A time for every purpose

As I sat watching Jack in swim lessons yesterday I was reminded of Ecclesiastes 3 “to every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven…a time to embrace and a time to refrain.” Actually if truth be told I first thought of the song but I know the song was based on that passage … Anyway, the reason this particular truth found it’s way into my already overcrowded brain was that as I watched Jack very obediently listen to his instructor I was also watching his one little classmate scream at the top of her lungs for mommy every time she was asked to participate and I was watching the two slightly older students in the class next to Jack cling to the pool side and scream for mommy (and occasionally get out of the pool and make a break for the door). All the while I couldn’t help but wonder what made these parents force their children to endure what sounded like torture. Just as I was about to settle into my judgment phase of these well-meaning but in my opinion seriously mis-guided parents I was reminded of my interaction with my own child only moments before. Jack had not wanted to go to swim lessons that day. He cried from the moment he awoke from nap until we pulled into the parking lot. I tried everything to get him to stop: I cajoled, I called Dad for a pep-talk, I scolded and shamed (“you said you wanted to do this and I paid a lot of money for these – you have to fulfill your commitment!”). I did everything I could to get Jack excited about swimming. Why did I push so hard? To be frank, I pushed because I knew 1) the cause of Jack’s reticence was exhaustion from the trip this past weekend and 2) Jack would be excited once we were in view of the facility. I was right on both if any is keeping score in the game “Do I know my son or what?”
But this led me to wonder at what point to do you push and at what point to do you surrender? Perhaps the parents I was ready to sit in judgment of (I know – an issue in its own right) were doing what I had done – rationalizing that their children would be excited about it when it was over; perhaps these children had been excited to go and gave no indication of their trepidation before class began. It’s such a fine line we walk as parents: to know when to push our little birds from the nest because it’s good for them and when to just let them be. My final thought as I sat there watching (it’s only a 30 minute class and my synapses don’t fire quite as rapidly as they used to) was a question: how will I know when to push and when not to? I suppose the answer to this question is the same as all the other parenting questions I have: God will have to let me know because as time and experience inform me at every turn, I have no idea what I am doing on my own.