Are We Agile Parenting?

I like to run. Scratch that. I love to run. I love the quiet, the time, the thoughtful counsel/group therapy sessions with my running buddy, the challenge, the physical satisfaction. I could go on. 

I also love my kids pretty much more than anything else in this world. They are ever present in my thoughts, my heart, intertwined into my hopes and dreams. So many of my greatest moments of pride are for their accomplishments and the worst most heart wrenching pain is from their pain. 


But the transitive property does not apply to parenting
This morning we ran a 5k for New Years Day. A few weeks back we asked my son if he wanted to run and he excitedly said yes. As the good parents we are always trying to be, we immediately felt guilty. Did we just force our 7 year old to run? He doesn't have to love what we love. We tried every angle to make sure that he in fact wanted to, knew he didn't have to, that it was supposed to be fun but he was consistent. He wanted to. And so our job shifted from giving him the out to helping him show himself that he could do it. 

My husband, the former track star took the technical route, giving him advice on speed, his arms, how to recover without stopping and he chugged along. Ever the distance runner with no speed aspirations, I offered him my approach. We just started talking, about school, about this year, camp and then as we close in on the end, break it into chunks that I can countdown. I've been known to count lampposts on a truly tough run.

And he did it! 
His own style for sure - skipping, walking, jumping on and off the curb but we would expect nothing less and when we were done, I was sure he had hated it. Sure that he would never want to do anything like it again and the next amazing thing happen. I asked him what he thought and he replied, 

"Awesome!"
"Would you want to do it again sometime?"
"Definitely!"

I hope that he loves what I love but I will continue to make sure that we haven't forced something on our little guy. But maybe, either way, at 7 years old he just figured out that you can do more that you thought possible. In the middle of the race, when he seemed so tired and little, he said,

"I just want to finish."

Set out with a goal in mind and close it out. Uh-oh! He may or may not like running but we have hooked him onto that feeling. That notion of setting out to do something, getting it done and the pride and sense of accomplishment that comes after. It is so basic. It is the same principle that everything from checklists to agile was built on. 

So - let's back up a second. We knew how hard it would be to our little guy to set out to do something and not be able to finish. We knew that he can play basketball and tag and pretty much anything with a ball and friends for hours on end. We took him out twice, once for 1.5 miles and once for closer to 2 so we knew he could do this. Maybe slowly but knew that he could. We are always trying to make sure that our kids are set up for success and that they are taking on manageable chunks at a time. Always trying.

Are We Agile Parenting?
So in software, this is typically called Scrum. It is the process of defining a descrete well defined list of tasks that should be able to be completed in a well defined period of time. Tasks are estimated at the beginning, work is attempted and hopefully, but not always completed during a period of time, typically called a sprint. After the designated period of time, the sprint ends whether or not the work is completed. The team takes the learnings from what they were and weren't able to complete and rolls that into how they look at the current tasks and future tasks. 

This process replaced waterfall development - Start Big Giant project - long period of time - Finish Giant Project with little to no output in between. Agile has been widely adopted in software and pulled into everything from hardware to marketing. After having a taste of agile projects, I find myself so frustrated by the waterfall approach. I can't stand the relationships and structures it creates on a team - the walls and silos rather than the continuous evolution together.

But Parenting? I mean we can't very well go from New Baby - long period of time  - Well Adjusted Adult - so yeah, we're going to need to break it down. It is why reports and feedback and assesments from the time kids are just months old came to be. We needed to know how we were doing at each juncture, where we needed to adjust, change, bring in more resources and where things were going pretty well.


See, it's not crazy!
Okay so he doesn't have to love the things I love, but if my little guy can get the hang of setting a goal and finishing it - a feeling that for me comes time and time again from running, then we have done something important. And in a time where everyone is setting New Year's Resolutions, small goals or changes that they can make, if we can help with the hard wiring so that he can set the goals - I'm going to take that as a big victory.  I'm so proud of my monkey today but not for running 3.1 miles. I'm proud of him for becoming a person who takes on a challenge and finishes it.

Happy New Year and thanks for reading!