Your Country Home & Family

Know When To Step Back

There is a fine line between parents helping children with a livestock project and doing it themselves. As a parent, you are probably doing too much if you ever ask yourself, "Whose project is this anyhow?" If that describes you, maybe you should rethink your approach and do a little less.

Of course, younger children need help, and a lot of it. It's good for a parent to be there for them. But as children grow and develop, they enter new stages in which parental help is less of a necessity and more of a choice made by both parties.

Wes Strange, who teaches agriculture in Gallatin, Mo., has a 13-year-old daughter who has raised show lambs for three years. (That's Wes and daughter Maggie in the photo at right at a 4-H livestock show in Clinton County, Mo.) "Stepping back is a gradual thing for parents," he says. "As Maggie grew, my role got smaller. She was able to do more and more with her lambs. Now I'm just there to pull the trailer and give advice."

To him, that's a good thing. It means Maggie has matured and gained a sense of independence.

Competition is another part of 4-H. And it can be a good part. It's natural for parents to want their kids to do well against their peers. But just go to any Little League game to see examples of how some parents take the competition way too seriously.

A profit motive can compound the problem. In Texas, for instance, auctions of prize-winning 4-H animals can bring thousands of dollars in scholarship money. The incentive to win is so great that sometimes parents overextend their boundaries.

"That's the type of thing we discourage in 4-H," says Jeff Howard, a Texas A&M Extension and 4-H youth development specialist. "That's not what 4-H is all about."

Click here to download How Heavy is Your Horse? instruction sheet and photos."

A Family Affair

4-H builds family ties as it teaches life skills to kids.


By Jim Patrico	E-mail this article	Printer-friendly

Mike and Charlene Loyd have worked with Andrea (center) and Tera on 4-H projects for 12 years. Jim Patrico

Four family members had four alarm clocks set for four different times in the middle of the night. That's how the Loyd family of Defiance, Mo., made sure someone would be awake every two hours to check on 4-H ewes who were about to lamb.

"Oh yeah, it has been a real family affair," laughs Charlene, wife to Mike and mother to daughters Andrea (20) and Tera (16). The girls-and the family-have raised 4-H sheep or beef cattle for a dozen years.

Like millions of families over the last 90-plus years, the Loyds have found 4-H livestock projects to be great learning experiences for their kids. The projects are also a wonderful way to help families work and learn together.

When the Extension Service created 4-H in the early 1900s, part of the idea was that kids' projects would become family projects. In that way, Extension would have an opportunity to teach both children and their parents the latest techniques for raising animals, tending vegetable gardens and sewing clothes. It was an educational model designed with the whole family in mind.

"Responsibility is the No. 1 thing they learn," Charlene says. "When you have a lamb or a calf, you have something that you have to take care of because it can't take care of itself. You grow with that kind of responsibility."

The Loyd girls also learned about budgeting (if you spend all of your money on fancy halters, you don't have money for other necessities); recordkeeping (how much did it cost to feed your ewes last year?); and long-term planning (how do you raise a lamb so that it peaks in time for the county fair?).

"It's all about decision-making and choices," Charlene says. "And that's good for kids."

So is making mistakes. "If you let kids make mistakes when they are young, they can learn from them and it doesn't cost them much," says Ben Gallup, Missouri state 4-H youth specialist. "It enables them to try new things. What 4-H is all about is developing kids."

Gallup counts honesty, fairness and respect for others as qualities that livestock projects can instill.

The best advice to 4-H parents might be posted on the Missouri 4-H web site in the form of a quotation from Benjamin Franklin: "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

This Week's Top Features