We Can’t Heal Our Children

Car seats and cribs. Sleep sacs and safety gates. Monitors and medicine.

We focus so much on keeping our kids safe and helping them grow up healthy. We try to teach good food choices. We fret over when or if they should have screen time. We do doctor visits and medicines and maybe even a surgery or two or ten.

And emotionally, as they grow, we slowly back up and start letting them make their own decisions, small ones then bigger ones, and at some point, inevitably suffering the natural consequences of bad ones.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn in the last few years, is that whether our child has a medical condition or emotional trauma, we can’t heal them. We can (and often do) go to the ends of the earth, but we can’t heal them. We can find the best treatments, we can model healthy behavior, we provide support and care and love, but … we … can’t … heal … them.

I have one son with a rare genetic disorder. He’s on expensive weekly treatments that almost yearly are threatened to be removed by insurance. He’s been in a clinical trial for 10 years and who knows where that is going. Despite all that effort, he is still on a path toward death. But aren’t we all?

I can’t heal him.

I have two sons who suffer the emotional scars of a toxic family life that I recently escaped through divorce. I recently appeared on a podcast, Toxic Person Proof, discussing with host Sarah K. Ramsey how to love your children even when they’re struggling toward healing. We talked about how even the best of love can’t heal our children.

We can’t force healing on anyone, really. That’s actually a part of good boundaries. Respecting others’ rights to choose their behavior, good or bad, and choose whether or not to heal. Consequences and accountability are appropriate especially when those poor choices affect others, for sure, but the only person we can control is ourselves.

Maybe there’s someone in your life who needs healing, either physically or emotionally, or maybe even spiritually. Accepting that we can’t heal them is actually a step toward loving them well.

We may not be able to heal them, but here is what we can do.

We can love them.

We can support them.

We can provide resources and options for them.

We can model boundaries and healthy behavior.

We can pray for them.

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Listen to the podcast episode: Loving Your Kids (Even if They Are Struggling)