10 Qualities of Wisdom Parenting

As we’ve described elsewhere, our focus at Uplift Kids is to promote wisdom parenting — an approach to expansive spirituality and timeless values that pulls from wisdom traditions around the world and rigorous psychological research.

More than anything, wisdom parenting celebrates both-and thinking. It recognizes that no single ideology or belief system has a monopoly on truth, beauty, and goodness. In this way, wisdom parenting can work whether you’re religious or not religious, or whether you favor one parenting theory above another.

Wisdom parenting recognizes that our work as parents depends on our context. One particular parenting approach might work in one instance and not in another. Wisdom parenting sees that what matters is using our hearts and minds to discern what’s most appropriate in a given context.

Here are ten qualities of wisdom parenting:

Presence
Polarities
Authority (inner and outer)
Strengths
Development
Lineage and relationships
Humility
Foresight
Compassion
Joy

Here’s a detailed view of each:

1. Presence

Nothing works without presence, parenting included. To parent wisely, we must be present and attuned to our own subtle needs and expectations and the subtle needs and expectations of our kids.

Can we be fully present when a kid acts out? Can we intuit what’s going on beneath the surface (both in ourselves and in our kids)? Can we learn to be present to the ever-changing context that’s always at the core of parenting, validating our children along the way? Presence is the seed of wisdom, and it grows as we nurture it.

2. Polarities

We all have a basic sense for the values we should embody as parents: Kindness, curiosity, compassion, grit, etc. And yet we also know that any value held too tightly becomes a vice. (Kindness held at the expense of honesty is deceptive, grit held at the expense of forgiveness is cold, and so on.) How can we be kind and honest? Gritty and forgiving? Gentle and firm? Wisdom is when we develop the capacity to lean toward the value that’s called for in a specific moment for a specific kid, knowing that right now one child might need you to be firm and another might need you to be gentle.

Given this, we’ll naturally lean on a range of polarities. With practice, we’ll better see how to find a healthy blend of complementary opposites for your situation and context. This is what it means to be wise.

3. Authority (internal and external)

Each of us has an inner compass that guides us toward wisdom in our unique context. But being told to “follow your inner compass” only goes so far. The line can be unhelpfully vague — unless it’s coupled with sound external guidance from ancient and modern sources.

That’s why everything we do at Uplift Kids is informed by our respective backgrounds in school psychology, therapy, wisdom texts, conscious parenting, polarity practice, and mindfulness. Together we’ll explore how to remain open to our inner compass while coupling that openness with sound advice from wisdom teachers and contemporary experts — all while maintaining a sense of healthy skepticism.

4. Strengths

We each have unique strengths as parents. For some, playing with our kids comes naturally. Others might feel more at home when encouraging kids to push through something difficult. There are ten thousand ways to parent well, all of which deserve celebration.

Wisdom parenting acknowledges the strengths of each person in your family, including yourself. Wisdom is when we work with our natural strengths and the natural strengths of our kids rather than against them.

5. Development

What’s best for a teen isn’t always best for a kid, and vice versa — especially when it comes to difficult topics (emotional, sexual, social development). What’s best for each child and parent shifts depending on their stage of development. (Again, wisdom attends to context!)

Importantly, wisdom parenting also recognizes that we are developing as grownups. We might see that we’re no longer the same person we were when we were parenting our first child as a toddler and that we need to adjust as a result. Our beliefs and perspectives are evolving, and that’s okay.

6. Lineage and relationships

Everyone comes from somewhere. Wisdom parenting explores the healthy and unhealthy patterns we’ve been handed by our parents and grandparents and our culture. It names what we want to keep and what we want to cut from our past to create a better future.

The fact is that our family stories bind us together and give us resilience in hard times. As Elaine Reese, Professor of Psychology, writes, “In the preteen years, children whose families collaboratively discuss everyday events and family history more often have higher self-esteem and stronger self-concepts. And adolescents with a stronger knowledge of family history have more robust identities, better coping skills, and lower rates of depression and anxiety.”

7. Humility

When we keep in mind that we all come from somewhere, we can’t help but stay humble about the ideas and perspectives we grew up with. We know that if we had grown up in a different part of the world, we would have different ideas. Wisdom recognizes that even our most strongly held assumptions can be wrong and that they should therefore be held lightly even if we decide to maintain loyalty to a particular tradition.

8. Foresight

Wisdom chooses that which brings lasting happiness even when it’s difficult — a process that requires foresight. We have to learn to “see ahead” and wisely guess at which actions will lead us to greater future joy without fully compromising our present happiness.

The ancient philosopher Epicurus offered a useful perspective on this front, advising his fellow citizens to not spend their lives seeking external rewards but to instead seek for joy, which he referred to as tranquility, or inner peace. He believed that reaching inner peace depends on your ability to follow two rules: 1) Seek pleasure, except where pleasure leads to greater pain. 2) Avoid pain, except where pain leads to greater pleasure.

For example, we might choose to go on a run even though it’s difficult because we have the foresight to know that we’ll feel happier afterwards. Similarly, we might choose to avoid eating a heaping slice of chocolate cake because we know that the pain of the cake in our gut will feel worse than the pleasure of eating it. This is foresight.

9. Compassion

Because wisdom parenting includes foresight, it is not selfish. Wisdom recognizes that a happy life is a compassionate life. It knows that long-term happiness stems more from what we give to the world than from what we receive.

Wisdom recognizes our shared humanity and therefore shows compassion for the least fortunate. It embraces the golden rule, which surfaces in wisdom traditions around the world.

10. Joy

Wisdom is not stuffy and overserious. Kids are funny! Parenting is weird! Wisdom is about laughing together and enjoying each other’s company. We believe that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that kids and grownups should do things that make them happy — including the difficult things (like practicing an instrument, mastering a sport, or getting good grades) that lead to long-term joy.

Wisdom Parenting Transcends and Includes

Wisdom parenting incorporates other parenting approaches and books, including Good Inside from Dr. Becky, The Whole-Brained Child by Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, Raising Good Humans by Hunter Clarke-Fields and Carla Naumburg, Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne and Lisa M. Ross, and much more.

Wisdom parenting is all about taking good ideas from anywhere they come from. It recognizes that, as the philosopher George Santayana wrote, “Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.” Wisdom sees harmony in opposites. It transcends the worst ideas from the past and includes the best.