Snyders Think About Their Thinking: Snyder Family Rules

Growing up is hard. For one thing, the process requires children to continually face newness: new people, new circumstances, new events, new foods, new surroundings, new tasks and etc. Depending on a host of factors, they face each new situation with anything from untapped enthusiasm to crippling fear. Little maturing minds naturally develop emotional responses and coping mechanisms, some appropriate and some not.

I'm sure you can recall specific events when fledgling ideas about life and your place in it were hammered home. For instance, remember that school year when the bully hurt you and the powers that be did nothing, that first time you jumped off the diving board and everyone cheered, the moment when you went up on stage in the school musical and forgot your lines, the day your dad first took you fishing and you hooked a giant one, the afternoon when everyone on the playground rejected you, that moment when you first encountered a family members anger, or that evening when you overcame all odds and (in terror) delivered your first public speech only to have a teacher ream you out for your performance attire (or maybe that was just me.) Those types of moments have the power to take mere ideas and turn them into beliefs that, once cemented in our minds, we live by moving forward. Many beliefs are good, healthy and serve us well. But the sad truth is that many of those childhood coping-methods-turned-beliefs have the potential to negatively impact both ourselves and the people around us if left unchallenged.

Wouldn't it have been nice if someone had come alongside your younger self and provided more tools for processing those excruciating situations, or any of the other 10,000 thoughts ping-ponging around your brain? Wouldn't it have been great, too, if your younger self was expected to simply say whatever you were thinking rather than hide any "crazy/inappropriate/stupid" thoughts away (along with whatever embarrassment, guilt, shame, anger, etc. accompanied them)? Yes? Well, enter our next Snyder Rule.

Now, this rule is just one step in helping our children create their own unique beliefs and values, but in our minds, it is vital. We can do lots of good things as parents, but without this rule, much of that may go to waste. So in our home we teach that Snyders Think About Their Thinking. What does this mean, exactly? And how does it look, practically?

First, this rule assumes that thoughts can be wrong. That idea meandering through my brain might be totally off-base and messed up. It's one of the reasons why we need the courage, the honesty, and the openness to share those thoughts with others. The Bible talks about how our hearts trend toward going astray (Heb 3:12-13), and how the heart develops "strongholds" that need tearing down so that our thoughts can be captivated by our God and our hearts can become more and more like the heart of Jesus (2 Cor 10:4-5). Reading God's word will help us create pathways for our hearts (Ps 119:105), but it also gives us correction for those time when we need to double back to that last fork in the trail and head a different way (see 2 Tim 3:16-17). Certainly, the Holy Spirit will help us understand biblical truth if we seek him, but God also gave children parents to help with that task (Prov 1:8). Liz and I have the joy (most of the time it feels like joy ;-) of being fellow-travelers with our children as they journey through life. We've been down the road of childhood (a while ago) but we still remember how it shaped us. We want to walk with our children as they travel their own path - not focused on remaking them into little versions of ourselves, but focused on helping them understand the world around them and the God who loves them (no pressure!). As their unique personalities and gifts emerge, our goal is that the mental pathways they lay down today will help them use those strengths for good in the future.

But in order to do that well, we have to be attuned to what's going on inside their hearts and minds now.

Which brings us to our second point: in our house, it's more than OK, in fact, it's actually expected for each family member to feel safe enough to bring any thought out for public examination. We encourage it! We hear the good thoughts, the boring thoughts (yes, yes, yes, you love Minecraft and need to tell me about it in excruciating detail), the weird thoughts, and even the ugly thoughts--and our goal is to hear it all with reserved judgement. (And as an aside, you'll probably want to develop the skill of maintaining a neutral facial expression and the ability to calmly answer the most awkward of queries. Experience has taught us that pre-teen boys can have some very, ahem, disconcerting questions rattling around in their heads. You'll also need to be ready for these questions to pop out at very inconvenient times, say, in the middle of a crowded restaurant, during a trip to Target, or during a worship service at church. Don't say we didn't warn you :-)

Another practical outworking of this rule is that Liz and I make it a point to ask lots of questions—so many that our children are tired of answering them: "What do you think about how your friend, who was happy to hang with you before, ditched you for the boys down the street?" "Why do you like this particular books series?" "What do you see when you look into the mirror? Do you like the way you look?" "Why do you like to hug so much?" (cause, that didn't come from me...must have been his mama :-) "What did you think of the hero in that TV show?" We'll have a debriefing session after one of the kids screams in anger or slams a door in frustration. We investigate what the kids are thinking after Liz and I have a heated exchange (because we know that they hear us). We continually explore their changing views about sex and sexuality (my boys are like, "Papa, are you going to ask me about sex again???":-). When hiking, we ask them their opinion of the surroundings. When watching the news we ask them their thoughts on current events. Sometimes we show them movies or read books together that we know will throw their minds into situations they've never encountered just so we can talk about them. We ask questions about ethics, schoolwork, relationships, social justice, their hobbies, ad campaigns and the Sunday sermon (pastors, please throw us parents a bone now and then!)

We ask and ask and ask…all with the goal of helping them recognize and evaluate the thoughts and feelings churning inside their minds. We ask so that they learn to think about their thinking.

Our hope is that self-examination and open discussion with others will become normative in their lives. We want them to seek counsel when confused, share their joy when happy, ask for facts when curious, and expect a listening ear when wondering. Like I said previously, this is only one part of helping them form their identity. By encouraging (what sometimes seems like excessive) dialog our hope is for fewer crooked paths that need straightening, fewer coping mechanisms that need rooted out, and fewer strongholds that need to undergo an oftentimes painful excising process from the two-edged sword of Scripture. We pray that they might have more opportunities to enjoy God's grace and the tools to successfully respond to each new situation as it arises (like, when Snyders Take the Adventure That Comes to them : )

Now, time to see what those kids think of the fact that their bedtime is 20:00 :-).