is a factor, pushing, browbeating, and demanding are ingredients in a recipe for disaster. My children didn’t choose to be mentally ill. They didn’t choose to have a debilitating illness. They would rather be healthy and able to push themselves to their limits. They’re amazing human beings. They’re also sinners in need of a savior. In need of forgiveness. In need of grace.
Most of the time, I’ve found, the more I push, the more difficult their mental struggles become. They will get there. They will achieve. But they will do it in their own way and in their own time. They will do great things by learning to walk through life with a disability, by getting up on their own legs and walking. Infants walk at different ages. I had a son who walked at 9 months. Another didn’t walk until 13 months. Pushing the “late bloomer” would not have resulted in an earlier walker. It would have resulted in an angry and insecure baby.
“Depending on the severity and duration of their illnesses, my children may not arrive at every milestone “on time.” They may not arrive at some typical milestones at all. But they will be who God made them to be. They will be able to fulfill His purposes for them. His purposes. Not mine.
My children do hard things. They are amazing.
Are you a Christian parenting an individual with mental illness? Join the Eleventh Willow private Facebook support group to meet other parents who understand. Let’s help each other walk this path.
Photo by Cindy Tang on Unsplash