Ask For What You Want

Little children are great at asking for what they want. Seldom do preschoolers or early elementary age children expect anyone to read their minds. If they want to paint, they say, "I want to paint." If they want a cookie, they ask, "Can I have a cookie?" They ask and demand so much that even a reasonably patient parent eventually finds their constant inquiries, requests, and demands tiresome, if not exhausting. Being with young children can feel as if you are being pecked to death; caregivers, whether moms or dad or grandparents or teachers, find life moving along a highway of questions and needs with few rest stops in sight.

As difficult and exhausting as it is to meet and answer the onslaught of preschooler pleas, discerning the needs of older children is littered with difficulty. As children become older they can do much more for themselves so on one hand things are easier. If they want a cookie, they can go to the cupboard and get one, eventually they will even seal the package up and put it away. If they want to paint, they can get out the paints and make a passable attempt at cleaning up. The trick is that somewhere between the end of elementary school and the midway through middle school children begin to believe that everyone should "just know" what they need and want. They begin to sulk, and huff and stew about needs and wants that have not been met, even if those needs and wants were never enunciated, even if no words were ever spoken by them regarding their desires.

This attribute seems to intensify as they get older resulting in hurt feelings for slights of which bewildered friends, siblings and especially parents are unaware and for the most part are quite unintentional. Unfortunately, the idea that others should just know what a person wants seems to go on and on. Adults set a terrible example. Parents squabble with each other believing each should know the other well enough to guess or know the other's needs. It is silly and exacerbated by movies and TV. It seems a recurring theme that one person's knowledge of another's favorite ice cream flavor is an indicator of true love and the failure to know and remember such details is a sign of wanton disregard and neglect.

Psychologist and therapist like to repeat the mantra "Healthy people ask for what they want." We need to teach children to ask for what they want.  And as parents we have to remember to ask our children for what we want of them.  Children shouldn't have to guess nor should they be expected to "just know" what parents want in behavior or school performance or household chores. Likewise, children need to learn that they shouldn't expect their parents to know what they wish they could do after school, or what they could have in their lunch. They have to be taught intentionally and by example to respectfully ask for what they want and to graciously accept the answer.

The answer no is hard to accept and it takes modeling and practice to learn to graciously accept it. Life is full of boundaries and as parents we are often called to set and enforce those boundaries, so often they answer will be no, or not now or a modified and conditional yes.

Jesus tells us to ask our heavenly Father for what we want. There is something in the asking that goes beyond the practical and opens us up to one another. Asking makes us a little more vulnerable and a little more focused and builds a stronger relationship. Through asking we reach out of ourselves and toward the other, building a bridge of communication.

We need to teach our children to sincerely and openly ask for what they want.  Whenever we ask anything of anyone, God or spouse  or sibling, we must do so with the grace  and knowledge that the answer may not be what we want, but at least we have communicated and our relationships are stronger for it.