I
have to say that one of my favorite conversations to date was with Bob & Maria Goff . Bob is the author of Love Does and Maria recently released her first book called Love Lives Here , and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to talk to them about their lives as fearless parents , risk-takers and nurturing a sense of adventure in your kids .
HEALTHY KIDS · JULY 2017
RAISING ADVENTUROUS KIDS
Bob and Maria were such a joy to talk to and I hope something you hear encourages and inspires you ! Here are just a few excerpts from our conversation .
MM : In your book , you make a statement that I absolutely love , “ Do what makes you the most loving , hopeful version of yourself .” One of the things I ’ ve learned as a pediatrician is that when parents get their lives in order – their kids thrive . Can you expand on that statement ? MG : I think that one of the things that we struggle with , whether we ’ re a single person , a career person , a mother of a lot of kids or none at all , we tend to compare ourselves to each other . It ’ s a human nature condition . I found that I was doing that a lot as a young child because I struggled in school . That was a hard lesson to learn early on and I think what I got out of that is that eventually , we have to discover who we are – and embrace that without trying to judge someone else ’ s gift as more important than ours . For example , in our marriage , Bob and I are very different . I like to think of him as the balloon and I ’ m the string . Each of us is doing different things , but what each of us is doing is equally important . MM : Bob , you and Maria have lived a lot of life together and clearly , you have a strong marriage – and you really worked as a team in raising your kids . How did you support each other while raising your kids ? BG : I think one of the things that stand out in my mind , is that Maria would always talk to us ( myself and the kids ) about who we were becoming , rather than who we were . Some people get “ head-faked ,” thinking they are defined by their biggest failure . And we ’ re not . Other people get “ head-faked ” another way , thinking their successes define them . And the truth is , we ’ re really all just turning into love , some of us more slowly than others .
PARENTS , AFFIRM HOW FAR YOUR KIDS HAVE COME INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON HOW FAR THEY HAVE TO GO .
Maria doesn ’ t talk about how far we have to go – she talks a lot about how far we ’ ve come . And I think that ’ s what I ’ ve observed that makes our family strong . In parenting , just simply acknowledging how far your kids have come are words of life you can speak to them .
MM : Your parenting style seems to be quite bold . And you write about encouraging adventure in kids , and I need you to tell our audience , Maria , about how you helped your children “ run away .” MG : They were probably 4 , 6 and 8 at the time and were playing in our safe , fenced in backyard by themselves . They came running inside and exclaimed that they had this wonderful idea that they wanted to “ run away .” Of course , that pushed every mommy button in me ! I wanted to knock down their dream and tell them they were too young and that it was a bad idea , that you can ’ t think like that . But I had a choice – to either knock it down or to get behind them .
And I decided that I would get behind them . I saw the delight in their eyes and their enthusiasm – that they weren ’ t running away from something , they were running towards an adventure they wanted to take together . And I saw the value in that . I thought This is beautiful . They feel like they can take on the world because they have each other . Their “ running away ” involved tying all their items up into a scarf at the end of a stick , like Huckleberry Finn , climbing on top of our cinder block wall , and just marching around all 3 corners of our property line , making it bad for dinner . And I watched them the entire time through the kitchen window , as they discovered this “ adventure .”
DON ' T BE AFRAID TO ENCOURAGE ADVENTURE IN YOUR KIDS .
When they got home for dinner , the tone in their voice was priceless ! They felt like their world just got bigger . They saw themselves and each other in a different way . And I see them now , today , going on adult-type adventures with each other . So I think we can help plant those seeds in them when they ’ re young , in hopes that when they grow , they still know who are the people around them that have their back .
8 HEALTHY MAGAZINE
MM : It seems to me that both of you parent with the sense of fearlessness , and I see a lot of fear in parents . What are parents so afraid of ? BG : I think one of the things that come naturally to all of us is the fear of failing . You don ’ t want to mess up . But the truth is , failing isn ’ t a bad day , it ’ s just a Tuesday . I think that if there is one thing that we ’ ve spoken to our kids about a lot is “ fail trying .” We ’ ve all experienced pain and loss , but I want to fail trying – I don ’ t want to fail watching . Failing every once in a while , or even every day , doesn ’ t define who we are . MG : As a mom , the fact that I did hit rock bottom in the course of my life and did bounce back up means that I place a high value on hitting rock bottom . Sometimes I would pray that when my kids had rough spells , that God would get them there quickly … get them to that bottom place fast so we can work on the bouncing back up and all the lessons learned from it .
WE DON ’ T ALWAYS GROW WHERE WE ’ RE INSTRUCTED . WE GROW WHERE WE ’ RE LOVED AND ACCEPTED .
BG : We don ’ t always grow where we ’ re instructed . We grow where we ’ re loved . We grow where we ’ re accepted . What I ’ ve seen Maria do in our family , in particular , is to create a place where there is love , acceptance – it isn ’ t algebra class – we ’ re not trying to teach everybody new things – we ’ re trying to love them so they would grow in the ways that they ’ re meant to grow . And there ’ s something beautiful if you know you ’ re never flying without a net . There ’ s something beautiful for risk takers , when you just say “ let ’ s go do this thing .” Our kids knew that even if they failed , they were loved unconditionally .
By Meg Meeker , MD