Are you a dead or alive role model for your kids?

Before we go any further… I’m not a parenting expert! I’ve never had a kid without paws. I only have 50% of my parents left (hi Dad!). I have 0% of my grandparents left. I’ve never reared a person (that came out wrong and gross but you know what I mean), but I have been researching this topic of positive psychology and regrets for years, and I wrote a book about living a regret-free life before we do, in fact, die, so I’m not entirely unqualified to ask you a bunch of rankling questions that might Wake You the F*&k Up to Life Before You Die (yes you’re right—that IS my life mission! See Fig. 1.0 for proof).

Fig 1.0: Proof-by-way-of-a-sweary-doodle that this is my mission in life.

I wrote a post recently about how our parents’ lost and unfulfilled dreams can actually be helpful in our own lives. Here’s the TLDR scoop:

As grown adults, we can observe our parents’ “unlived lives” (goals and hopes and plans that never saw the light of day) and decide whether we want to follow in their footsteps or learn what not to do and course-correct our own regrets-in-the-making.

So now that we’ve assessed the degree to which we need to “do the opposite of everything mom and dad did,” it’s time to look at your Life as a Parent through the eyes of your kids (🙄). What situation below looks like you?

“Go get em’ tiger!”
You act like a tiger and get after alllll your goals (possibly with teeth bared), living a breathlessly-vitally-alive life.

“The world is your oyster!”
You regularly pursue your dreams (while eating lots of oysters) and do your share of cool things with and without the kids.

“Do as I say, not as I do.”
You encourage your kids to dream big and do interesting things but take a pass on your own plans and ideas.

“Pass the Cheetos.”
You’re neutral—you don’t promote or disparage going after dreams and ambitions and experiences in life; but you do watch TV with the kids and that’s kinda fun sometimes.

“Are you sure you want to try out for the volleyball team? You might not make it, Honey.”
You let your risk-averse tendencies bleed over into your kid-chats and you caution them to maybe “play not to lose” (so, skip the tryouts). Who wants to deal with failure or rejection? Avoid them at all costs, just like how you avoided that promotion opportunity at work!

“Quit before you begin, Sparky. Dreams will only crush your soul in the end.”
N/A. RIP. (I’m making the sign of the cross right now for some reason?)

Your kids are watching you like pesky little hawks, learning about how to live in the world you thrust them into. They’re observing whether mommy goes after that big promotion and whether daddy makes time for guitar lessons and whether you regularly try new meals as a family and whether adults take calculated risks and whether plans are made (if any) into a future that looks bright and exciting or bleak and boring.

The rankling questions, as promised:

• You’re teaching your kids how to be good people and work hard. Yay! But are you also deliberately teaching them how to live? How to enjoy life? How to build a life that’s something different from an “all-work, no-play” existence?
• Do you encourage your kids to try new things and take non-life-threatening risks? Do you actively demonstrate “going for it” in your own life?
• Would your kids describe you as vibrantly alive, stuck in autopilot, or the walking dead?
• After you’re dead and gone (so not for several Mondays from now), how do you think your kids will reminisce about you at your funeral… as the “carpe diem” type who really lived, as a dreamer-but-not-a-doer, or as something less desirable?
• My mom died with a lot of entries in the proverbial Compendium of Lost and Unfulfilled Dreams. Would you have a lot of entries in your own Compendium? Volumes? Just a few pages?

6 ideas to demonstrate a “living like you mean it” mindset to your kids:

• Tune into what makes you feel most alive… and do more of those things. Let your kids see you intoxicated with unoaked Chardonnay possibility, ideas, and the energy gained from trying a new hobby, getting into that flow state, being swept off your feet with something that lights you up. Engagement is contagious.
• Learn how to say no to the things that drain or deaden you (where possible), like being on that committee you’re always complaining about… and let your kids see you picking and choosing how to live a life of aliveness and how to leave the life of deadness at the door. Let little Kimmie and Timmy see you putting up boundaries that preserve your energy.
• Announce bold dreams and go after them, making sure the kids see you chipping away at chapter 8 of the Great American novel, or taking that online stats class to complete your degree once and for all, or planning that ginormous family reunion you’ve been talking about for years. Even if the finish line of the goal is far off into the fuzzy future, the pursuit of it is what counts. There is a cost to living an “all talk, no action” kind of life, and that’s not the kind of life you role model to your kids.
• Announce small dreams and go after them, too… making sure Esmerelda sees you learning how to knit, or training for that 5k, or learning how to make homemade pasta. You don’t have to win awards at being the Best Knitter Ever or #1 Fettucine Maker of All Time, but it is important to demonstrate the actual act of crossing bite-size bucket list items off the list.
• Talk about living wider and deeper, and bring both dimensions to life. Talk about stuff like the psychologically rich life—living full of vitality, meaning, and novelty—and go around the dinner table brainstorming ways each one of you can go after these things. Socialize your hopes and dreams and goals and hold one another accountable to giving them a go.
• Make “mortality math” a regular family practice. Count how many Mondays you all have left on the regular, to help highlight time as the diminishing resource it is. When we see the Mondays dwindle week after week, it can spur the motivation to actually seize those Mondays.

So now what?

If you’ve been living a less-than-alive life as of late—maybe acting like a less-than-stellar vitality role model for your kids—it’s never too late to administer CPR to yourself.

Can we just point out the irony here for a second, that your kids are probably the reason you’ve become a bit dead inside? I’ve heard the rumors that they make you tired and distracted and leach the energy out of you. But since most people aren’t interested in giving the little leeches back, we’ll proceed with the assumption you’d like to raise your kids to experience the full depth and breadth of their lives.

Your parents might’ve had a bunch of “Coulda Shoulda Woulda’s” in their lives, and you might’ve picked up on that way of living… yet it’s never too late to break the generational regret cycle. It’s never too late to set a “go after your dreams” example for your kids. It’s never too late to NOT be a cautionary tale.

Go do something fun, just for you. 

Go do something kinda hard that you’ve been wanting to try.

Go succeed at a challenge, and celebrate the shit out of your accomplishment (“Mommy got her nutrition specialist certification! Family party with so much broccoli!!!”).

Go fail at a challenge, and lick your wounds/ articulate your lessons learned in front of the whole family (“Daddy is super bummed he didn’t finish the marathon, but it’s so cool he tried and had the smarts to stop running before he dislocated his hip”).

Go on a Size Large Adventure, like an archaeological dig in Greece or a weeklong silent meditation retreat. Go on the Adventure alone or take the kids. I’m inspired by writer Stephanie Vozza, who often includes her grown kids in her Wow Moments: “I’m going to Italy in two weeks with my kids and we’re doing something crazy. We’re staying on a sailboat. I’m. So. Excited!!”

Go on a Size Small Adventure, like cooking with a new spice from the Indian market or visiting that park on the other side of town or doing a museum hop in your city. Do it alone or drag take the kids with you.

Let your kids see it all.

It’s a funny notion that we need to be taught to live when we’re kids, but I think many of us can agree that we need the nudge, the inspiration, the role models to pave the way towards aliveness. And now that I think about it, we often need the same thing as adults… to be reminded to live. It’s okay. It’s never too late to live like we mean it, is it?