Plants & Children: The Downside of Too Much Help

I’ve been landscaping lately. My wife and I started a modest outdoor project, which created a critically necessary project, which mandated some expenditures, which finally justified a few more expenditures to get it done right. But, at the end of it all, we have a problem we’ve never really had before…a nice looking backyard. It’s a problem because now I’m studying, fretting over, and attempting to maintain what I never had before, desirable plants. Come to find out, they are more persnickety than the weed crop I used to cultivate. There are actually things they need and need to avoid. And one of the things I’m beginning to appreciate is that plants don’t like too much water. Upon reflection that analogy suits many parents.

Over-watering is a hard concept to grasp. When you’ve seen the devastating effects of a severe drought or discovered a forgotten houseplant you might think that constant rain is the best thing that can happen to flora. But trees and other plants can be hurt and destroyed by over-watering. In some cases a plant with roots immersed in water literally can’t breathe the gases from the soil. The plant slowly suffocates, its roots rot, and it becomes subject to disease. Like over-zealous gardeners, parents can over-water their children to the point of suffocation. Hyper-management of every detail of their life, hovering constantly, elevating diet concerns, safety concerns, peer concerns is healthy for neither parent, nor child. Very few children need so much attention. But too many parents parent according to fear and not preparation. They think protection is the goal. Seedlings and young children both do well with early care and protection, but the smothering attention we given to little ones must diminish over time. Otherwise it’s very difficult to reach it’s/his design or potential.

The second kind of over-watering problem is the one that produces shallow roots. When plants need water, they use their energy to extend out roots to find deeper water and nutrients from the soil. As long as they have enough energy and eventually get to the deeper moisture they thrive (Psalm 1:3, Jer 17:6–8). But whenever over-watering takes place, the roots never deepen. The plant doesn’t work at getting deeper because it doesn’t need to…at least at the moment. It will seem healthy and flourish for a time but as soon as tough conditions come, it suffers immediately and often catastrophically (Job 18:11–19, Mt 13:6). The child rescued from every pain by a parent is like the plant rescued from every warm day by watering. Parents often think they’re helping their child through a tough spot by taking the pain away, dealing with the problem for them, rescuing them from the difficulty, intervening in the relationships, finishing the job for them, eliminating consequences, and allowing them to quit..all successful pain eliminating endeavors in the short run. But these parents are cultivating shallow roots. If this is your pattern as a parent you’re virtually guaranteeing that your son or daughter will be ill-equipped for the trials of adulthood: working through a problem, reconciling in relationships, making judgments about consequences, and a hundred other skills that are critical to faithful living in the church and kingdom of God. The short-sightedness of well intended parents actually endangers a child. Like too frequently watered plants they will physically grow, but underneath, in what can’t be seen, are shallow roots. And it won’t take a tornado, just a strong wind to unsettle them.

Parenting for the kingdom of God takes a deeper and wiser kind of love, one that gives space to breathe and one that allows for pain, in order to allow for growth, in order to produce strength.