Growing children into adults is not an easy task. Most of us have no special education on the subject and are simply following our instincts or either following or rejecting the way our own parents raised us. There isn’t one right or wrong way to guide our kids through the teenage years and even with the myriad of books, podcasts and online information at our fingertips, we still question if we are getting it right. We know in our hearts that our job is simply to love them and guide them to find their purpose in this world but life is so complex and there are many lessons to learn along the way. We also want to raise children to be caring and kind adults who think of others but how do we get kids to think outside of their own thoughts, worries and frustrations when so much of their world is lived inside their own heads?
As parents it’s easy to want to give our kids more things than we had ourselves growing up – better education, more experiences, nicer clothes and the latest games and gadgets but is this what they really need and is it helping us on our quest to raise good humans? Last month my husband was gifted a tiny lemon tree for his birthday from my parents. None of us are avid gardeners in this house but we do like lemons and we all seemed to be drawn to this little tree that joined our backyard. Our 15 year old son in particular took an interest in this new addition to the family and we decided to hand over responsibility to him to look after it since we thought it better if one person was in charge rather than it being over watered or neglected.
It’s been a surprising and beautiful thing to watch. I thought after a few days the novelty might wear off and that he might just dump water on top of it as a chore to tick off his list. But instead, he has been diligently caring for this little tree, spending time with it, checking what bugs it has been attracting and moving it out of the direct sun on extremely hot days. The tree was already growing tiny lemons when it was gifted to my husband but my mum informed the kids that if these were removed, the growth of lemons would be more prolific down the track and so our son gave it a little pruning – a lesson in foregoing things now in order to reap the rewards later. It has been reassuring to see this kind and nurturing side of our son develop and gives me hope that we are getting some things right as his parents.
Maybe before you consider the latest AirPods, phone or computer game to gift your teenager for their next birthday, you might want to consider the value of a tiny tree.
