Helping Our Children Reach Their Fullest Potential

It's not that we want to cause discomfort for our children, it's just that we want them to reach their fullest potential. Sometimes pushing them to be their best causes stress and conflict, but leaving them like they are is not doing them any favor.

The American bald eagle gives us a wonderful example of parenting:

When the chicks are born, they cannot fly and must spend their time in the safety of the nest. The parents build their nests high in trees or on the side of rocky cliffs. The mother swoops down and catches a fish and brings it to her young and feeds them. She nurtures, protects and takes care of them. Those little eagles must feel safe and loved in that high nest.

But eagles were not designed to sit in a nest. They were designed to fly.

The day comes, then, when the mother comes to realize her chicks are ready to fly. So, she kicks them out of the nest. She picks the most ready one and gives it a shove. Then, she dives out right behind it. If the eaglet catches on, he may just take flight on the first try. If not, the mother catches it before it crashes to the ground and takes it back to the safety of the nest.

The mother will wait a while then try again until her offspring catches on and begins to fly on its own. The instinct to push their babies out of a lofty nest must be very strong or I don't think they would do it.

Wouldn't it be wonderfully, selfishly nice to just keep the kids in the nest? We could feed and nurture them and take care of all of their needs. But they were designed to spread their wings and fly. Maybe not literally, like an eagle, but they must leave our apron strings to reach their full potential and begin making their own nest.

Learning to fly must be a thrilling adventure for a young eagle, but it begins with a few seconds of sheer terror! Is it worth it? Yes, I think any eagle would tell you if he could that soaring in the heavens is worth risking his very life for the privilege. It is worth every effort, every second of anxiety, every brief moment of feeling betrayed, and every lonely moment of emotional detachment.

I suspect those young eagles think their mothers hate them when she boots them out of the nest. They may think she is punishing them or that she no longer loves them. But the opposite is true: she cares very much for them and is doing what she knows is the absolute best for them. She wants them to become what God designed them to be.

We must push our children out of the nest so they can become what they were created to be. Yes, we are there to catch them if they fall, but then we try again. We do this when we grow them out of diapers, take them to kindergarten that first day, or take them to an overnight trip to grandma's. We push them out of our beds; we push them to excel in school. They leave the nest to go to junior high, then college.

One day, when we gently shove them out of the nest they will not return -- except for welcomed visits. But we can smile and know that we nurtured them while we had them and we prepared them to spend their life in flight and not languishing in the comfort and safety of the nest.

You can contact Craig Harris at www.apparentlyso.net.