1 – Love your kids much more than the game. And make sure they know it.

I don’t think he said it himself, but I believe I read it in a C.S. Lewis book somewhere: “We need to be reminded more than instructed.”

It’s one of my favorite quotes and thus, one I return to often. For it highlights the fact that more often than not, we don’t need to learn anything new. We just need to do a better job living and applying what we already know. Or deep down what all of us know. Sure, there are times where instruction is needed, but I tend to think that our pursuit of learning new things can sometimes be a cover-up for our failure to do well what we already know. If we are wise, much of learning will be a re-learning or a reminding of good, wise, timeless truths.

Naturally that quote applies to this first point. For I understand full well that I am stating the obvious. I am not instructing so much as reminding you all what you already know. Or at least what you should know as parents. Love your children. Delight in them more than you delight in anything it is you want to give them – except the knowledge of God. He alone is the only real exception. In every other context, whatever it is we want to pass on to our children or to give our children, it is essential that we love and delight in our children more than we love and delight in the things we want to give them. Our love and delight in them must be real and lasting and genuine. Or all else is for naught.

This really is a basic of good leadership, no matter the context. Those you seek to influence have to believe that you want genuine good for them. They have to believe that to you, their good is an end in and of itself. And the simple fact is, they will see right through you if it is not. This is something you simply cannot fake. Your love and care for them has to be real. Indeed, I dare say that you will influence them only to the degree that it is real. If you want to measure how well you can influence others, first take note of how much you really care for them. Your influence simply cannot rise above your love.

In my own line of work, I have sadly seen numerous Coaches lose their influence (and sometimes their jobs) by focusing too much on winning and keeping their jobs. Yes, they may have told their players that winning helps everyone involved. And that is true. But whether the players themselves could express it in words or not, every single one tended to rebel against the notion because they realized that the Coach was ultimately concerned for himself. Even if things were good on the outside, players could just sense it. In Coaching, the only way to get everyone to buy into what you are trying to give them is to care more about them than what it is you are trying to accomplish. Indeed, if their own good is not central in your focus, you probably won’t get much else. And if you do, it will come at a steep price.

How much more is this true for parents and children! How many parent-child relationships are severely injured by parents taking too much delight in what they want for their children and too little delight in the children themselves? How often have parents with good desires for their children ruined their chances for helping their children obtain those good things by focusing too much energy on the good things themselves, and too little energy on the children themselves?

It happens all the time. And whether you want to admit it or not, it happens to some degree in your own life.

Of course, this doesn’t meant that you don’t love your children. Not at all. It just means that you are human and that you struggle with wanting good things too much. In this context, it means that you inevitably face a struggle to keep the right things in their proper perspective. As a parent, you want something for your children so much that you start to subtly or not so subtly push them in a certain direction. Maybe you make certain comments or put more pressure on them to do well in school. Or you treat them differently if they have a bad game or get a bad grade or perform poorly in their recital. It really can be anything. And almost always, it is something good you have in mind for your children that you just start caring about too much. In turn, you lose site of them and of simply delighting in them. And to the degree that you lose your delight, to that degree you lose your influence.

The simple reality is that if you want your children to love what you love, they had better know that you will love them just the same even if they don’t love what you love. If they sense even in the least bit that they will lose your favor, they will have to rebel just a little bit – for their own sanity at least. Sure, they might fake interest for the time being. Or they may genuinely share your passion. But the relationship with you and the thing you love will inevitably become strained. Neither will be all that it could or should.

So when it comes to passing on the game of basketball to my children, my first rule is that I must check my own heart for them first. My kids need to know that I love and delight in them no matter what, simply because they are mine. Whether they accomplish this or that or become this or that, they need to know that I delight in them because they are my children. My love and delight in them has to be lasting and real. If I want to be a good parent and leader, there is just no escaping this first fact.