From captain to navigator to travel guide: a parent’s changing role 

Our friends were hosting colleagues when we visited with our seven month old daughter. Following my entrance into their lounge, all the medical professionals present were left with a lasting impression of my parenting!

Irrespective of any spectacular clumsiness, as parents we are hard wired to protect – especially when we sense our children are vulnerable. That instinct runs so deep that, as they grow, we can struggle to tell the difference between dangers they actually face and the ones we fear.

Not long ago I was chatting with Rob Parsons, founder of Care for the Family, about this very dilemma. He told me of a frail ninety‑year‑old who began her appointment by saying, “I can rest in peace now, Mr Parsons – I’ve just put my youngest son, who’s seventy, into a care home.”

The Marines have a saying: ‘Once a Marine, always a Marine.’ I’ve noticed there is a parallel truth for parents – that no matter how old our children are, our sense of responsibility for their safety often lingers far longer than we ever expected or even hoped! The urge to shield, steer, or shape our children’s choices doesn’t fade easily, it merely changes context.

Protecting our children is vital, but it’s only half the job; we’re also meant to prepare them as much as possible for their future.

Here are three things to keep in mind as our role changes.

Learn when to rescue them
The journey of childhood and adolescence can feel like crossing an ocean, and sailors aren’t made by calm seas. Rescue is sometimes essential or appropriate, and we certainly need to remember that there’s a fine line between learning to swim and starting to drown.

However, immediate rescue might not always be the right call. Rather, at times we need to a little more space for them to choose their own course and allow the natural consequences that follow to be their tutor. This often requires courage not only from them, but also from us!

Lead with curiosity
This might mean holding back on offering or providing instant solutions. Instead, we lead with curiosity, asking questions that help them identity their feelings, weigh their options, and arrive at their own decisions.

This enables them to begin to see the wisdom of thinking through circumstances and considering the possible consequences. It also strengthens their ability to assess risk, make decisions and solve problems.

Move from Captain, to navigator, to travel guide
When our daughter was in the midst of the second year of a three year course, she unexpectedly announced to her mum and I that she wanted to leave university and find paid work. At the time, all I could see was the finish line just months away, plus a heap of debt and, I feared, later regret. But she was resolute.

Thankfully, she was still inviting us to offer an opinion, but as her parents we were slow to realise that we were not being asked to make the decision for her – whether as her captain or her navigator. That realisation did not come naturally to us, and it was only after a few difficult conversations that it finally dawned on us that we had long left the deciding phases of parenting.

Consequently, if we resisted this change then we were at risk of our daughter seeing little value in consulting us again. At best, we were now her travel guides, with a little wisdom to offer from our own journey, but she was the one choosing the route.

There comes a time in all our parenting when we must increasingly learn to love and watch from a distance, rather than lead from the front.