When is a person mature? Is it when he or she reaches a certain age? Is it when a driver’s test can be passed? Perhaps it is when a person can refrain from fruitless argument?

Maturity is often claimed as a measure for independence, or when a person can be recognized as an adult. Yet everyone knows adults they would describe as immature. Maybe the concept of maturity is not well understood or used consistently.

Let’s start by distinguishing between physical and mental maturity. Physical maturity is easier to measure. I think we can accept that maturity  means “having reached a point of optimum potential use or ability” and we can say that a person is physically mature when all physical functions are fully operational.

This helps us with the definition of mental maturity, since it is restricted to potential. Consider this example: a person who is physically mature has the potential to procreate, but they do not have to procreate to be physically mature. The potential is all that matters.

Similarly, someone who is mentally mature has the potential to make helpful decisions. That does not mean he will. In both cases, the person may choose how fully to take advantage of the state of mature capabilities.

Having obtained a state of maturity is not the same as having experience or wisdom. It is mental maturity that makes it possible to learn from experience or handle mistakes. Hopefully, this will in turn result in increasing wisdom. Mental maturity is the potential to problem solve.

A little observation will remind us that maturity cannot be dependent on having all the necessary information to make a decision. Not only are we all always learning as individuals, but what is accepted as general knowledge is very subject to change. Think about adventurous people have frequently been labeled immature, but over time their adventures lead to discoveries that we all benefit from.

The counter point to having the potential to make a useful decision is having the potential to bear the responsibility for it. Here we must differentiate between legal restrictions on bearing responsibility and mental potential to bear responsibility. It also doesn’t matter whether or not a person reacts to the responsibility poorly or chooses to act childlike. The fact remains that there is a point where a person can bear responsibility. Most adults recognize this and don’t want to bear other people’s responsibility.

Fortunately, physical maturity closely coincides with mental maturity. This combination gives a newly mature person

I think I know why “morality” is a dirty word to some people. Two main reasons:

Cultural preference can cover anything from dressing according to religious code to using vocabulary acceptable to political groups. Convenient application usually involves making excuses for what was going to be done anyway.

The fallback response is that morality is “relative.” But this avoids the real issue. Everyone is born with a conscience. Everyone has a strong sense of right and wrong. This can be proven by the fact that everyone gets mad or depressed about wrong treatment.

Even people who try to approach child-raising as “creating an environment where the child gets to chose everything” have a premise that to judge any decision is wrong. This exhibits a basic flaw in their thinking. If you declare that nothing should be judged, you have declared a judgement.

So, then, there is no getting away from the concepts of morality. As humans, we inherently know that we do and must make decisions based on what is right or wrong. Our children are watching to see if our words about morality match our choices.

Children need 3 things from parents regarding morality:

There is a human tendency to think we are good because we know what good is and we want to be good. However, wanting to do what is right is not the same as doing what is right. Verbally declaring a moral code is not the same as living it out.

We can declare all day long that we are honest people, but if our children hear us regularly lie to our neighbors, such declarations will mean little or nothing. If we trash-talk our spouse and then try to teach our children to be kind to each other, they probably won’t take us very seriously.

A key factor in a person applying moral convictions is that everything really has to do with how that person treats others and themselves. It has next to nothing to do with coercing other adults to behave a certain way. The only times we should be interfering with other adults is when there is a clear and present danger to a ourselves or an obviously vulnerable person.

Along the same lines, moral convictions should be applied universally. If it is not okay to steal, it is not okay to steal from anyone. If it is right to let someone chose their own associations, it is right to let everyone chose their own associations. (I will discuss ownership and learning to get along in terms of children in the home in a lat

What do you have faith in? Before you can answer that, you have to have an idea of what is meant by faith. True, words can mean different things to different people. However, a concept is a concept by any other name, to misquote Shakespeare.

The crux of the problem with agreeing about what faith is is that some people equate it with superstition while others say it is believing in something based on evidence. I am in the latter camp, so that is how I will use it in this discussion.

Consider how the word is used person to person. Let’s say you ask someone to deliver a large sum of money to make a payment for you. You would probably say you have faith in that person’s ability and intent to do as asked. Why would you have such faith? Only because you know him well enough to judge his character and skills.

Faith doesn’t always require completely understanding something, either. A classic example is the airplane. Most people have enough faith that it will fly even though they have very little understanding of how or why. They have observed that airplanes are fairly reliable about flying.

The first thing that comes to most peoples’ minds when faith is mentioned is beliefs about how the world came into existence and the meaning of life. There is a strong tendency to dismiss conclusions that we don’t agree with as superstition. What we need to find is a balance between our own confidence and respecting people who are also doing their own best to figure out life.

How does this all affect your relationship with your child? In two main ways:

Children will naturally ask questions about life. If you respond to their childish perspectives with impatience or disdain, you will probably damage their trust in you. I watched a movie recently that portrayed the father as supposedly attempting to encourage his 11 year old son to explain a matter of faith. I think the movie showed a likely outcome of the father’s challenge to “explain that myth.” The boy shut down and walked away, both mad and humiliated.

As children get older and ask more difficult questions, they need to know that you will respond with thoughtfulness and unconditional acceptance of them. A wise parent will realize that one discussion is not the final outcome. On top of that, the parent can likely learn things from both how the child sees things and by trying to answer the questions.

If you are able to discuss your own faith without being defensive

Can you distinguish between these three things: Religion, Morality, and Faith? Sure, to some extent they overlap, but the differences are important. For this article, I want to talk about religion.

Any religion is a system of behaviors that are considered necessary to both prove and act out a person’s real or supposed convictions about the meaning of life. At best, religion is evidence of internalized truths. At worst, religion is a way to manipulate people’s fears.

Religion is often associated with ritual. Sometimes the rituals begin as honest ways to encourage good behavior. Sometimes they are are efforts to honor or remember something. Other times, rituals are simply a way to make people feel they are doing something acceptable or a way to control the behavior of others.

What is key to understand is that rituals are an outward action that can be easily performed. That is, going through with a ritual cannot be assumed to be associated with what is going on in the heart. On top of that, most rituals are not integrated with the nuts and bolts of living. We do not need rituals to be kind or to prepare our food, for example.

Many people think of religion as having to do with reverencing a god or acknowledging the divine. However, people can be religious about anything they are devoted to. If they exhibit an obedience to a creed, they are religious.

In some ways, the idea of religion is a matter of degree. Most people would say that brushing their teeth every day is a good thing. It takes on a religious nature when a person does it to be viewed as good or to appease a supernatural power.

People tend to have two extreme reactions to religion as they define it.

Those who are disdainful of religion see it as both empty and abusive. Because of keeping the definition narrowed to what purportedly worships a god, they are often conveniently blind to the religious elements of their own world view.

When people see religion as necessary, they tend to want to impose their version of it on everyone. Too often, they interpret adherence to religion as a sign of character and opposition to it as a threat to social interactions.

A parent who wants a good relationship with his or her child needs to be cautious about how they apply religion to life. Children will sense if a parent is shallow or disingenuous about such practices. They will almost always question the meaningfulness of boring or tedious rituals.

In some ways, religion needs to be categorized

People love to laugh. The proverb “a merry heart is good like a medicine” has been understood for thousands of years. Laughter makes people feel better. Yet, human nature too often has a way of twisting what is good and using it in destructive ways. This is also true of humor.

The job of parents is to make their family both a place of merriment and a safe place. Parents need to be ready to laugh at things like goofy games, funny faces, unexpected miscommunications, plays on words, creative perspectives on the normal, mishaps, ridiculous mistakes, and the antics of puppies.

The best laughter is that which springs from good-natured enjoyment. That is the only sort of laughter that will bring real joy and relieve stress. Cruel laughter or laughter at the obvious expense of someone else’s feelings may seem fun at the moment, but it is like drinking dirty water.

That doesn’t mean children need to be treated with kid gloves all the time, with parents always being concerned about hurting their feelings. Children need to learn to laugh at themselves, just not feel the butt of others jokes in belittling ways.

At the beginning of our marriage, my husband and I observed how a variety of other married people treated each other. We noticed that some couples engaged in “put-down” humor. They put on an appearance of everyone thinking it was clever and funny, but the strain on the relationship soon became obvious. One or the other never knew when they were going to be exposed or made fun of. There was never the pure fun of shared laughter. We made a pact with each other to not have that be part of our family dynamics.

The best laughter is shared laughter. A person may laugh some by themselves, but there is something about how laughter spreads in a group that makes it magical. Have you ever started laughing just because someone else is? Seeing others be truly belly-laugh-happy often just makes us happy!

We laugh best with people we know best. There is something about shared experience and understanding that helps humor connect almost like undiscovered radio waves. This means that there is a high potential for enjoying laughter in the home.

This aspect of relationship with laughter has other benefits. It can help us gauge when the laughter needs to be tempered, possibly for a child’s particular vulnerability at the moment. Also, healthy laughter tends to strengthen bonds and communication. It helps people relax and try to understand each other.

Humor can be used to teach important life lessons to children, both by making concepts clear and by making the l

Would you be curious if I suggested to you that scientific studies on child development do more harm than good? I do suggest this, and for two main reasons:

From reading some study findings, one might think that children never developed and matured until research proved it. All these studies have created academic child experts who rarely spend much time with even their own children, because they are busy studying other children. Children who should probably be spending more time with their parents, so how does that affect the results?

The development of a child is a very individual thing. No one really knows just how much environment, genetics, or training affect a child’s developmental stages. There are many things a child is designed to learn and grow into. It’s like a fail-safe system. Seems like this should encourage parents.

Parents who want happy, healthy relationships with their children will want to avoid getting hung up on the latest findings or cultural expectations. Try making a conscious decision to separate your ego and expectations from how your child is maturing. Let your child mature at his built in pace. When everyone’s kids reach adulthood, no one worth noticing will care who learned to read first. What matters is that they can read as adults.

Developmental stages can be defined as points at which a child becomes capable of certain cognitive or physical tasks. That is, they can now understand things they couldn’t before and control muscles they couldn’t before. Before the pertinent development has occurred, it is futile to expect a child to be able to do certain things. An infant cannot walk; a toddler cannot balance the checkbook; a six-year old cannot have a baby.

Scientific studies lead parents to comparisons and expectations that are often pointless. Add to that the news of the wonderful progress of other children and you have a recipe for parental stress and childhood frustration. Never mind that we rarely hear when parents misrepresented or misunderstood what was going on with their child. They tend to keep that to themselves.

The best way to judge a child’s developmental progress is to think whether or not they have been making any progress since birth. Since the answer is very likely ‘yes,’ a parent should then simply support the child at the current developmental stage and patiently wait for the next one. If children are exposed to life, the

Respect is something that has to be earned. It cannot be demanded. The deepest levels of respect are based on spending time observing a person’s choices and attitudes. The potential for respect is greatest with those who see us regularly face the demands of life. Many of such demands fall in the category of work.

Fortunately, the person watching doesn’t really need to be thinking very much at all about these things. Most of us don’t go around making lists in our heads about who we respect or don’t respect. Still, adults could pretty easily say who fits in these categories and why. Children might not be able to say why so easily, but they can develop a pretty good idea of who.

Children do not have to be very old to observe that much work is required in life. They subconsciously begin taking notes on how adults in their lives act about work. Are the adults responsible? Is there an attitude of concern for others? Do they complain? Do they avoid things that need to be done?

From a child’s perspective there are two main types of work:

Work that provides care is what children notice first. They can tell if those caring for them do it begrudgingly or are always trying to find ways to get away. In short, they notice if they are viewed more as a burden or more as a precious opportunity.

Some parents have a hard time differentiating this about their children, too. Taking care of young children is particularly intensive. There is physical labor and mental challenge involved. It can be difficult to know when and how to get rest. In the midst of this, it is vital that the children are well aware they are cherished.

Children will quickly learn to respect a parent who has an overall cheerful, can-do attitude about keeping the household running. This doesn’t mean parents aren’t allowed to cry or be upset, but this should not be the norm when faced with daily responsibilities. Unless the mom, is pregnant. Heh heh. But even then, it is probably a different kind of crying. Not a selfish and mad at everyone for being alive crying, just easy waterworks.

It may take a child time and maturity to understand the specifics of work that provides resources, but they still understand that the parent views it as work. As such, a child subconsciously evaluates a parent’s response. Is the parent responsible and trustworthy about job issues? Is the employer or customer treated with reasonable respect? Does the parent try to work well, trying to do a good job?

The child will hear and see things. Even if a child picks up bad habits and excuses from a parent, a parent who is a lazy or manipulative employee won’t be respected by the child.<

What is it about rules that many children dislike? Are children naturally rebellious and need to be put in their places? Do they just need things explained to them? While there may be some element of those and other things involved to different degrees in different situations, I think that children really like rules.

I have observed many a belligerent child relax and respond happily to the rules in my household, including a variety of extended family and friends. I’m not claiming to have special powers or that I could replace their parents. I am simply saying that I have seen what I am going to talk about in action in both the long and the short term.

If children start their own private clubs out under a tree or in a corner of the garage, they make rules. They have an inherent understanding that rules help people get along. Children feel secure and cared for is they have a sense of the right sort of rules and boundaries. So what are the right sort?

The right sort of rules can be described as:

These descriptions may overlap somewhat, in the same way loving and kind overlap. Still, I think it is helpful to examine them each separately. Before we do that, let’s consider what the goals are.

The overarching goal in raising children is to prepare them for adulthood. On balance, most people spend far more of their time in adulthood than childhood. It is wonderful and even beneficial to let children enjoy their childhoods, but this should always be done with pending adulthood appropriately acknowledged.

A young child (shall we estimate from birth to 6 years) has a limited capacity to  understand most rules. He also lacks the long term perspective that might help him be motivated to apply them. An older child (approximately age 7 years to 13 years), is probably more interested in understanding the rules, but will place high value on the overall tone of how rules are decided on and applied.

In our home, we treated older teenagers more as adults, even though while they still lived with us, theywere expected to abide by our rules. It is only because of government interference that they are not allowed more freedom. Since they understood the balancing we had to do, we never dealt with what seems to be expected as parent-teenager conflict.

The four descriptors above are partly important because they are necessary for trust. Rules imposed by someone who is not trusted are suspect on many levels. This is likely to lead to disregard of the rules.

Before discussing those four words, it will be helpful to distinguish between rules another way.

Moral rules deal with

A schedule is an attempt to allot time to certain activities and outcomes. Some scheduling is obviously useful. It helps people make agreements and do business.

Schedules are also a way to be considerate to other people. Making it to an appointment or meeting a deadline makes it more possible for other people to use their time the way they want to. Any way you look at it, a schedule is a reflection of our priorities.

From a child’s perspective, the family schedule has three main categories.

All of these converge on a child’s life. The way schedules are handled has the potential to foster relationship or squeeze the life right out of it. The choice is basically in the hands of the parent.

As adults, we can feel very pressed by responsibility. Scheduling can help us attend to the responsibilities such as feeding the family or paying the bills to keep a roof over everyone. Scheduling can also lead to developing good habits or making use of discretionary time.

Scheduling is a little more iffy when it comes to relationship. Relationships need relatively large blocks of time to grow. These blocks of time need to be very regular and frequent. For a child this usually means at least daily. The time involved needs to be somewhat unstructured in how it dictates human interaction and communication.

Relationships also require time frames flexible enough to allow opportunity for self-initiated relating. It takes time to get to the deeper levels of communication. The mind must be given time to relax. There needs to be time to sift through the more obvious decision making or sharing of events. Then there is time and inclination to test the deeper thoughts and concerns of the day.

Some people mistake programmed interaction for the communication of relationship. Programmed interaction may seem like a way to stimulate social bonds, but unless the individuals themselves spend significant time initiating personal communication, there will only be the facade of a relationship.

An example of programmed interaction is where someone outside of the potential relationship creates detailed and time consuming plans for interaction. This could be a therapist or religious leader or sports coach. Even if done with the best of intentions, it can often lead to frustration unless the people who are the primary actors in the relationship take over control of interaction.

This doesn’t mean that nothing can be organized. A game or a meal or a project has been the backdrop of many a growing relationship. The difference is that such broad arrangements for when, w

Trust is the basis of any thriving relationship. This is no less true with a child. Oddly, children seem to have built in trust-sensors. What we might be able to fake with adults, children will see right through. They probably don’t even know they are evaluating whether or not you, a parent, can be trusted, but they have a vantage point that is as unique as it is needy.

One important way they evaluate a parent’s trustworthiness is by how other people are treated. This falls into two categories.

1. How does a parent treat people within the household

2. How does a parent treat people outside the household

Inside the house, the child gets to see how a parent problem solves with others. There is nothing quite like living together that exposes our tendencies to selfishness and lack of self-control. Is a parent able to discuss concerns and differences of opinion in productive ways? Is it done with care for the other people involved? Is a parent honest about his/her own limitations? Is conflict approached from a foundation of humility, for all of us should admit we are constantly learning more of life and rarely fully understand another’s point of view.

By humility, I don’t mean groveling. That is not humility of the right sort. The right sort of humility will be blended with a reasonable amount of confidence in self-worth. Self-worth is, in my mind, different from self-esteem. Self-esteem is built on the unstable foundation of accomplishment, while self-worth is simply that we each have an inherent value as human beings.

I by no means imply that a parent must be perfect in any of these areas, for no parent is. However, there does need to be a consistency that tends toward predictable reactions. The bottom line is that a parent needs to do what it takes to develop these qualities of compassionate self-control in solving conflicts. The child is watching.

The other parent is still the most common person that a child will see a parent interact with. The child will see if there is care and respect for the other person and the relationship. There may also be either older children or aging grandparents in the household. A parent must understand that how any of these others are treated will affect how the child will respond to relationship with the parent.

One crucial way for respect and care for the other parent to be manifest is by NOT complaining about the other parent. Don’t do it vocally when the other parent is there and don’t do it when he/she is gone. Don’t do it in any kind of passive aggressive way either. Of course, I mean real complaining. There may be a place for family jokes, if everyone is in on th