Have you ever found yourself saying something to your children exactly the way your parents said it to you?

Have you ever promised yourself you would not repeat certain things your parents did, only to catch yourself doing them anyway?

I have asked those two questions in classes and workshops I teach. Most hands go up for the first one. Many of the same hands go up for the second.

“I promised myself I would never yell at my kids the way my parents yelled at me. But sometimes it comes out anyway. Same tone, same words. It’s like my parents are inside my head operating my mouth.”

I hear confessions like that quite often. But not all of them are negative. "I find myself comforting my child the exact same way my mother comforted me, and that makes me happy.  It makes me feel close to her.  I am passing something good along to my children." 

Either way, this modeling reality runs deep. Decades later, we are still imitating, good and bad, whether we want to or not. And our precious children are following in our footsteps.  What will they be imitating years from now?  What are they imitating right now?

Our children are wired to watch, learn, and imitate.  And it starts early. Remember the intensity babies have as they study the faces in front of them? Those wide-open eyes take in every detail. Over the first year, their ability to copy what they see grows steadily, which is why making faces at a baby is so much fun. One of my favorites is a popping sound I make with my lips. It’s beyond a baby’s skill level, but that doesn’t stop them from trying. They watch my mouth, mimic the movement over and over, and wait for the sound.

As babies grow, we stop playing the imitation game, but our children never do. Hand a toddler a phone and watch her mimic you. Listen in when your kids play house. The mannerisms, tone, and content can be surprisingly accurate and quite revealing. Our children never stop watching. They never stop listening.

That became painfully obvious to me on the way to the park with my two boys. A car suddenly pulled out in front of me. As I hit the brakes, my sons yelled out in happy chorus, “WHAT A JERK!!!”

Their impersonation was flawless.

In the rearview mirror, I watched them high-five each other and look to me for approval. I was in shock. If I had asked them, they would have recited perfectly what I had taught them: “We do not call people names.” But, my children did what I modeled, not what I taught them.

Now calling someone a jerk who can’t hear you might not seem like a big deal, but that’s not the point. What we model can override what we teach. That's the point.  Picture this.  We can build a beautiful sandcastle on the beach with our teaching, but what we model is like the waves.  And we all know what waves can do to sandcastles.

So how do we protect our sandcastles?  How do we not undermine our own teaching?  It starts by asking ourselves some hard questions.  What am I modeling right now that is in conflict with what I am expecting from my children?  

Do I want my kids to be trustworthy? Am I trustworthy?
Do I want them to get along well with people? Do I?
Do I want them to have self-discipline? Do I?
Do I want them to be good with money? Am I?
Do I want them free from addictions? Am I?
What do I want for my kids? Am I modeling it?

If some of those questions sting, you are not alone. They sting for most of us. But, we need to honestly wrestle with these issues because our children can spot hypocrisy a mile way.  And hypocrisy not only undermines our teaching, it undermines our credibility and the respect our children have for us.  It is a lot easier getting a donkey up a ladder than trying to hold a teenager to a standard we don't require of ourselves. We need to lead by example.  

The most effective and practical way to develop the qualities we want to see in our children is to have them ourselves. We don't have to be perfect, but we have to be putting in the effort.  Every step we take in the right direction adds up. When our children see us trying to achieve the same goal we are asking of them, the whole dynamic changes for the better.  They will see we are not asking anything of them that we are not already asking of ourselves. We want to be able to honestly say, “Do what I say, and do what I do.” 

A word of caution: modeling good things makes good outcomes far more likely, but it doesn’t guarantee them. Children come with their own temperaments, face their own influences, and make their own choices. Some children raised by wonderful parents take hard roads. If your child is struggling in spite of your best efforts, take heart. What you model is still planting seeds, and some seeds can take years to come up. Keep living what you hope they will one day choose.

What are we modeling when it comes to these three related issues?

How do I handle my anger? Can I feel intense anger and still keep my actions in check? Or do I say and do things I regret later?

Do I respond or react? Responding takes the time to slow down and consider what’s really going on and what's important. Reacting doesn't take the time to think.  It's controlled and driven by whatever feelings we have at the moment.

How do I make decisions? Do I think things through and consider the likely consequences for me and for others? Or do I act on impulse, or let my emotions decide? Unchecked emotions are a lot like determined toddlers. They have strong opinions, but they should not be making the decisions.

These three can do real damage to a family when they go wrong. When they go right, home becomes a warm, safe place to be. All of us can learn them, and the first step is becoming more aware.

Remember the parent who promised never to yell, only to hear their parents words coming out of their mouth? That’s what happens when we let our feelings drive our actions on autopilot. We can’t always control our feelings, but we can control our actions. There is always a moment between what we feel and what we do. That moment is where old patterns either repeat or stop. We need to train ourselves to grab that moment, inhabit it, and stretch it until we regain control.

Then let your children see that moment. Our kids can see what we do, but they can’t see how we decide. So say it out loud. “I’m really angry right now. I need to take a minute to calm down before I say or do anything I’ll regret.” When we narrate our thinking, we make the invisible visible. Our children get to watch self-control at work, not just the results. And they hear a new script. The negative words our parents left in our heads don’t have to be the words we leave in theirs.  

In the Family Identity section of Family Culture, the second leg of our three-legged stool, we talk about deciding together what our family legacy will be: celebrating and passing on the good, cutting off what is not good, and adding new and wonderful things.

What are we modeling when it comes to relationships?

How do we treat each other? Watching how the adults of the household handle relationships has a profound and outsized effect on children.  Whether their parents are married, divorced, or co-parenting from separate homes, children are learning powerful lessons, both positive and negative, from how we speak to and about each other. When they see us disagree respectfully and work things out, they learn conflict doesn’t have to be scary. They see how to positively  manage conflict.  That’s one of the best gifts we can give them for their own future relationships.

How do we treat our children? Do we demand respect, but not give it?  It’s easy to forget that the way we discipline is also modeling. If I yell at my child to stop yelling, I’m modeling the very thing I’m trying to stop. If I stay calm while I correct her, I’m teaching her how to stay calm when she’s upset. How we treat our children becomes their sense of how people treat each other, and often how they will one day treat their own children.

When We Get It Wrong

We will get it wrong. Every parent does. The good news is that what we do next is also modeling, and it may be some of the most important modeling we ever do.

When we tell our children, “I was wrong, and I’m sorry,” we teach them that mistakes can be faced, owned, and repaired. We show them that being strong and being humble aren’t opposites. Children who see their parents repair learn how to repair. And our credibility doesn’t drop when we apologize. It usually goes up.

Before we move on, we need to look at modeling from a different angle.  What we model also informs our children's understanding of the world.

I saw this firsthand at a church picnic in a small canyon park in Colorado Springs. Steep rock walls hid the sky behind us, and a storm rolled in with almost no warning. Within minutes, we had rain, then thunder and lightning. Parents started calling for their children.

Some parents panicked and screamed. Their children saw the fear on their faces and started crying, some screaming in terror. Other parents looked concerned but called their children calmly. Those children walked quickly toward the shelter. Some looked afraid, but not one of them was panicking. The correlation was almost perfect. If my parents are terrified, this must be dangerous. If they’re concerned but steady, I’d better pay attention, but things are probably okay.

They are reading us like that all the time. What are they concluding from watching us?

Life is good, or life is bad?
Work is satisfying, or work is awful?
Honesty is the best policy, or everybody cheats?
We are responsible for our own behavior, or it’s usually someone else’s fault?
It’s wrong to talk behind someone’s back, or it’s OK?

What are they learning about the world from us when we’re not paying attention?

So what does this all mean?

Starting with the practical: what we are modeling will make our development & discipline much easier or much harder.  Are we reinforcing what we are teaching or are we undermining it.  

Because modeling is so powerful, many parents turn raising children into a great motivation for personal growth. Working on our own maturity is a gift of love to our children. When they watch us struggle and overcome, they learn lessons we could never teach them with just words.

If you’re not in a good place right now, take heart. You don’t need to be perfect to influence your children for good. You simply need to keep moving in the right direction, one step at a time. You’ll take steps backward sometimes. Never let that have the final say. Find the help you need and keep going.

This modeling process happens whether we are aware of it or not, whether we want it to or not, whether we are modeling good things or not. It is as simple as that. How we live our lives in front of our children will always be one of the most powerful influences in their lives.

I will leave you with these three questions:

• What are you modeling now you hope your children will copy?

• What are you modeling now you hope they won’t copy?

• What do you wish you were modeling?